Arthedain » Languages

Westron

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:59:28 +0000

Westron or Common Speech is the closest thing to a universal language in Middle-earth, at least during the War of the Ring. Westron is an English word, derived from West, not a word from the language itself. The Westron speech was derived from the Adûnaic tongue of Númenor, and originated as a Creole language on the western coastlands of the continent of Middle-earth, when the Númenorians established trade outposts and forts there. From there, it spread east, with the notable exception of Mordor. Westron was a translation of the original name Adûni, and “Common Speech” translates the Westron term Sôval Phârë, of identical meaning. In Sindarin the language was called Annúnaid (Westron), or Falathren (Shore-language).

Background

In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Westron was presented as having been completely translated by English. This had certain important implications: first of all, proper names with derivations somewhat evident to speakers of Westron had been translated, to preserve the effect. Thus, names like Baggins, Bagshot Row, Peregrin, Rivendell etc., are presented as not the actual names. (For example, Meriadoc Brandybuck’s actual name is supposed to have been Kalimac Brandagamba, short Kali (meaning jolly, merry). ‘Meriadoc’, short ‘Merry’, is designed to maintain the reference to merriness contained in the original name. Likewise Peregrin Took’s actual name was Razanur Tûc, short Razar (name of a small apple). ‘Peregrin’, short ‘Pippin’ contained both the actual meaning of the full name (traveler, stranger) and the reference to an apple). Sam Gamgee was actually named Ban Galpsi, short for Banazir Galbasi. The ending of the ‘true’ Hobbit name Bilbo was also changed: in Westron it was Bilba, but Tolkien changed this to -o because -a is usually a female ending in English.

Placenames and other features were also presented as having been translated from an original form: Rivendell (Sindarin Imladris, “cloven valley”) was actually called Karningul, and Bag End was actually called Labin-nec, after Labingi, the real form of Baggins. In some cases the explanations became quite involved, such as the river Brandywine (Sindarin Baranduin, “golden-brown river”) was actually called Branda-nîn, a punning Westron name meaning “border-water”, which was later punned again as Bralda-hîm meaning “heady ale”.

The translation went one step further by also changing all languages akin to Westron. Rohirric, the language of the Rohirrim was translated by Anglo-Saxon, as Rohirric is an archaic relative of Westron (since the Edain from whose speech Westron is derived were related to the ancestors of the Rohirrim) much as Anglo-Saxon is an archaic relative of English. Similarly, the tongue of Dale, from which came the names of the Dwarves of Durin’s house, was translated by Old Norse, a language related to Anglo-Saxon and modern English as Dalish was related to Rohirric and Westron.

This utter translation of Westron by English was taken so far that some sources that should give actual Westron have been turned to English too. For instance, in Moria, an illustration of the runic text on Balin’s gravestone is given. The text is said to mean “Balin Son of Fundin, Lord of Moria” in both Khuzdûl and Westron… but while the first part of the inscription seems to really be a bit of Khuzdûl (Moria is rendered as “Khazad-dûm”), the second part is actually plain English, just written in certar.

Outside the context of the story, it is clear that most of the “original” forms in Westron or other languages were devised by Tolkien long after the English “translations” were chosen. Several of the Westron forms given above were not published in Tolkien’s lifetime. Tolkien never worked out Westron to the same extent as Quenya and Sindarin or even Adûnaic.

The Structure of Westron

We know very little about Westron, for the simple reason that Tolkien has rendered it into English almost everywhere! A few words of genuine Westron are given in Appendix F to LotR and (relatively) many more in The Peoples of Middle-earth. Tolkien even translated the names of the Hobbits. There were never any hobbits called Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry; their real names were Maura, Ban, Razar and Kali. The word hobbit itself is just a rendering of the actual Third Age word kuduk (derived from Old English holbytla “hole-dweller” the way kuduk is believed to descend from archaic kûd-dûkan of this meaning, the form kûd-dûkan still being preserved in Rohirric). Maura (“Frodo”) and his friends would not have known the word “hobbit” as such; they said kuduk.

