The Peoples of Middle-earth (52 page)

Some of the writing was decidedly experimental: a notable example is the text that I have called The Problem of Ros, on which my father wrote 'Most of this fails', on account of a statement which had appeared in print, but which he had overlooked (see p. 371). As in that case, almost all of this work was etymological in its inspiration, which to a large extent accounts for its extremely discursive nature; for in no study does one thing lead to another more rapidly than in etymology, which also of its nature leads out of itself in the attempt to find explanations beyond the purely linguistic evolution of forms. In the essay on the river-names of Gondor that of the Gwathlo led to an account of the vast destruction of the great forests of Minhiriath and Enedwaith by the Numenorean naval builders in the Second Age, and its consequences (Unfinished Tales pp. 261-3); from the name Gilrain in the same essay arose the recounting of the legend of Amroth and Nimrodel (ibid. pp. 240 - 3).

In the three texts given here will be found many things that are wholly 'new', such as the long sojourn of the People of Beor and the People of Hador on opposite sides of the great inland Sea of Rhun in the course of their long migration into the West, or the sombre legend of the twin sons of Feanor. There will also be found many things that run counter to what had been said in earlier writings. I have not attempted in my notes to make an analysis of every real or apparent departure of this kind, or to adduce a mass of reference from earlier phases of the History; but I have drawn attention to the clearest and most striking of the discrepancies. At this time my father continued and intensified his practice of interposing notes into the body of the text as they arose, and they are abundant and often substantial. In the texts that follow they are numbered in the same series as the editorial notes and are collected at the end of each, the editorial notes being distinguished by placing them in square brackets.

X.

OF DWARVES AND MEN.

This long essay has no title, but on a covering page my father wrote: An extensive commentary and history of the interrelation of the languages in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, arising from consideration of the Book of Mazarbul, but attempting to clarify and where necessary to correct or explain the references to such matters scattered in The Lord of the Rings, especially in Appendix F and in Faramir's talk in LR II.

'Faramir's talk' is a reference to the conclusion of the chapter The Window on the West in The Two Towers. To a rough synopsis of the essay he gave the title Dwarves and Men, which I have adopted.

The text was begun in manuscript, but after three and a half pages becomes typescript for the remainder of its length (28 pages in all). It was written on printed papers supplied by Allen and Unwin, of which the latest date is September 1969. A portion of the work was printed in Unfinished Tales, Part Four, Section 1, The Druedain, but otherwise little use of it was made in that book. Unhappily the first page of the text is lost (and was already missing when I received my father's papers), and takes up in the middle of a sentence in a passage discussing knowledge of the Common Speech.

In relation to the first part of the essay, which is concerned with the Longbeard Dwarves, I have thought that it would be useful to print first what is said concerning the language of the Dwarves in the two chief antecedent sources. The following is found in the chapter on the Dwarves in the Quenta Silmarillion as revised and enlarged in 1951

(XI.205, $6):

The father-tongue of the Dwarves Aule himself devised for them, and their languages have thus no kinship with those of the Quendi.

The Dwarves do not gladly teach their tongue to those of alien race; and in use they have made it harsh and intricate, so that of those few whom they have received in full friendship fewer still have learned it well But they themselves learn swiftly other tongues, and in converse they use as they may the speech of Elves and Men with whom they deal. Yet in secret they use their own speech only, and that (it is said) is slow to change; so that even their realms and houses that have been long and far sundered may to this day well understand one another. In ancient days the Naugrim dwelt in many mountains of Middle-earth, and there they met mortal Men (they say) long ere the Eldar knew them; whence it comes that of the tongues of the Easterlings many show kinship with Dwarf-speech rather than with the speeches of the Elves.

The second passage is from Appendix F, Dwarves (with which cf. the original version, p. 35, 515).

But in the Third Age close friendship still was found in many places between Men and Dwarves; and it was according to the nature of the Dwarves that, travelling and labouring and trading about the lands, as they did after the destruction of their ancient mansions, they should use the languages of men among whom they dwelt. Yet in secret (a secret which, unlike the Elves, they did not willingly unlock, even to their friends) they used their own strange tongue, changed little by the years; for it had become a tongue of lore rather than a cradle-speech, and they tended it and guarded it as a treasure of the past. Few of other race have succeeded in learning it. In this history it appears only in such place-names as Gimli revealed to his companions; and in the battle-cry which he uttered in the siege of the Hornburg. That at least was not secret, and had been heard on many a field since the world was young. Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu! 'Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!'

Gimli's own name, however, and the names of all his kin, are of Northern (Mannish) origin. Their own secret and 'inner' names, their true names, the Dwarves have never revealed to any one of alien race. Not even on their tombs do they inscribe them.

Here follows the text of the essay which I have called Of Dwarves and Men.

