[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

The survival of Quenya as a kind of ‘Elven Latin’ is interesting. In our world Latin has survived principally because of the Catholic church, & I wonder if the survival of Quenya is down to the same reason - it is the language of the West. We see the consequece of Thingol’s forbidding of the use of Quenya in his realm here. Quenya is the language of the Calaquendi, the speakers of the language of ‘light’. Thingol forbids its use because of the Kinslaying, so only the Grey Elven tongue can flourish. A movement from light towards darkness. If the language of Light is restricted in its usage, what about the concepts & experiences it embodies? The native language of those who had dwelt in the West & known the Valar becomes a language of lore & ritual.

Now for his sarcastic comments I feel free to disagree with davem.

I agree that the Catholic church is one of the establishments which has enabled Latin to survive, but a far bigger influence in the UK is the educational system itself. Latin was until relatively recently an important subject studied in schools, particularly for those in 'top sets' or in Grammar and Public schools, overwhelmingly C of E institutions. Latin was also until recently a major topic of study at universities, particularly Oxbridge (it was a requirement for entrance to Oxford colleges that undergraduates had studied Latin as recently as the 50s or 60s), and the colleges in many (most?) cases did not admit Catholic students until the 19th/20th century. Interestingly, Tolkien draws similarities in the text:

The Dunedain alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an Elvish tongue; for their forefathers had learned the Sindarin tongue, and this they handed on to their children as a matter of lore, changing little with the passing of the years. And their men of wisdom learned also the High-elven Quenya and esteemed it above all other tongues, and in it they made names for many places of fame and reverence, and for many men of royalty and great renown.

Men who were of the 'privileged' set, i.e. the Dunedain, retained a great respect for the study of Elvish languages.

The Grey-elven was in origin akin to Quenya; for it was the language of those Eldar who, coming to the shores of Middle-earth, had not passed over the Sea but had lingered on the coasts in the country of Beleriand. There Thingol Greycloak of Doriath was their king, and in the long twilight their tongue had changed with the changefulness of mortal lands and had become far estranged from the speech of the Eldar from beyond the Sea

I'm not so sure that the move from Quenya to Sindarin was a move from Light to Darkness. I see it more as an inevitability that the people of Doriath would eventually use their own speech as an everyday language, only retaining Quenya as a 'formal' language; this is similar to the situation with English in the medieval period. The aristocracy used French as their everyday language, while religious and legal information was written down in 'formal' Latin, while the ordinary people spoke English despite what their masters used. Eventually, English became dominant, though it has taken some time; as I mentioned above, Latin used to be important, but is rarely studied now.

Maybe the acceptance by Thingol of the everyday language of his people was similar to the eventual acceptance of Welsh and Gaelic by the dominant English speakers?

Of these things in the time of Frodo there were still some traces left in local words and names, many of which closely resembled those found in Dale or in Rohan. Most notable were the names of days, months, and seasons; several other words of the same sort (such as mathom and smial) were also still in common use, while more were preserved in the place-names of Bree and the Shire. The personal names of the Hobbits were also peculiar and many had come down from ancient days.

This is again interesting in relation to the English language, as our own months and days preserve their pagan origins, and place names and personal names in particular are a rich reservoir of history, where the traces of Britain before the Norman conquest have been preserved. Most place names are still either Saxon, Viking or Celtic. Taking York as an example, it can be traced back to Jorvik (Viking) and then back to Roman (Eboracum). As an example of tracing back the origins of place names, places with -thwaite, -kirk or grim- in their names can be pinpointed as Viking. To a lesser extent, some words once only used by ordinary people often retain their older origins, as the ruling Norman class would have little need for words to describe agriculture for example. Seemingly small, unimportant things did not need renaming.

There is no record of any language peculiar to Hobbits. In ancient days they seem always to have used the languages of Men near whom, or among whom, they lived. Thus they quickly adopted the Common Speech after they entered Eriador, and by the time of their settlement at Bree some had already begun to forget their former tongue. This was evidently a Mannish language of the upper Anduin, akin to that of the Rohirrim; though the southern Stoors appear to have adopted a language related to Dunlendish before they came north to the Shire.

Hobbit was the name usually applied by the Shire-folk to all their kind. Men called them Halflings and the Elves Periannath. The origin of the word hobbit was by most forgotten. It seems, however, to have been at first a name given to the Harfoots by the Fallohides and Stoors, and to be a worn-down form of a word preserved more fully in Rohan: holbytla 'hole-builder'.

This fascinates me. Some months ago I had a notion that perhaps the Rohirrim and the Hobbits are somehow related, perhaps they have a common ancestor? I was thinking about the similarity between the names Hama and Hamfast, and how the Rohirrim seem to have a store of old legends about Hobbits. So, they once lived in closer proximity, which would explain how they have some shared linguistic features. This again demonstrates the importance of language and how it can retain history and betray origins; but does this also hint towards the origins of Hobbits? After all, they must have been descended from men in some way, mustn't they?