Concerning the phonology and structure of Westron, David Salo observes (private communication): “The [consonant] sounds of late Adunaic and Westron are almost the same. They have in common p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, ng, r, ph, th, s, z, h, y, l. Westron is said in LotR to have the palatals ch, sh, but only sh was exemplified in the material. Westron also has hr-, hl-. No w is exemplified in Westron, but Westron has v, which Adunaic did not. Conceivably Westron could have changed w > v. Westron words are not entirely dissimilar from Adunaic: they have what could be triconsonantal root words (gamba ‘he-goat’, tapuk ‘rabbit’, galab ‘game’, laban ‘bag’, narag ‘dwarf’, zilib or zilbi ‘butter’, and a large number of biconsonantals: rama ‘cottager’, zara ‘old’, bana “half”, rapha ‘burr’.”

The vowels constitute a classical five-vowel system: short a, e, i, o, u and long â, î, ô, û; long ê is not attested in any actual word, but its existence is implied by a footnote in Appendix E. (It is there stated that some speakers of Westron used ei and ou, “more or less as in English say no”, instead of ê, ô – this pronunciation, though “fairly widespread”, was held to be incorrect and rustic. Needless to say, this was the usual pronunciation among the Hobbits.) Reportedly, Westron also had certain reduction vowels.

Westron did not possess the Quenya sounds ty, hy; Gondorian speakers of High-elven substituted ch (as in church) and sh. Neither did Westron have ch as in German ach; see UT:319. Therefore, pure Sindarin Rochand, Rochan became Rohan in Gondorian pronunciation.

One late phonological change is mentioned in PM:320: Double (long) consonants were reduced to single ones medially between vowels, tunnas “guard” being pronounced tunas (but not normally so spelt). Consonants in certain combinations were altered; tunnas itself represents earlier tudnas.

Endings of Westron

An agental ending -a is seen in such words as pûta “blower”, batta “talker”. The ending -a was also a masculine ending (PM:46), at least in the Hobbit dialect. Tolkien, when translating the Red Book, Anglicized such names by changing this ending to -o, e.g. “Bilbo” for genuine Hobbitish Bilba. The endings -o and -e were feminine; Tolkien may have substituted -a for -o.

The plural ending seems to be -in, as in cûbuc “hobbit” pl. cûbugin (PM:49 – cûbuc changed to kuduk in the published LotR). Tolkien considered several plural endings before he settled on -in, such as -a, -il, -en. (The idea of unvoiced plosives becoming voiced before this plural ending, as in cûbuc/cûbugin, was apparently dropped later.)

It seems that Westron, like the Scandinavian languages, employs a suffix instead of an independent definite article: Sûza “Shire”, Sûzat “The Shire”.

The original, archaic Westron seems to have had case endings, but by the end of the Third Age, the endings had been lost. Nargian in Phurunargian “Dwarrowdelf” is a fossilized form of the genitive plural of narag “dwarf”. David Salo theorizes: “Since Adunaic has no true genitive, one has to suppose that over the course of the Third Age, Adunaic was transformed (via agglutination of suffixes) into a full-fledged case language, and then subsequently lost case endings again. Nargian could be *nargii (a plural stem, incorporating the old Adunaic ending -i) + an, the old [Adûnaic] ‘genitive’ marker, now postposed instead of preposed.”

The words raza “stranger”, razan “foreign” seem to argue the existence of an adjectival ending -n.

The past participle may have the ending -nin.

We know no Westron pronouns, but we know something about them: “The Westron tongue made in the pronouns of the second person (and often also in those of the third) a distinction, independent of number, between ‘familiar’ and ‘deferential’ forms. It was, however, one of the peculiarities of Shire-usage that the deferential forms had gone out of colloquial use. They lingered only among the villagers, especially of the West-farthing, who used them as endearments. This was one of the things referred to when people of Gondor spoke of the strangeness of Hobbit-speech. Peregrin Took, for instance, in his first few days in Minas Tirith used the familiar forms to people of all ranks, including the Lord Denethor himself. This may have amused the aged Steward, but it must have astonished his servants. No doubt this free use of the familiar forms helped to spread the popular rumour that Peregrin was a person of very high rank in his own country.” (Appendix F) It proved impossible to represent these Westron pronominal distinctions adequately in in Tolkien’s English translation of the Red Book.

