The Lord of the Rings Omnibus (1-3) (166 page)

In several cases I have modernized the forms and spellings of place-names in Rohan: as in
Dunharrow
or
Snowbourn;
but I have not been consistent, for I have followed the Hobbits. They altered the names that they heard in the same way, if they were made of elements that they recognized, or if they resembled place-names in the Shire; but many they left alone, as I have done, for instance, in
Edoras ‘
the courts’. For the same reasons a few personal names have also been modernized, as Shadowfax and Wormtongue.
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This assimilation also provided a convenient way of representing the peculiar local hobbit-words that were of northern origin. They have been given the forms that lost English words might well have had, if they had come down to our day. Thus
mathom
is meant to recall ancient English
máthm,
and so to represent the relationship of the actual Hobbit
kast
to R.
kastu.
Similarly
smial
(or
smile)
‘burrow’ is a likely form for a descendant
of smygel,
and represents well the relationship of Hobbit
trân
to R.
trahan. Sméagol
and
Déagol
are equivalents made up in the same way for the names
Trahald
‘burrowing, worming in’, and
Nahald
‘secret’ in the Northern tongues.

The still more northerly language of Dale is in this book seen only in the names of the Dwarves that came from that region and so used the language of the Men there, taking their ‘outer’ names in that tongue. It may be observed that in this book as in
The Hobbit
the form
dwarves
is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of
dwarf
is
dwarfs.
It should be
dwarrows
(or
dwerrows),
if singular and plural had each gone its own way down the years, as have
man
and
men,
or
goose
and
geese.
But we no longer speak of a dwarf as often as we do of a man, or even of a goose, and memories have not been fresh enough among Men to keep hold of a special plural for a race now abandoned to folk-tales, where at least a shadow of truth is preserved, or at last to nonsense-stories in which they have become mere figures of fun. But in the Third Age something of their old character and power is still glimpsed, if already a little dimmed; these are the descendants of the Naugrim of the Elder Days, in whose hearts still burns the ancient fire of Aulë the Smith, and the embers smoulder of their long grudge against the Elves; and in whose hands still lives the skill in work of stone that none have surpassed.

It is to mark this that I have ventured to use the form
dwarves,
and remove them a little, perhaps, from the sillier tales of these latter days.
Dwarrows
would have been better; but I have used that form only in the name
Dwarrowdelf,
to represent the name of Moria in the Common Speech:
Phurunargian.
For that meant ‘Dwarf-delving’ and yet was already a word of antique form. But Moria is an Elvish name, and given without love; for the Eldar, though they might at need, in their bitter wars with the Dark Power and his servants, contrive fortresses underground, were not dwellers in such places of choice. They were lovers of the green earth and the lights of heaven; and Moria in their tongue means the Black Chasm. But the Dwarves themselves, and this name at least was never kept secret, called it
Khazad-dûm,
the Mansion of the Khazâd; for such is their own name for their own race, and has been so, since Aulë gave it to them at their making in the deeps of time.

Elves
has been used to translate both
Quendi,
‘the speakers’, the High-elven name of all their kind, and
Eldar,
the name of the Three Kindreds that sought for the Undying Realm and came there at the beginning of Days (save the
Sindar
only). This old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved, or to the makings of Men’s minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon - not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin;
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and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. They were valiant, but the history of those that returned to Middle-earth in exile was grievous; and though it was in far-off days crossed by the fate of the Fathers, their fate is not that of Men. Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return.

Note on three names:
Hobbit, Gamgee,
and
Brandywine.

Hobbit
is an invention. In the Westron the word used, when this people was referred to at all, was
banakil
‘halfling’. But at this date the folk of the Shire and of Bree used the word
kuduk,
which was not found elsewhere. Meriadoc, however, actually records that the King of Rohan used the word
kûd-dûkan
‘hole-dweller’. Since, as has been noted, the Hobbits had once spoken a language closely related to that of the Rohirrim, it seems likely that
kuduk
was a worn-down form of
kûd-dûkan.
The latter I have translated, for reasons explained, by
holbytla;
and
hobbit
provides a word that might well be a worn-down form of
holbytla,
if that name had occurred in our own ancient language.

