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By george dwarves are british, i think
Dwarven language very little is known about it for it is only used amongst theemselves dwarves don't even let out their right names.
but we have one clue moon letters, which if im not mistaken follow fashion of anglo-saxon runes in fact they are anglo-saxon rune so one could argue that dwarves speak anglo-saxon as ther secret language...right? |
Nope.
LotR = 3rd Age = Several thousand years ago. Anglo-Saxon = 7th Age = Several centuries ago. Plus all the other stuff I don't have time to type right at the moment. |
If any race was more Anglo-Saxon than any others it must be the Rohirrim. Tolkien showed Rohirric as Old-English, after all. An assumption based merely on runes seems to me like jumping to conclusions. We in fact do have a few words that come from Khuzdul, and they look rather alien to Old English. There's Barazinbar, Zirakzigil, Bundushathur, Buzundush, Azaghal, Azanulbizar, Mazarbul, Kibil-Nala, Sharbhund, and many other examples. We have examples of "secret" names for the petty-dwarves: Mim, Ibal.
Note: I have left out diacritic marks for the sake of convenience. |
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The "outward" names of the Dwarves are of old Norse origin. I don't think their "secret language" is like any real language. It is invented by Tolkien, as are the Elven languages, but there are only a few words like "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai menû!" What does that sound like ? |
Dwarves have been in Norse Mythology, so Tolkien might have just used the Norse Dwarves as an example for his book
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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..... :p
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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. |
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. |
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The bit about secret names: how different is this from the habit of creating online anonymous nicknames and keeping personal names private? |
'T'ain't.
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Here is a re-cap from this publication:
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And HERE's the whole 1971 interview. ~*~ Pio |
From the little I know abot runes (and I mean LITTLE) Dwarf Runes seem more akin to Viking Runes than Anglo Saxon runes.
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Runes
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:
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I would rather associate khuzdul with russian language... They somehow sound the same...
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Actually, the English runes are only used in THE HOBBIT. By the time we read the runes on Balin's tomb in LOTR, they're - well, not English any more. I remember being rather annoyed that I couldn't read the inscription. :D
I think what Tolkien said (elsewhere?) was that he only thought of Dwarves as Jews because of being scattered and having a language they only speak among themselves. In fact, if there's anything Semitic about the language, it's not Hebrew anyway, or even remotely Hebrew, unless you count the throaty sound of Kh, and there are other languages that have this sound. |
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