Of the Coming of Men Into the West

[Elvellon]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I'm a bit confused - what exactly is drastic?

To Findegil's question "are suggesting that we should skip all the talk between Felagund and Bëor about the other Atani?" I was saying no, I am not suggesting such a drastic change.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Even in Tolkien's latest musings I find it incredibly unlikely that not one person (in the case of the Houses of Beor and Marach) couldn't understand the speech of the Halethrim (or vice versa).

The most isolated tribes on the planet still have some contact with other tribes - otherwise they'd collapse in an incestuous black hole.

While the Houses of Beor and Marach might've been relatively isolated from the Halethrim (especially in language), I fail to see how they had no contact? Especially in Tolkien's later conception of Men awaking c. 3,000 years before the Exile of the Noldor.

I agree with all of that, but to me those factors have to take lower priority than Tolkien's own last words on the subject.

What we know from Of Dwarves and Men is that the three tribes "differed in speech", and the Folk of Haleth so much so that they "were strangers to the other Atani, speaking an alien language". In The Problem of Ros we find: "The language of the Folk of Haleth, so far as it was later known, appears to have been unrelated (unless in remote origin) and unintelligible to the other two peoples," to the extent that "This was the reason, in addition to their admiration of the Eldar, why the chieftains, elders, and wise men and women of the Atani learned Sindarin."

Even though I think Sil77 made a small mistake by leaving in the line about "awaiting tidings", it's more easily hand-waved there because Christopher didn't include any of the above detail regarding languages. But this project does, so it stands out more to me as not fitting together. Of course there could have been some communication of some kind along the westward march, but as far as evidence for it in the latest texts, there's nothing about the folks of Haleth and Beor communicating. Unless I'm missing something. And when reading strictly the text of DM on its own, there's no reason to conclude that Haleth awaited tidings from (to paraphrase) "strangers who spoke an unintelligible language". They would have done their own reconnaissance, and it seems they did just that, by coming over secretly in small groups.

Anyway, I've spent more time on this one small suggestion than I ever intended, no doubt making it seem like a bigger issue than I actually think it is!