... only in talking to others of different race and tongue, the divergence could be great, and intercommunication imperfect.(1) But this was not always the case: it depended on the history of the peoples concerned and their relations to the Numenorean kingdoms. For instance, among the Rohirrim there can have been very few who did not understand the Common Speech, and most must have been able to speak it fairly well. The royal house, and no doubt many other families, spoke (and wrote) it correctly and familiarly. It was in fact King Theoden's native language: he was born in Gondor, and his father Thengel had used the Common Speech in his own home even after his return to Rohan.(2) The Eldar used it with the care and skill that they applied to all linguistic matters, and being longeval and retentive in memory they tended indeed, especially when speaking formally or on important matters, to use a somewhat archaic language.(3)

The Dwarves were in many ways a special case. They had an ancient language of their own which they prized highly; and even when, as among the Longbeard Dwarves of the West, it had ceased to be their native tongue and had become a 'book-language', it was carefully preserved and taught to all their children at an early age. It thus served as a lingua franca between all Dwarves of all kinds; but it was also a written language used in all important histories and lore, and in recording any matters not intended to be read by other people. This Khuzdul (as they called it), partly because of their native secretiveness, and partly because of its inherent difficulty,(4) was seldom learned by those of other race.

The Dwarves were not, however, skilled linguists - in most matters they were unadaptable - and spoke with a marked

'dwarvish' accent. Also they had never invented any form of alphabetic writing.(5) They quickly, however, recognized the usefulness of the Elvish systems, when they at last became sufficiently friendly with any of the Eldar to learn them. This occurred mainly in the close association of Eregion and Moria in the Second Age. Now in Eregion not only the Feanorian Script, which had long become a mode of writing generally used (with various adaptations) among all 'lettered' peoples in contact with the Numenorean settlements,(6) but also the ancient

'runic' alphabet of Daeron elaborated [> used] by the Sindar was known and used. This was, no doubt, due to the influence of Celebrimbor, a Sinda who claimed descent from Daeron.(7) Nonetheless even in Eregion the Runes were mainly a 'matter of lore' and were seldom used for informal matters. They, however, caught the fancy of the Dwarves; for while the Dwarves still lived in populous mansions of their own, such as Moria in particular, and went on journeys only to visit their own kin, they had little intercourse with other peoples except immediate neighbours, and needed writing very little; though they were fond of inscriptions, of all kinds, cut in stone. For such purposes the Runes were convenient, being originally devised for them.

The Longbeard Dwarves therefore adopted the Runes, and modified them for their own uses (especially the expression of Khuzdul); and they adhered to them even far into the Third Age, when they were forgotten by others except the loremasters of Elves and Men. Indeed it was generally supposed by the unlearned that they had been invented by the Dwarves, and they were widely known as 'dwarf-letters'.(8)

Here we are concerned only with the Common Speech. Now the Common Speech, when written at all, had from its beginning been expressed in the Feanorian Script.(9) Only occasionally and in inscriptions not written with pen or brush did some of the Elves of Sindarin descent use the Runes of Daeron, and their spelling was then dependent on the already established usages of the Feanorian Script. The Dwarves had originally learned the Common Speech by ear as best they could, and had no occasion to write it; but in the Third Age they had been obliged in the course of trade and other dealings with Men and Elves to learn to read the Common Speech as written, and many had found it convenient to learn to write it according to the then general customs of the West. But this they only did in dealings with other peoples. For their own purposes they (as has been said) preferred the Runes and adhered to them.

Therefore in such documents as the Book of Mazarbul - not

'secret' but intended primarily for Dwarves, and probably intended later to provide material for chronicles (10) - they used the Runes. But the spelling was mixed and irregular. In general and by intention it was a transcription of the current spelling of the Common Speech into Runic terms; but this was often

'incorrect', owing to haste and the imperfect knowledge of the Dwarves; and it was also mingled with numerous cases of words spelt phonetically (according to the pronunciation of the Dwarves) - for instance, letters that had in the colloquial pronunciation of the late Third Age ceased to have any function were sometimes omitted.(11)

In preparing an example of the Book of Mazarbul, and making three torn and partly illegible pages,(12) I followed the general principle followed throughout: the Common Speech was to be represented as English of today, literary or colloquial as the case demanded. Consequently the text was cast into English spelt as at present, but modified as it might be by writers in haste whose familiarity with the written form was imperfect, and who were also (on the first and third pages) transliterating the English into a different alphabet - one that did not for instance employ any letter in more than one distinct value, so that the distribution of English k, c - c, s was reduced to k - s; while the use of the letters for s and z was variable since English uses s frequently as = z. In addition, since documents of this kind nearly always show uses of letters or shapes that are peculiar and rarely or never found elsewhere, a few such features are also introduced: as the signs for the English vowel pairs ea, oa, ou (irrespective of their sounds).

This is all very well, and perhaps gives some idea of the kind of text Gandalf was trying to read in great haste in the Chamber of Mazarbul. It also accords with the general treatment of the languages in The Lord of the Rings: only the actual words and names of the period that are in Elvish languages are preserved in what is supposed to have been their real form.(13) Also, this treatment was imposed by the fact that, though the actual Common Speech was sketched in structure and phonetic elements, and a number of words invented, it was quite impossible to translate even such short extracts into its real contemporary form, if they were visibly represented. But it is of course in fact an erroneous extension of the general linguistic treatment. It is one thing to represent all the dialogue of the story in varying forms of English: this must be supposed to be done by

'translation' - from memory of unrecorded sounds, or from documents lost or not printed, whether this is stated or not, whenever it is done in any narrative dealing with past times or foreign lands. But it is quite another thing to provide visible facsimiles or representations of writings or carvings supposed to be of the date of the events in the narrative.(14)

The true parallel in such a case is the glimpse of Quenya given in Galadriel's Farewell - either in a transcription into our alphabet (to make the style of the language more easily appreciated) or in the contemporary script (as in The Road Goes Ever On) -