How does Earendil speak Beorian?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Maybe that's the new question: did Elwing know Beorian, and if so, then how.

If I remember correctly, both Earendil and Elwing were kids when their respective kingdoms fell and they were sped away to the Havens. Elwing lived in the same Havens aa Earendil, with the same presumed Mannish refugees. Why would she not also learn at least a bit about her mortal side of the family while living there? Earendil might have learned Beorian independently or after meeting Elwing, but Elwing did not learn because of Earendil - she should have been flocked by the remaining Beorians. Of course they might have been speaking Sindarin when addressing her, but she would have been at the very least aware of the existence of their language.

What am I missing? Why would she discover the language from Earendil, when she could easily (re)discover it directly?

Elwing was about three, Earendil about ten (always "about", because Tolkien's timelines were in flux and quite old). If the NoME stuff about half-elven aging is accurate, we'd expect them both to be small for their age, but advanced - maybe Elwing is cognitively a five year old, Earendil perhaps fifteen.

So Earendil has good memories of Gondolin. His mother-tongue is Quenya, and Tuor would definitely have taught him North Sindarin (they expected to have to evacuate the city, after all). Did Tuor know Hadorian? Maybe, if his foster-father taught him. He would definitely know Easterling (he was a slave for four years), but it's anyone's guess whether the enslaved population of Dor-lomin were allowed to use Sindarin, Hadorian, or neither.

It's even possible that Tuor learnt 'proper' Hadorian only in Gondolin! Pengolodh the Loremaster lived there, and it's impossible to believe he wouldn't have had Hurin and Huor teach him their language. How excited he must have been to have a new speaker show up after all those years - and, frankly, how much more excited to realise he needed to teach Tuor, not the other way round.

Elwing would have a child's grasp of Doriathrin Sindarin. She would have at least a little Beorian, because we know Dior spoke it - at the least, he'd use endearments and idioms that didn't translate. With no other Beorian speakers in Doriath, would he have deliberately raised Elwing and her brothers to use it? Maybe. But it would still be a second language, and she wouldn't have much.

In the Havens... in that quote I was building off the idea that Earendil picked Beorian up deliberately from Nargothrondrim sailors over from Balar. Elwing wouldn't have much reason to talk to sailors, and they wouldn't be using it themselves - Earendil would have to seek them out.

But, the source actually says that the Atani "still used their Mannish speeches", so that's out, and Form is right - there are Men at the Mouths of Sirion. Given the plural of 'speeches', that must include both Hadorians and Beorings - quite possibly even elders who were among the evacuees of Dorthonion as children. It was only about 50 years between the Bragollach and Elwing's arrival at the Havens, a peer of Rian and Morwen could easily still be alive. The Beorian family tree in HoME XI was amended to give Beleth, Beren's first cousin, unspecified descendents - and even more intriguingly, it gives Beren himself a sister, Hiril. Her children, if she had any, could easily still be alive, though they'd probably be too young to remember Beren himself.

Long story short: yes, Elwing would have encountered Beorian around the Havens, and probably had fairly close relatives among the mortals living there. Earendil will have to find some other way to win her heart.

hS

[Mithadan]

This thread is a combination of good detective work and logic coupled with necessary speculation. An alternative to struggling to determine if, how and when Earendil became fluent in Mannish tongues, Occam's Razor may provide an alternative.

Earendil hoped to deliver an appeal for aid against Morgoth on behalf of both Elves and Men to the Valar. He planned to deliver the appeal, if he was allowed to present it, in the languages of both races. He does not need to become fluent in the Mannish tongues. He only must deliver the message. To do so, he needs to learn only enough to make his entreaty or he could simply memorize (or even write down and read) the messages.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

This thread is a combination of good detective work and logic coupled with necessary speculation. An alternative to struggling to determine if, how and when Earendil became fluent in Mannish tongues, Occam's Razor may provide an alternative.

Earendil hoped to deliver an appeal for aid against Morgoth on behalf of both Elves and Men to the Valar. He planned to deliver the appeal, if he was allowed to present it, in the languages of both races. He does not need to become fluent in the Mannish tongues. He only must deliver the message. To do so, he needs to learn only enough to make his entreaty or he could simply memorize (or even write down and read) the messages.

Okay, now I'm imagining him dropping his note cards in the Ring of Doom, and all the Valar watching as he scrabbles to put them back in the right order.

The thing about the appeal being a prepared script is... why stop at those languages? Even if Haladin is entirely extinct (which presupposes that nobody who ever had to deal with That Lot In Brethil made it out of Doriath), the Druedain are attested at the Havens. There are Nandor originally from Ossiriand hanging around. There's probably even a scholar who speaks rudimentary Khuzdul. If the appeal was prepared, then Earendil made a conscious decision to appeal on behalf of the Noldor, the Sindar, two of the three houses of the Edain, and no-one else. It seems a little harsh, right?

Of course the whole question is moot - I missed Tolkien's explanation right above the quote I started with:

Originally Posted by HoME XII - The Problem of Ros

In the havens of refuge, when Morgoth's conquest was all but complete, there were several tongues to be heard. Not only the Sindarin, which was chiefly used, but also its Northern dialect; and among the Men of the Atani some still used their Mannish speeches; and of all these Earendil had some knowledge.

So Earendil learnt all four languages from his neighbours, case closed.

