[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I agree. It seems highly probable to me that an old and cunning creature like Smaug would know some Sindarin, given its comparable ubiquity to Westron.

It would be interesting to know if dragons had their own language. What language did the servants of Morgoth speak in the First Age? Presumably it was some corrupted version of Sindarin, Quenya (Morgoth appears to have spoken both of them) or perhaps of the Primitive Quendian spoken by the first Elves to become Orcs. I could imagine the Dragons of the North retaining vestiges of such language, as they appear to have been long-lived.

I thought that Sauron contrived the Black Speech during the First Age (The First Age was what I thought was referred to as the "Dark Years").

I know that many of the Middle-earth Wikias refer to the "Dark Years" as the Second Age, based upon a few Comments of Tolkien regarding the "Men of Darkness" and the "Dark Days" of the rule of Sauron.

But I think that rather a subjective interpretation. I will need to dig out the Peoples of Middle-earth to go over it, and have another look through Morgoth's Ring to see if there is an explicit statement of some sort.

I would think that the period during which Satan Himself ruled in Middle-earth would be considerably "Darker" than a period when his lieutenant was left to meddle in the world.

I know that the Wikis like Tolkien Gateway refer to the "Dark Years" as the Second Age because of an analogy to the "Dark Ages" after the Fall of the Roman Empire as being isomorphic to the Fall of the Elven Kingdoms of the First Age. But I think that might be a stretch without an explicit statement of some sort (which could well exist).

Would that not have been the language that was used by those servants of Morgoth at that time when still largely unified?

And we know that during the first Age Glaurung spoke to both Elves and Túrin in Sindarin (which was the "Common Tongue" of Beleriand in the First Age).

It could also be that Tolkien intended the Dragons to have their own form of Speech, a Draconic-Tongue used solely among themselves.

Also, is it not the case that the Dragons (at least Glaurung) had some form of ability to read the minds of others?

Would this not give them a facility with languages (even Khuzdul)?

MB