Arden Ray Smith is a member of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship and holds a Ph.D. in Germanic Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published numerous articles relating to the languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien. He was a columnist and editor of Vinyar Tengwar, for which he wrote the popular column "Transitions in Translations", in which odd elements in translations of J. R. R. Tolkien's work were described and commented upon.