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Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne
No it was not a human language. . . It was a warg language! Anyways Tolkien makes it clear that they talk and not just comunicate via body language and so on, so I think you are grasping at straws.
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I would have said that to me it doesn't really make a difference, the main point is that they communicate with one another and Gandalf can understand it. And since we are talking about The Hobbit, I wouldn't take it for granted that when Tolkien says
speak he really means speaking instead of just some way of communication, but
Morth's post kind of destroys my theory.
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Originally Posted by Formendacil
In this vein, I'll note that while it does seem to be a valid point to note that the Wargs speak their own tongue, speaking any sort of tongue at all is not a trait limited to lupine species, but seems to be a bit more common in Middle-earth.
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Yes - I recall Gandalf saying he once knew many animal languages, and so suggests also Frodo's lament for him. However, I understand it that (some? all?) werewolves could talk human languages - if a random person had approached Thangorodrim's doors, she would have understood Carcharoth's questions about what she was doing there.
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Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim
But, as has been pointed out by Tuor, the tale of Beorn should give anyone enough scope to write about a traditional werewolf in Middle-earth.  |
I'm totally at a loss when it comes to Beorn. If I was a gamemaster, though, I probably wouldn't let any player take for a character a Beorning with the ability to change shape. It sounds like playing a half-elven character. Wrong.