Elves who don't speak Westron - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Kalimac · 10-05-2002, 05:29 PM

I hope this is the right board for this question - putting it here because it doesn't have anything to do with translations or vocabulary, just general stuff. Anyway, I was rereading FOTR (of course!) while taking a break this afternoon, and was thinking about part where the Fellowship enter Lothlorien and Haldir speaks to them in the Common Tongue, and explains that his brothers - along with many of the other Lothlorien Elves - know very little or nothing of that speech. But when you think about it, it's hard to believe that any Elf, with thousands of years to work with, would never during all that time pick up at least a good smattering of Common Speech. Especially since Lothlorien seems to have had more traffic in the earlier, happier days, so presumably most of the Elves there would have learned some form of Common Speech for when they were travelling from Lorien to Rivendell and back, if nothing else.

But what form of Common Speech? Hundreds of generations of Men and Hobbits have been born, lived, and died during the time between Isildur's death and Bilbo finding the Ring. Shouldn't the Common Speech have changed quite a bit during that time? You'd think that whatever version of Common Speech that Isildur spoke would have as little in common with the version that Frodo speaks as Anglo-Saxon has with modern English - in fact, probably less, since three times as much time has passed.

So - and I'm sorry for this huge buildup - how do the Elves keep up with this? Did Haldir's brothers et al actually learn Common Speech, albeit they know the version that was spoken 500 years or so ago and which would be useless to Frodo & Co.? Is Elrond only able to communicate with the Fellowship because he's in constant contact with the outside world and is able to keep up with the linguistic changes? Or does Common Speech just not change that much, and Haldir's brothers etc. just never bothered to learn it even once?

Maybe Tolkien said something about this somewhere, if he did it'd be good to see that. Otherwise - any opinions? Thank you very much for reading this to the end, by the way [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img].

10-05-2002, 05:29 PM	#1
Kalimac Candle of the Marshes Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Flyover Country Posts: 780	Elves who don't speak Westron I hope this is the right board for this question - putting it here because it doesn't have anything to do with translations or vocabulary, just general stuff. Anyway, I was rereading FOTR (of course!) while taking a break this afternoon, and was thinking about part where the Fellowship enter Lothlorien and Haldir speaks to them in the Common Tongue, and explains that his brothers - along with many of the other Lothlorien Elves - know very little or nothing of that speech. But when you think about it, it's hard to believe that any Elf, with thousands of years to work with, would never during all that time pick up at least a good smattering of Common Speech. Especially since Lothlorien seems to have had more traffic in the earlier, happier days, so presumably most of the Elves there would have learned some form of Common Speech for when they were travelling from Lorien to Rivendell and back, if nothing else. But what form of Common Speech? Hundreds of generations of Men and Hobbits have been born, lived, and died during the time between Isildur's death and Bilbo finding the Ring. Shouldn't the Common Speech have changed quite a bit during that time? You'd think that whatever version of Common Speech that Isildur spoke would have as little in common with the version that Frodo speaks as Anglo-Saxon has with modern English - in fact, probably less, since three times as much time has passed. So - and I'm sorry for this huge buildup - how do the Elves keep up with this? Did Haldir's brothers et al actually learn Common Speech, albeit they know the version that was spoken 500 years or so ago and which would be useless to Frodo & Co.? Is Elrond only able to communicate with the Fellowship because he's in constant contact with the outside world and is able to keep up with the linguistic changes? Or does Common Speech just not change that much, and Haldir's brothers etc. just never bothered to learn it even once? Maybe Tolkien said something about this somewhere, if he did it'd be good to see that. Otherwise - any opinions? Thank you very much for reading this to the end, by the way [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]. __________________ Father, dear Father, if you see fit, We'll send my love to college for one year yet Tie blue ribbons all about his head, To let the ladies know that he's married.