Notes

The parts concerning the technical aspects of the language originates from the brilliant work of Helge Kåre Fauskanger and his Ardalambion project.

Valinorean

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:58:08 +0000

The language of the Eldar in Valinor; another name for Quenya.

Tyelpétema

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:57:02 +0000

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The word tyelpetéma in tengwar of the Quenya mode. The first character, equivalent to ‘tyë’, is a palatal of the tyelpetéma series.

One of the témar or sound-series of the tengwar as used to represent the sounds of the Quenya language.

The tyelpetéma appears to have been unique; while each of the other four series consisted of a set of six individual ‘letters’, the palatal sounds of the tyelpetéma were formed by adding a mark of two dots beneath another character, as in the example above. This is the equivalent of adding a ‘y’after the letter in English to form a single distinct consonant sound. To use Tolkien’s own example from Appendix E to The Lord of the Rings, the sound ‘ty’here has the same sound as the initial consonant in the (British pronunciation of) the English word ‘tune’- something close to, but distinct from, ‘ch’.

Tincotéma

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:55:32 +0000

A series of six characters that composed part of the Fëanorian writing system. The series took its name from the first of its signs, tinco (literally meaning ‘metal’, but here simply representing the Elvish character for ‘t’). Each of the symbols in the series was characterised by variations on an unclosed bow, or lúva, curving downwards and to the right from a stem, or telco.

In principle, the characters in the series could represent a variety of different sounds, though in practice their use became essentially standardised by the Third Age. The first four signs in the series, tinco, ando, thúle and anto, each represented a variant of the basic ‘t’sound: ‘t’, ‘d’, ‘th’and ‘dh’, respectively. The fifth sign, númen, represented ‘n’, and finally óre indicated a weak ‘r’sound.

Tengwar

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:54:32 +0000

The characters devised by Fëanor, originally to represent the sounds of the Quenya language, but later widely adopted for writing most of the languages of Middle-earth.

Sindarin

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:51:14 +0000

The language of the Grey-elves of Beleriand and most commonly used of the Elf-tongues in Middle-earth. When the Noldor returned to Middle-earth at the beginning of the First Age, Thingol decreed that their tongue, Quenya, was not to be spoken in his realms. So the language of his people, Sindarin, came to dominate. Quenya, though, was still used as a language of ceremony and poetry.

Sindarin shared common roots with Quenya, and the two languages had many similar words. Sindarin was said to be more changeful than the older tongue, however, and there were a number of regional ‘dialects’of the tongue. The Sindarin spoken in Doriath was said to be the highest and most noble form of the language.

Runes of Doriath

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:49:03 +0000

The original Runes, devised by Thingol’s loremaster Daeron in the time before the Return of the Noldor. They were little used in Doriath itself, but greatly prized by the Dwarves from the Blue Mountains that travelled to trade with Doriath. The Dwarves took them east, and eventually developed their own runic systems based on them, as did later generations of Elves. The Runes of Doriath also came to be used by Men, or at least those who lived on Doriath’s borders: the Stone of the Hapless, memorial to Túrin and Niënor, was carved by the Men of Brethil using the Runes of Doriath.

Runes

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:49:02 +0000

A system of writing based on angular shapes that could easily be carved into wood or stone. Originated by Daeron of Doriath to represent Sindarin words, runes came to be used widely by races other than the Elves, and especially by the Dwarves.

Quenya

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:46:56 +0000

” Utúlie’n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie’n aurë!”
Fingon’s war-cry beneath Ered Wethrin, in Quenya, from Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad

The tongue of the High Elves in Valinor, the first to be recorded in writing. It was never widely used in Middle-earth except among the Noldor; the related Eldarin language, Sindarin, was more commonly spoken.

By the Third Age, Quenya had become, in Middle-earth, a language used only on formal or state occasions by the Elves and the descendants of the Númenóreans.

Orkish

Kjell Arne Brudvik — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:45:05 +0000

A general term for the jumble of languages used by the Orcs, composed from corrupted borrowings from other languages of Middle-earth. The variations in Orkish between different tribes and types of Orc were so great that it was often useless for communication, and so a standard language was necessary. Sauron devised his Black Speech for this purpose in Mordor, but in practice the Common Tongue was more normally used.