Here There Be Dragons - Discussion/Planning

[Child of the 7th Age]

Well, this is what happens when one has a 'guilty' conscience and is musing on other things! I had been struggling with the post between Ráma and the Eagle for several days. I am very late filling it in.

When I 'saw' Pio's initial query, my brain transposed the terms "Aiwendil and Narika' to 'Ráma and the Eagle'. I know this is hard to believe but that's what happened! I stared long and hard at the computer screen, and I swear that's what I saw....

Let me clarify my thoughts here....

Because the maenwaith whom Ráma encounters was in Eagle form, the young woman would, I think, natural ly revert to her clan dialect. The opposite holds for Aiwendil....he would use the common tongue, whether that's Westron or some trading dialect, since he is dealing with "strangers". I'm not sure he would even know the clan dialect, although he may pick it up quickly. Whether we use Westron or a tradiing dialect is fine with me.


Pio, does this help answer your question?

I was wondering if Westron was spoken as far south as Harad, but this is what appears in Ardalambion and in the appendix of Lotr. The italics are mine.

The language actually spoken by the characters in LotR, and indeed the language the Red Book was originally written in, was called Adûni, which name Tolkien rendered into English as Westron. Tolkien explains: "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." (Appendix F)

It seems to suggest that it was mainly the language of the coastal peoples in the south; perhaps those inland spoke another common tongue...or the trading dialect, of which you spoke. Or do others read this differently?

Ah, and I am still working on that other post.