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Old 05-29-2002, 04:05 PM   #11
Sharkû
Hungry Ghoul
 
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Join Date: Jun 2000
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From the invaluable Appendix F:
"Hobbits indeed spoke for the most part a rustic dialect, whereas in Gondor and Rohan a more antique language was used, more formal and more terse. [...] It was, however, one of the peculiarities of Shire-usage that the deferential forms had gone out of colloquial use."

From the similarly invaluable Letters (#193):
" I should say that, in the cases you query, no accent-differentiation is needed or desirable. For instance, it would probably be better to avoid certain, actual or conventional, features of modern 'vulgar' English in representing Orcs, such as the dropping of aitches [...]. I have no doubt that, if this 'history' were real, all users of the C[ommon] Speech would reveal themselves by their accent, differing in place, people, and rank, but that cannot be represented when C. S. is turned into English – and is not (I think) necessary. I paid great attention to such linguistic differentiation as was possible: in diction, idiom, and so on ; and I doubt if much more can be imported, except in so far as the individual actor represents his feeling for the character in tone and style. As Minas Tirith is at the source of C. Speech it is to C.S. as London is to modern English, and the standard of comparison! None of its inhabitants should have an 'accent' in terms of vowels &c."

In short, Scottish accents -- nah.
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