Gamgee.
According to family tradition, set out in the Red Book, the surname
Galbasi,
or in reduced form
Galpsi,
came from the village of
Galabas,
popularly supposed to be derived from
galab-
‘game’ and an old element
bas-,
more or less equivalent to our
wick, wich. Gamwich
(pronounced
Gammidge)
seemed therefore a very fair rendering. However, in reducing
Gammidgy
to
Gamgee,
to represent
Galpsi,
no reference was intended to the connexion of Samwise with the family of Cotton, though a jest of that kind would have been hobbit-like enough, had there been any warrant in their language.

Cotton, in fact, represents
Hlothran,
a fairly common village-name in the Shire, derived from
hloth,
‘a two-roomed dwelling or hole’, and
ran(u)
a small group of such dwellings on a hill-side. As a surname it may be an alteration of
hlothram(a)
‘cottager’.
Hlothram,
which I have rendered Cotman, was the name of Farmer Cotton’s grandfather.

Brandywine.
The hobbit-names of this river were alterations of the Elvish
Baranduin
(accented on
and),
derived from
baran
‘golden brown’ and
duin
‘(large) river’. Of
Baranduin
Brandywine seemed a natural corruption in modern times. Actually the older hobbit-name was
Branda-nîn
‘border-water’, which would have been more closely rendered by Marchbourn; but by a jest that had become habitual, referring again to its colour, at this time the river was usually called
Bralda-hîm
‘heady ale’.

It must be observed, however, that when the Oldbucks
(Zaragamba)
changed their name to Brandybuck
(Brandagamba),
the first element meant ‘borderland’, and Marchbuck would have been nearer. Only a very bold hobbit would have ventured to call the Master of Buckland
Braldagamba
in his hearing.

APPENDIX F

I
THE LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES OF THE THIRD AGE

The language represented in this history by English was the
Westron
or ‘Common Speech’ of the West-lands of Middle-earth in the Third Age. In the course of that age it had become the native language of nearly all the speaking-peoples (save the Elves) who dwelt within the bounds of the old kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor; that is along all the coasts from Umbar northward to the Bay of Forochel, and inland as far as the Misty Mountains and the Ephel Dúath. It had also spread north up the Anduin, occupying the lands west of the River and east of the mountains as far as the Gladden Fields.

At the time of the War of the Ring at the end of the age these were still its bounds as a native tongue, though large parts of Eriador were now deserted, and few Men dwelt on the shores of the Anduin between the Gladden and Rauros.

A few of the ancient Wild Men still lurked in the Drúadan Forest in Anórien; and in the hills of Dunland a remnant lingered of an old people, the former inhabitants of much of Gondor. These clung to their own languages; while in the plains of Rohan there dwelt now a Northern people, the Rohirrim, who had come into that land some five hundred years earlier. But the Westron was used as a second language of intercourse by all those who still retained a speech of their own, even by the Elves, not only in Arnor and Gondor but throughout the vales of Anduin, and eastward to the further eaves of Mirkwood. Even among the Wild Men and the Dunlendings who shunned other folk there were some that could speak it, though brokenly.

OF THE ELVES

The Elves far back in the Elder Days became divided into two main branches: the West-elves (the
Eldar
) and the East-elves. Of the latter kind were most of the Elven-folk of Mirkwood and Lórien; but their languages do not appear in this history, in which all the Elvish names and words are of
Eldarin
form.
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Of the
Eldarin
tongues two are found in this book: the High-elven or
Quenya,
and the Grey-elven or
Sindarin.
The High-elven was an ancient tongue of Eldamar beyond the Sea, the first to be recorded in writing. It was no longer a birth-tongue, but had become, as it were, an ‘Elvenlatin’, still used for ceremony, and for high matters of lore and song, by the High Elves, who had returned in exile to Middle-earth at the end of the First Age.

The Grey-elven was in origin akin to
Quenya;
for it was the language of those Eldar who, coming to the shores of Middle-earth, had not passed over the Sea but had lingered on the coasts in the country of Beleriand. There Thingol Greycloak of Doriath was their king, and in the long twilight their tongue had changed with the changefulness of mortal lands and had become far estranged from the speech of the Eldar from beyond the Sea.

The Exiles, dwelling among the more numerous Grey-elves, had adopted the
Sindarin
for daily use; and hence it was the tongue of all those Elves and Elf-lords that appear in this history. For these were all of Eldarin race, even where the folk that they ruled were of the lesser kindreds. Noblest of all was the Lady Galadriel of the royal house of Finarfin and sister of Finrod Felagund, King of Nargothrond. In the hearts of the Exiles the yearning for the Sea was an unquiet never to be stilled; in the hearts of the Grey-elves it slumbered, but once awakened it could not be appeased.

