COTW: Appendix F.1 The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age
Larry Swain
up with discussion points though, so I have to apologize for that.
The languages of Middle Earth are largely, and not surprisingly,
oriented toward the races who speak them. Interestingly enough, much of
Tolkien's philological background sneaks into the LoTR, but as much as
there is it is surprising that there isn't more.
Tolkien deals first with the language of the Elves. Elvan tongues are
split into 2 main language groups:West and East. The Eastern branch is
not represented and so is not discussed, though many of their folk are
at least alluded to. (One might note similar division in the Germanic
language branch, or in Tolkien's day, Indo-European in general, split
roughly between centum and satum (words for hundred), and most centum
languages were Western and most satum were eastern.)
The Western branch is further split into two branches: Quenya or High
Elven and Sindarin or Grey Elven. The former was the language of those
Elves who crossed the sea and then returned in the First Age as exiles
to fight against Morgoth. This language was the first to be recorded in
writing, Sindarin grew from the common Elvish speech before crossing the
sea and was the language of those who came to the shores of Middle Earth
but did not cross. Over the years the languages changed and grew into
separate languages. When the exiles returned to Middle Earth, they
adopted the language of the more numerous Grey Elves for daily use,
reserving Quenya for tales, poetry, ceremony and the like. Tolkien
makes the analogy that this would be like Latin in the Medieval and
Modern periods, a learned language for high matters.
In the tree below I've used "Proto-Elven" as a descriptor though this is
not what Tolkien calls it.
"Proto-Elven"
|
|
/\
Western Eastern
/ \
/ \
/ \
Quenya Sindarin
There are multiple languages of men mentioned or listed. Most of those
of concern to LoTR are related to Adunaic, the language spoken by the 3
houses of the Edain, the houses of men who aided the elves in their wars
against Morgoth. From this language or its immediate ancestor the
following languages are descended:
Westron--aka. Common Speech. This language developed as originally the
Adunaic of the 3 houses of men. Later, after the establishment of
Numenor, those who returned or who had remained mixed this language with
the languages of those whom they ruled. After the fall of Numenor and
the coming of Elendil the Tall, the language was again influenced by a
dialect close to its root, enriched by the influx of many Elvish words
and names from Sindarin and Quenya. The combination then of Adunaic,
local language, plus the influx of "high" Adunaic prodcued Westron, the
language of Gondor and Arnor that was quickly adopted by the peoples
whom they ruled either as a first language or a second.
Most of the humans dwelling in Middle Earth were related or descended
from the Edain and so the languages they spoke were closely related to
Adunaic. The Beornings, the peoples of the upper Anduin, and the
Woodmen of Western Mirkwood, and the people of Dale and the Long Lake.
The people of Rohan, the Eorlingas, were like these: related to the 3
houses, they spoke a language related to Adunaic. After coming south to
occupy Rohan, they still spoke their native tongue among themselves, but
the lords at least of the Rohirrim also spoke Westron and used the
dialect of Gondor and her lords to do so. I've used "proto-mannish" to
describe the root language.
---------------------------------------------------------------------Proto-Mannish---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
|
Druadan
/\
Dunlendish(?)
Adunaic
/ | \
| / | \
| | | \
| Rohirric | \
| | \
Westron | \
Beorning
Dale/Long Lake
Other languages among men unrelated to these people are also mentioned
in LoTR. The Dunlanders spoke a language unrelated to Adunaic, or at
least distantly related. The men, or rather their spirits, who had
lived around Dunharrow were related as were the men of Bree. The latter
had in the Third Age adopted Westron when ruled by the North Kingdom
Arnor.
From a completely different language family comes the language of the
Druadan. Few words are preserved in writing.
Hobbits are more closely related to men than to other races, a "branch"
of the same tree as Tolkien says in a letter. Whatever their original
language was, they soon adopted whatever human languages they lived
near. Once west of the Misty Mtns they quickly adopted Westron, and by
the time they had reached Bree they had already begun to forget their
native language. From the names and few words which survive, their
native tongue seems to have related to the languages of the upper Anduin
and so akin to Rohirric and that branch of the language.