So why didn't he use North Sindarin as well as Doriathrin? Well, according to a note on why Thingol despised Beren's accent:

Originally Posted by HoME XII - The Problem of Ros

He [Thingol] had small love for the Northern Sindar who had in regions near to Angband come under the dominion of Morgoth, and were accused of sometimes entering his service and providing him with spies. The Sindarin used by the Sons of Feanor also was of the Northern dialect; and they were hated in Doriath.

Which a) shows Thingol to be even more racist than I already knew, b) makes it all the funnier that Doriathrin was the first of the three Sindarin dialects to die out, and c) explains why Earendil didn't use North Sindarin - they probably weren't spies, but just in case, it's probably best to leave them out of it, eh?

hS

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Elwing was about three, Earendil about ten (always "about", because Tolkien's timelines were in flux and quite old).

Where are you getting the ages from?

505 [> 503] Birth of Earendil Half-elven in Gondolin (Spring).

511 [> 509] The Second Kinslaying

512 [> 510] The Fall of Gondolin. Death of King Turgon.

503 Elwing the White daughter of Dior born in Ossiriand.
WotJ, ToY



And Annals in HoMe 5:

300 [500] Here was born Earendel the Bright, star of the Two Kindreds, unto Tuor and Idril in Gondolin. In this year was born also Elwing the White, fairest of all women save Lúthien, unto Dior son of Beren in Ossiriand.

Also noted in Shaping.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Tar Elenion

Where are you getting the ages from?

Well, in honesty I was just using whatever Tolkien Gateway said and using 'about' to cover myself, but:

Originally Posted by "HoME XI - Tale of Years, version D

502 [as amended] - In this year, or according to others the year before, Tuor wedded Idril... and in the spring of the year after was born in Gondolin Earendil Halfelven.
503 - Elwing the White daughter of Dior born in Ossiriand.
[...]
506-507 - At Yule Dior fought the sons of Feanor on the east marches of Doriath, and was slain. [...] The Lady Lindis escaped with Elwing, and came hardly to Ossir, with the Necklace and the Jewel. Thence hearing the rumour she fled to the Havens of Sirion.
[...]
510 - Midsummer. Assault and sack of Gondolin...

So if the final version of the ToY is the latest info we have, then Elwing was three at the sack of Doriath, and Earendil was 7 at the fall of Gondolin.

... and Elwing's mother (here Lindis, later Nimloth relative of Celeborn) escaped with her. Is there a source for her death in Doriath other than the published Silm? Did Christopher bump her off in "Of the Ruin of Doriath" just to avoid dealing with her at the Havens? o.O

hS

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

... and Elwing's mother (here Lindis, later Nimloth relative of Celeborn) escaped with her. Is there a source for her death in Doriath other than the published Silm?

Not that I recall off hand.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

But, the source actually says that the Atani "still used their Mannish speeches", so that's out, and Form is right - there are Men at the Mouths of Sirion.

I love it when my Tolkien instincts are proven right--even if I over-hedged myself by saying "absent any definitive statement they were NOT" (since we have a definitive statement that they were).



I still think there's room for more than one source of transmission, and that Eärendil and Elwing are each unlikely to have learned it from their parents. They could easily represent the two streams (i.e. an "Elven" source: probably a better vocabulary, a purer grammar--closer to what Bëor himself actually spoke, and a "Mannish" source: Bëorian refugees, speaking a living, if less educated, language). There's certainly plausible motivation for the last Heir of Barahir and the last Heir of Bregolas to have wanted to learn the language for their own reasons--and it's absolutely the sort of desire that their circumstances and Elvish halves would have made easy and possible.

Elwing can easily be imagined to have motivation out of reverence for memories of her Father--there's a good fanfiction nugget in her hearing a Bëorian word in the streets of the Haven that she hadn't heard since it came off Dior's lips years before. Eärendil, I think, would be less personal, more "dynastic," insofar as we're told he identified himself more closely with his father, and insofar as he had no living personal connection to the Bëorian tongue. Learning the tongues of both Huor and Rían could even have been a project he shared with Tuor, whose own first tongue was probably Northern Sindarin--Tuor could plausibly have spoken poor Hadorian indeed before he reached Gondolin (though I doubt it: even in hiding, I think the Grey-Elves would have taught him his native tongue, and he would have had enough chance to exercise it as a slave in Dor-Lómin--but Bëorian is another matter.)

What I don't think is likely is that Eärendil planned it out as a speech to make in Valinor--as pointed out already, the Drúedain were near at hand and it should have been possible to learn enough Halethian to make a statement (from the Drúedain even!) to the Valar if that was his plan. It seems much more likely to me that Eärendil was a polyglot, being a half-Elf in an unusually multi-lingual community, and was moved in the moment in front of the Valar (by destiny or divine inspiration, perhaps) to make his statement. There's a strong element of fate about him, that he was the perfect messenger to plead for Middle-earth, but this is not his own careful planning as much as Divine Providence (which, admittedly, he may cooperate with).

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Well, the opening of the chapter tells us that "Bright Earendil now ruled the remnant of the Eldar and the Edain." I would think that to be a functional ruler he would have needed to be conversant in the relevant tongues: Sindarin, Quenya, Hadorian and Beorian. I think we have established that some of Beor's folk escaped Dorthonian and reached safety. Nor need we boggle at a half-Noldo learning languages easily!