OF MEN

The
Westron
was a Mannish speech, though enriched and softened under Elvish influence. It was in origin the language of those whom the Eldar called the
Atani
or
Edain,
‘Fathers of Men’, being especially the people of the Three Houses of the Elf-friends who came west into Beleriand in the First Age, and aided the Eldar in the War of the Great Jewels against the Dark Power of the North.

After the overthrow of the Dark Power, in which Beleriand was for the most part drowned or broken, it was granted as a reward to the Elf-friends that they also, as the Eldar, might pass west over Sea. But since the Undying Realm was forbidden to them, a great isle was set apart for them, most westerly of all mortal lands. The name of that isle was
Númenor
(Westernesse). Most of the Elf-friends, therefore, departed and dwelt in Númenor, and there they became great and powerful, mariners of renown and lords of many ships. They were fair of face and tall, and the span of their lives was thrice that of the Men of Middle-earth. These were the Númenúreans, the Kings of Men, whom the Elves called the
Dúnedain.

The
Dúnedain
alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an Elvish tongue; for their forefathers had learned the Sindarin tongue, and this they handed on to their children as a matter of lore, changing little with the passing of the years. And their men of wisdom learned also the High-elven Quenya and esteemed it above all other tongues, and in it they made names for many places of fame and reverence, and for many men of royalty and great renown.
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But the native speech of the Númenóreans remained for the most part their ancestral Mannish tongue, the Adûnaic, and to this in the latter days of their pride their kings and lords returned, abandoning the Elven-speech, save only those few that held still to their ancient friendship with the Eldar. In the years of their power the Númenóreans had maintained many forts and havens upon the western coasts of Middle-earth for the help of their ships; and one of the chief of these was at Pelargir near the Mouths of Anduin. There Adûnaic was spoken, and mingled with many words of the languages of lesser men it became a Common Speech that spread thence along the coasts among all that had dealings with Westernesse.

After the Downfall of Númenor, Elendil led the survivors of the Elf-friends back to the North-western shores of Middle-earth. There many already dwelt who were in whole or part of Númenórean blood; but few of them remembered the Elvish speech. All told the Dúnedain were thus from the beginning far fewer in number than the lesser men among whom they dwelt and whom they ruled, being lords of long life and great power and wisdom. They used therefore the Common Speech in their dealing with other folk and in the government of their wide realms; but they enlarged the language and enriched it with many words drawn from elven-tongues.

In the days of the Númenórean kings this ennobled Westron speech spread far and wide, even among their enemies; and it became used more and more by the Dúnedain themselves, so that at the time of the War of the Ring the elven-tongue was known to only a small part of the peoples of Gondor, and spoken daily by fewer. These dwelt mostly in Minas Tirith and the townlands adjacent, and in the land of the tributary princes of Dol Amroth. Yet the names of nearly all places and persons in the realm of Gondor were of Elvish form and meaning. A few were of forgotten origin, and descended doubtless from the days before the ships of the Númenóreans sailed the Sea; among these were
Umbar
,
Arnach
and
Erech
; and the mountain-names
Eilenach
and
Rimmon
.
Forlong
was also a name of the same sort.

Most of the Men of the northern regions of the West-lands were descended from the
Edain
of the First Age, or from their close kin. Their languages were, therefore, related to the Adûnaic, and some still preserved a likeness to the Common Speech. Of this kind were the peoples of the upper vales of Anduin: the Beornings, and the Woodmen of Western Mirkwood; and further north and east the Men of the Long Lake and of Dale. From the lands between the Gladden and the Carrock came the folk that were known in Gondor as the Rohirrim, Masters of Horses. They still spoke their ancestral tongue, and gave new names in it to nearly all the places in their new country; and they called themselves the Eorlings, or the Men of the Riddermark. But the lords of that people used the Common Speech freely, and spoke it nobly after the manner of their allies in Gondor; for in Gondor whence it came the Westron kept still a more gracious and antique style.