Ents
The Ents had their own peculiar language. It seems to have been slow,
sonorous, repetitive, and agglomerated, with heavy use of vowels of
which their were multiple shades of, and distinctions in tones, quality.
Only the hobbits attempted to preserve something of it in writing.
The Ents however were able to quickly learn the languages of the other
peoples of Middle Earth. Their own language no one could learn, but
they did use the common speech when dealing with their non-entish
neighbors.
Orcs-Orcs did not have a single language. They took of what they could
from other languages and adapted these to their own uses. As a result
breeds, and even villages of orcs, couldn't speak to another unless they
used Westron.
Black Speech-this is a language of Sauron's devising meant to be the
language of those who served him. At the end of the Second Age it all
but died, only to be revived by Sauron when the tower again was lifted up.
Trolls--few trolls could speak much or well. Sauron made us of them and
gave them some knowledge of the Black Speech.
Dwarves had their own language but they kept this secret. After the
Great Worms destroyed many of their mansions they wandered and they used
the langauges of men among whom they dwelled and worked. And so their
language become one of lore rather than common speech and they kept it
close as an heirloom of the past.
Discussion Points:
1) Tolkien mentions that the Dunlenders were to some degree replaced by
the Rohirrim, whom they called Strawheads. The Dunlenders are called
"Dun..." because they were "swarthy and dark haired." "Dun" in English
is a borrowed Celtic word meaning dark (swarthy also means dark) as in
Dunharrow--dark hill, dun raven---black raven, etc. In real history
Celts were often called "dark" because of the higher proportion of dark
haired people in contrast to the blonder Anglo-Saxons. So is the
relationship and even the words between the Rohirrim and the Dunlenders
meant to suggest to us readers something about the distant past of
England? If so, what impact does this have on the debate about a
"mythology for England" discussion?
2) It is well known that it was Tolkien's invented languages that fueled
his imagination. If so, why not more language or philological jokes in
the story? Why not more dwarvish (Kudzul) for example.
3) Why is the North so unpopulated so long after the fall of the North
Kingdom?
4) Languages change. How is it that the hobbits and Breelanders who
have long been sundered from other men still speak a form of Westron
perfectly understandable to a man of Gondor. Considering that other
languages change in Tolkien's world, why not this one?
5) What is your take on the langauges? Do you appreciate them in the
book, or better left out? Do they enhance the story?
John W. Kennedy
> 4) Languages change. How is it that the hobbits and Breelanders who
> have long been sundered from other men still speak a form of Westron
> perfectly understandable to a man of Gondor. Considering that other
> languages change in Tolkien's world, why not this one?
Both kingdoms are still long-lived at the social apex, and culturally
conservative; and I imagine that, until a generation or so before the
War of the Ring, that there was more trade along the Greenway than we
see in the books.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Information is light. Information, in itself, about anything, is light."
-- Tom Stoppard. "Night and Day"
Belba Grubb From Stock
<snip excellent summary and discussion>
> 5) What is your take on the langauges? Do you appreciate them in the
> book, or better left out? Do they enhance the story?
Larry, I don't know why Google didn't pull up this post -- sorry about
that! Well, maybe my post will be a good supplement, bringing in the
primary world JRRT was working in. My take on the languages as
mentioned is that they are difficult to get into but valuable -- the
whole root of the secondary world is in them. I think they do enhance
the story quite a bit, even for a non-linguist.
Barb
Larry Swain
John W. Kennedy wrote:
> Larry Swain wrote:
>
>> 4) Languages change. How is it that the hobbits and Breelanders who
>> have long been sundered from other men still speak a form of Westron
>> perfectly understandable to a man of Gondor. Considering that other
>> languages change in Tolkien's world, why not this one?
>
>
> Both kingdoms are still long-lived at the social apex, and culturally
> conservative; and I imagine that, until a generation or so before the
> War of the Ring, that there was more trade along the Greenway than we
> see in the books.
But the North Kingdom has been gone a LONG LONG LONG time by this point,
more than a couple of generations.
the softrat
Let's send some Norwegian five year olds out to *find* it!!
the softrat
Sometimes I get so tired of the taste of my own toes.
