Salo's interest in Tolkien's languages arose when he read Tolkien's works as a boy. As an undergraduate at Macalester College, Minnesota he studied Latin, Greek, and linguistics, and used the knowledge gained to improve his understanding of Tolkien's languages.[4] In 1998 he was among the founders of the Elfling mailing list for Tolkienist language enthusiasts.[5] He graduated in linguistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2004 he published a linguistic analysis of Sindarin: A Gateway to Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish language from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This book was reviewed in 2006 in volume 3 of the journal Tolkien Studies,[6] and it was further reviewed in the context of Tolkienian linguistics as a whole in volume 4 of Tolkien Studies (2007).[7]