Salo grew fascinated by constructed languages after reading Tolkien's books in his childhood. David studied Latin, Greek, and linguistics at University Of Utah Press, allowing him to revisit the work of J.R.R. Tolkien at a much deeper level. In 1998, he was one of the co-founders of the "Elfling" mailing list for Tolkien language enthusiasts. In the early 2000s, still a graduate student at the [url=https://discogs.com/label/513968]University of Wisconsin–Madison[/url], David Salo was contracted by University Of Utah Press to work on the upcoming "Lord of the Rings" film project. David wrote all the material in Elvish languages, particularly "Sindarin," the dwarvish "Khuzdul," and other Tolkien's dialects, and assisted with "Tengwar" and "Cirth" inscriptions. Salo primarily developed the languages based on Tolkien's original works, but notably deviated and expanded for dialects with only a limited published vocabulary. He also translated Sindarin lyrics for Howard Shore's film scores. In the 2010s, David Salo returned to consult on The Hobbit trilogy. He also assisted with the "Khuzdul" language in the 2023 video game The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria.