The Peoples of Middle-earth (8 page)

$7. Now the Men who first came westward out of the heart of Middle-earth to lands near the shores of the Sea were called by the Elves Atani,(3) [added: or in Noldorin the Edain,] the Fathers of Men, and there was great friendship between the two races. For when the Fathers of Men came over the mountains they met for the first time the Eldar, or High-elves; and the Eldar were at that time engaged in a ceaseless war with the Dark Lord of that Age, one greater far than Sauron, who was but one of his minions. In that war three houses of the Fathers of Men aided the Elves, especially the Noldor, and lived among them and fought beside them; and the people [> lords] of these houses learned the Noldorin speech [struck out:] and forsook their own tongue.(4)

$8. When at last that war was ended, most of the exiled Noldor returned over the Sea to Valinor or to the land of Eressea that lies / within sight of it [> near]. Then the people of the Three Houses of Men were permitted as a reward to pass also over the Sea, if they would, and to dwell in an isle set apart for them. The name of that great isle was Numenor, which in Quenya signifies Westernesse. Most of the Fathers of Men departed and dwelt in Numenor and there became great and powerful; and they were fair of face and tall, and masters of craft and lore only less than the Eldar, and the span of their lives was thrice that of men in Middle-earth, though they remained mortal nonetheless, and were not permitted to set foot upon the shores of the deathless land of Valinor. They were called Kings of Men, the Numenoreans, or in Noldorin the Dunedein

[> Dunedain].(5)

$9. The language of the Dunedain was thus the Elvish Noldorin, though their high lords and men of wisdom knew also the Quenya, [> Thus in Numenor two languages were used: the Numenorean (or Adunaic), and the Elvish Noldorin, which all the lords of that people knew and spoke, for they had many dealings with the Elves in the days ere their fall. But their men of wisdom learned also the Quenya, and could read the books of Elven lore;] and in that high tongue they gave names to many places of fame or reverence, and to men of royalty and great renown.* After the Downfall of Numenor (which was contrived by Sauron) Elendil and the fugitives from the West fled eastwards. But in the west-lands of Middle-earth, where they established their exiled realms, they found a common tongue in use along the coast-lands from the Mouths of Anduin to the icy Bay of Forochel in the North. This tongue was in Noldorin called Falathren or 'Shore-language', but by its users was called Yandune [> Andunar > Adunar] (that is Westron) or Soval Phare (that is Common Speech).(6)

$10. This Common Speech was [struck out:] in the beginning / a Mannish language, and was indeed only a later form of the native tongue of the Fathers of Men themselves before those of the Three Houses passed over the Sea. It was thus closely akin to other languages of Men that [> Other languages of Men, derived also from the tongues of the Edain or closely akin to them] were still spoken further inland, especially in the northern regions of the west-lands or about the upper waters of the Anduin. Its spread [> The spread of the Westron] had been at first due largely to the Dunedain themselves; for in the Dark Years they had often visited again the shores of Middle-earth, and in the days of their great voyages before the Downfall they had made many fortresses and havens for the help of their ships.

One of the greatest of these had been at Pelargir above the Mouths of Anduin, and it is said that it was the language of that region (which was afterwards called Gondor) that was the foundation of the Common Speech. But Sauron, who could turn all things devised by Elves or Men to his own evil purposes, had also favoured the spread of this Common Speech, for it was useful to him in the governing of his vast lordship in the Dark Years.

$11. Beside the Common or Westron Speech, and other kindred tongues of Men, there remained also in the days of Elendil the languages of the Eldar. Strange though it may seem, (* Of Quenya form, for instance, are the names Elendil, Anarion, Isildur, and all the royal names of Gondor, including Elessar; also the names of the kings of the Northern Line as far as the tenth, Earendil.

[Added: The names of other lords of the Dunedain such as Arathorn, Aragorn, Boromir, Denethor are for the most part Noldorin; but Imrahil and Adrahil are Numenorean (Adunaic) names.]) seeing that the Dunedain had dwelt for long years apart in Numenor, the people of Elendil could still readily converse with the Eldar that spoke Noldorin. The reasons for this are various.

First, the Numenoreans had never become wholly sundered from the Noldor; for while those who had returned into the West often came to Numenor in friendship, the Numenoreans, as has been said, often visited Middle-earth and had at times aided the Elves that remained there in their strife with Sauron.(7) Again, the change and decay of things, though not wholly removed, was yet much delayed in the land of the Dunedain in the days of its blessedness; and the like may be said of the Eldar.(8)

[This paragraph was rewritten thus: Beside the Common or Westron Speech, and other kindred tongues of Men, there remained also in the days of Elendil the languages of the Eldar; for many still dwelt in Eriador. With those that spoke Noldorin the people of Elendil could still readily converse. For friendship had long endured between the Numenoreans and the Noldor, and the folk of Eressea had often visited Numenor, while the Numenoreans had sailed often to Middle-earth and had at times aided the Elves in their strife with Sauron.]

$12. Moreover, those were the days of the Three Rings.

Now, as is elsewhere told, these rings were hidden, and the Eldar did not use them for the making of any new thing while Sauron still reigned and wore the Ruling Ring; yet their chief virtue was ever secretly at work, and that virtue was to defend the Eldar who abode in Middle-earth [added: and all things pertaining to them] from change and withering and weariness. So it was that in all the long time from the forging of the Rings to their ending, when the Third Age was over, the Eldar even upon Middle-earth changed no more in a thousand years than do Men in ten; and their language likewise.

