By george dwarves are british, i think

[Mithalwen]

Risking condemning this thread to a rapid transfer to mirth you might make a case for identifying dwarves as Oxford dons of a certain era.... grumpy, insular, proud, clannish, obsessed by their work above all things, prefering to keep their womenfolk tucked away and a distressing tendancy towards facial hair in the female of the species.....

[Guinevere]

I just found an interesting thread on this topic:

Ancient British cultures reflected in Middle-earth

especially posts # 25 (by Rumil), #26 (by the Squatter of Amon Rûdh) and #35 (by Man of the Old Hope) are very enlightening.

[piosenniel]

Here is a short discussion of Khuzdul, the Dwarvish language, from the Ardalambion site.

Under the section, The Structure of Khuzdul, the language's basic structure is discussed and is said to resemble that of a Semitic language, such as Arabic or Hebrew.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Risking condemning this thread to a rapid transfer to mirth you might make a case for identifying dwarves as Oxford dons of a certain era.... grumpy, insular, proud, clannish, obsessed by their work above all things, prefering to keep their womenfolk tucked away and a distressing tendancy towards facial hair in the female of the species.....

My, Mithalwen, I can just imagine dwarves participating in the raucous town and gown shambles.

The bit about secret names: how different is this from the habit of creating online anonymous nicknames and keeping personal names private?

[mark12_30]

'T'ain't.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Under the section, The Structure of Khuzdul, the language's basic structure is discussed and is said to resemble that of a Semitic language, such as Arabic or Hebrew.

Didn't Tolkien, in a radio interview, compare the Dwarves (not unfavourably) to Jews? Is there any evidence to suggest that he may have based their language on Hebrew too?

[piosenniel]

Here is a re-cap from this publication:

Then, in a 1971 BBC radio interview two years before he died, he [Tolkien] was asked if the different races in The Lord of the Rings represent specific character-istics, "the elves wisdom, the dwarves craftsman-ship, men husbandry and battle, and so forth?"

"I didn’t intend it, but when you’ve got these people on your hands you’ve got to make them different, haven’t you?" he replied. "The dwarves of course are quite obviously — wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic. The Hobbits are just rustic English people."

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And HERE's the whole 1971 interview.

~*~ Pio

[Frodo Baggins]

From the little I know abot runes (and I mean LITTLE) Dwarf Runes seem more akin to Viking Runes than Anglo Saxon runes.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

That depends on which stage of conception we're talking about. The Dwarf-runes used in The Hobbit are unquestionably of the Anglo-Saxon type, and Tolkien confirms it:

There is the matter of the Runes. Those used by Thorin and Co., for special purposes, were comprised in an alphabet of thirty-two letters... similar to, but not identical, with the runes of Anglo-Saxon inscriptions.

Letter #25, to the editor of the Observer, printed 20 February 1938

Earlier he is less circumspect:

...except for the runes (Anglo-Saxon) and the dwarf-names (Icelandic), neither used with antiquarian accuracy, and both regretfully substituted to avoid abstruseness for the genuine alphabets and names of the mythology into which Mr Baggins intrudes - I am afraid my professional knowledge is not directly used.

Letter #15, remarks included with a letter to Allen and Unwin, 31 August 1937.

The Angerthas is Tolkien's own invention, although obviously inspired by the runes of the Futhark. Basically (and rather too simply) the Anglo-Saxon and Norse runes are descended from the same alphabet. There's more than one Scandinavian runic alphabet, but for an explanation of them all you need a runologist. There are plenty of rune sites on the web, but if it isn't a university you can't trust it.