[Alphaelin]

Whoa, synchronicity at work! I have pondered developing a RPG character from Dale for a couple of weeks and suddenly find this thread. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

For my character research, I started in the Appendices of ROTK, where Prof. Tolkien says that the Dalemen, along with other Men in the northern parts of Middle Earth, are "descended from the Edain of the First Age, or from their close kin." They are grouped with the Beornings and the Woodmen of Mirkwood, and distantly connected with the Northmen who gave rise to the Rohirrim.

From there, I started looking online.

Keeper of Dol Goldur, I found some interesting things about the language of the Northmen at the Parma Endorion site: It claims that the speech of the Men of Dale and that of Rohan come from a common tongue. Where Rohirric (?) is roughly equivalent to Old English, the speech of Dale would be equivalent to Old Norse.

Anyone care to comment on the accuracy of statements on this site? I found it using a search engine and am not much of a Tolkien scholar myself.