$13. Now the people of Elendil were not many, for only a few great ships had escaped the Downfall or survived the tumult of the Seas. They found, it is true, many dwellers upon the west-shores who came of their own blood, wholly or in part, being descended from mariners and from wardens of forts and havens that had been set there in days gone by; yet all told the Dunedain were now only a small folk in the midst of strangers.

They used, therefore, the Westron speech in all their dealings with other men, and in the governing of the realms of which they had become the rulers; and this Common Speech became now enlarged, and much enriched with words drawn from the language of the Dunedain, which was, as has been said, a form of the Elvish Noldorin [> and much enriched with words drawn from the Adunaic language of the Dunedain, and from the Noldorin]. But among themselves the kings and high lords, and indeed all those of Numenorean blood in any degree, for long used the Noldorin speech; and in that tongue they gave names to men and to places throughout the realms of the heirs of Elendil.

$14. In this way it had come about that at the time when the events recorded in this book began it might be said that nearly all speaking-folk of any race west of the east-eaves of Mirkwood spoke after some fashion this Common Speech; while Men who dwelt in Eriador, the wide land between the Misty Mountains and Ered Lindon, or in the coast-lands south of the White Mountains, used the Westron only and had long forgotten their own tongues. So it was with the folk of Gondor (other than the lords) and of the Anfalas and beyond; and with the Bree-folk I and the Dunlendings [> in the North]. East of the Misty Mountains, even far to the north, the Common Speech was known; though there, as in Esgaroth [> as beside the Long Lake] or in Dale, or among the Beornings and the Woodmen of the west-eaves of Mirkwood, Men also retained their own tongues in daily use. The Eorlings, or the Rohirrim as they were called in Gondor, still used their own northern tongue, yet all but their humbler folk spoke also the Common Speech after the manner of Gondor; for the Riders of Rohan had come out of Eotheod near the sources of Anduin only some five hundred years before the days here spoken of.

[The conclusion of this paragraph was rewritten thus: The Eorlings, or the Rohirrim as they were called in Gondor, still used their own northern tongue; for the Riders of Rohan had come out of Eotheod near the sources of Anduin only some five hundred years before the days here spoken of. Yet all but their humbler folk spoke also the Common Speech after the manner of Gondor. In the Dunland also the Dunlendings, a dwindling people, remnant of those who had dwelt in western Rohan before the coming of the Rohirrim, still clung to their own speech. This was wholly unlike the Westron, and was descended, as it seems, from some other Mannish tongue, not akin to that of the Atani, Fathers of Men. A similar and kindred language was probably once spoken in Bree: see (the footnote to $25).]

$15. More remarkable it may be thought that the Common Speech had also been learned by other races, Dwarves, Orcs, and even Trolls. The case of the Dwarves can, however, be easily understood. At this time they had no longer in the west-lands any great cities or delvings where many lived together. For the most part they were scattered, living in small groups among other folk, often wandering, seldom staying long in any place, until, as is told in the beginning of the Red Book, their old halls under the Lonely Mountain were regained and the Dragon was slain. They had therefore of necessity long used the Common Speech in their dealings with other folk, even with Elves.' Not that Dwarves were ever eager to teach their own tongue to others. They were a secretive people, and they kept their own speech to themselves, using it only when no strangers were near.

Indeed they even gave themselves 'outer' names, either in the Westron or in the languages of Men among whom they dwelt, but had also 'inner' and secret names in their own tongue which they did not reveal. So it was that the northern Dwarves, the people of Thorin and Dain, had names drawn from the northern language of the Men of Dale, and their secret names are not known to us. For that reason little is known of Dwarf-speech at this period, save for a few names of mines and meres and mountains.

$16 The Orcs had a language of their own, devised for them by the Dark Lord of old, but it was so full of harsh and hideous sounds and vile words that other mouths found it difficult to compass, and few indeed were willing to make the attempt. And these creatures, being filled with all malice and hatred, so that they did not love even their own kind, had soon diversified their barbarous and unwritten speech into as many jargons as there were groups or settlements of Orcs. Thus they were driven to use the language of their enemies even in conversing with other Orcs of different breed or distant dwellings. In the Misty Mountains, and in other lingering Orc-holds in the far North-west, they had indeed abandoned their native tongue and used the Common Speech, though in such a fashion as to make it scarcely less unlovely than the Orkish.

$17. Trolls, in their beginning creatures of lumpish and brutal nature, had nothing that could be called true language (* For there was an ancient enmity between Dwarf and Elf and neither would learn the other's tongue.)

of their own; but the evil Power had at various times made use of them, teaching them what little they could learn, and even crossing their breed with that of the larger Orcs. Trolls thus took such language as they could from the Orcs, and in the west-lands the Trolls of the hills and mountains spoke a debased form of the Common Westron speech.

$18. Elves, it may be thought, had no need of other languages than their own. They did not, indeed, like the Dwarves hide their own language, and they were willing to teach the Elven-tongues to any who desired or were able to learn them. But these were few, apart from the lords of Numenorean descent. The Elves, therefore, who remained in the west-lands used the Common Speech in their dealings with Men or other speaking-folk; but they used it in an older and more gracious form, that of the lords of the Dunedain rather than that of the Shire. Among themselves they spoke and sang in Elven-tongues, and throughout Eriador from Lindon to Imladrist [> Imladris] they used the Noldorin speech; for in those lands, especially in Rivendell and at the Grey Havens, but also elsewhere in other secret places, there were still many of the exiled Noldor abiding or wandering in the wild. Beyond the Misty Mountains there were still Eldar who used the Lemberin