Wholly alien was the speech of the Wild Men of Drúadan Forest. Alien, too, or only remotely akin, was the language of the Dunlendings. These were a remnant of the peoples that had dwelt in the vales of the White Mountains in ages past. The Dead Men of Dunharrow were of their kin. But in the Dark Years others had removed to the southern dales of the Misty Mountains; and thence some had passed into the empty lands as far north as the Barrow-downs. From them came the Men of Bree; but long before these had become subjects of the North Kingdom of Arnor and had taken up the Westron tongue. Only in Dunland did Men of this race hold to their old speech and manners: a secret folk, unfriendly to the Dúnedain, hating the Rohirrim.

Of their language nothing appears in this book, save the name
Forgoil
which they gave to the Rohirrim (meaning Strawheads, it is said).
Dunland
and
Dunlending
are the names that the Rohirrim gave to them, because they were swarthy and dark-haired; there is thus no connexion between the word
dunn
in these names and the Grey-elven word
Dun
‘west’.

OF HOBBITS

The Hobbits of the Shire and of Bree had at this time, for probably a thousand years, adopted the Common Speech. They used it in their own manner freely and carelessly; though the more learned among them had still at their command a more formal language when occasion required.

There is no record of any language peculiar to Hobbits. In ancient days they seem always to have used the languages of Men near whom, or among whom, they lived. Thus they quickly adopted the Common Speech after they entered Eriador, and by the time of their settlement at Bree they had already begun to forget their former tongue. This was evidently a Mannish language of the upper Anduin, akin to that of the Rohirrim; though the southern Stoors appear to have adopted a language related to Dunlendish before they came north to the Shire.
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Of these things in the time of Frodo there were still some traces left in local words and names, many of which closely resembled those found in Dale or in Rohan. Most notable were the names of days, months, and seasons; several other words of the same sort (such as
mathom
and
smial)
were also still in common use, while more were preserved in the place-names of Bree and the Shire. The personal names of the Hobbits were also peculiar and many had come down from ancient days.

Hobbit
was the name usually applied by the Shire-folk to all their kind. Men called them
Halflings
and the Elves
Periannath.
The origin of the word
hobbit
was by most forgotten. It seems, however, to have been at first a name given to the Harfoots by the Fallohides and Stoors, and to be a worn-down form of a word preserved more fully in Rohan:
holbytla
‘hole-builder’.

OF OTHER RACES

Ents.
The most ancient people surviving in the Third Age were the
Onodrim
or
Enyd. Ent
was the form of their name in the language of Rohan. They were known to the Eldar in ancient days, and to the Eldar indeed the Ents ascribed not their own language but the desire for speech. The language that they had made was unlike all others: slow, sonorous, agglomerated, repetitive, indeed long-winded; formed of a multiplicity of vowel-shades and distinctions of tone and quality which even the lore-masters of the Eldar had not attempted to represent in writing. They used it only among themselves; but they had no need to keep it secret, for no others could learn it.

Ents were, however, themselves skilled in tongues, learning them swiftly and never forgetting them. But they preferred the languages of the Eldar, and loved best the ancient High-elven tongue. The strange words and names that the Hobbits record as used by Treebeard and other Ents are thus Elvish, or fragments of Elf-speech strung together in Ent-fashion.
1
Some are Quenya: as
Taurelilómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor,
which may be rendered ‘Forestmanyshadowed-deepvalleyblack Deepvalleyforested Gloomy-land’, and by which Treebeard meant, more or less: ‘there is a black shadow in the deep dales of the forest’. Some are Sindarin: as
Fangorn
‘beard-(of)-tree’, or
Fimbrethil
‘slender-beech’.

Orcs and the Black Speech. Orc
is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was
orch.
Related, no doubt, was the word
uruk
of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai,
snaga
‘slave’.

The Orcs were first bred by the Dark Power of the North in the Elder Days. It is said that they had no language of their own, but took what they could of other tongues and perverted it to their own liking; yet they made only brutal jargons, scarcely sufficient even for their own needs, unless it were for curses and abuse. And these creatures, being filled with malice, hating even their own kind, quickly developed as many barbarous dialects as there were groups or settlements of their race, so that their Orkish speech was of little use to them in intercourse between different tribes.

So it was that in the Third Age Orcs used for communication between breed and breed the Westron tongue; and many indeed of the older tribes, such as those that still lingered in the North and in the Misty Mountains, had long used the Westron as their native language, though in such a fashion as to make it hardly less unlovely than Orkish. In this jargon
tark,
‘man of Gondor’, was a debased form of
tarkil
, a Quenya word used in Westron for one of Númenorean descent; see p.
906
.