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
If I don't blow my horn, who will? It's got my spit on it.
Larry Swain
the softrat wrote:
> On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 00:08:43 -0500, Larry Swain
> <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>John W. Kennedy wrote:
>>
>>>Larry Swain wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>4) Languages change. How is it that the hobbits and Breelanders who
>>>>have long been sundered from other men still speak a form of Westron
>>>>perfectly understandable to a man of Gondor. Considering that other
>>>>languages change in Tolkien's world, why not this one?
>>>
>>>
>>>Both kingdoms are still long-lived at the social apex, and culturally
>>>conservative; and I imagine that, until a generation or so before the
>>>War of the Ring, that there was more trade along the Greenway than we
>>>see in the books.
>>
>>But the North Kingdom has been gone a LONG LONG LONG time by this point,
>>more than a couple of generations.
>
>
> Let's send some Norwegian five year olds out to *find* it!!
>
Hee hee! I've misplaced the URL at the moment, but there was a report I
sent to another list ratty and I are on about some 5 year olds who found
some Viking age artifacts that they played with like they were toys
until the parents finally looked a little closer. Maybe they could help
Arnor!
Count Menelvagor
and there were large swaths of territory between the shire and gondor,
much of which was uninhabited. furthermore, tolkien says that hobbits
spoke a rustic dialect, which, given the nature of rustic dialects,
would itself have been highly fragmented. the similaritiy between
hobbitish and the speech of gondor is thus extreemly unlikely, unless
the hobbits had a strong tradition of a standardised written language
-- but i know of noe evidence that they did.
Emma Pease
It is mentioned that literate hobbits tended to write large numbers of
letters. Three of the four hobbits came from wealthy families that
did have a tradition of literacy and it seems that both the Tooks and
the Brandybucks had extensive libraries. My guess is that Frodo
definitely and probably Merry and Pippin could language switch between
the local dialect and a more formal dialect that was understandable to
the people in Gondor.
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
John W. Kennedy
As an effective state, yes. It still exists as a de-facto nation (else
were the original question pointless).
--
John W. Kennedy
"I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of
ignorant people is too dangerous to live in."
-- Garson Kanin. "Born Yesterday"
John W. Kennedy
They also had an intense interest in history and genealogy.
--
John W. Kennedy
A proud member of the reality-based community.
Larry Swain
Written language and spoken language are not the same. What one reads
and what one speaks are not the same. FOr example, all of us can read
Shakespeare and probably have read Shakespeare, but this doesn't mean
that we speak in pentameters or pepper our speech (much less our writing
in NGs!) with "thee, thou" and other charactertistic forms, phrases, and
words current in the Shakespearean corpus. By analogy then, we
shouldn't expect the hobbits to be any different, we would in fact
expect their language, and that of the Breelanders, to differentiate
itself overtime from the languages in the south...in fact if we look at
Tolkien's own discussion of the languages of the immortal elves and of
other men we find just this phenomenon at work. But not here with the
hobbits.
Larry Swain
John W. Kennedy wrote:
> Larry Swain wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> John W. Kennedy wrote:
>>
>>> Larry Swain wrote:
>>>
>>>> 4) Languages change. How is it that the hobbits and Breelanders who
>>>> have long been sundered from other men still speak a form of Westron
>>>> perfectly understandable to a man of Gondor. Considering that other
>>>> languages change in Tolkien's world, why not this one?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Both kingdoms are still long-lived at the social apex, and culturally
>>> conservative; and I imagine that, until a generation or so before the
>>> War of the Ring, that there was more trade along the Greenway than we
>>> see in the books.
>>
>>
>>
>> But the North Kingdom has been gone a LONG LONG LONG time by this
>> point, more than a couple of generations.
>
>
> As an effective state, yes. It still exists as a de-facto nation (else
> were the original question pointless).
>
A "de facto" nation? I'm afraid I don't follow what you mean here.
John W. Kennedy
There are people there, and local government, a general sense (even, in
Bree, between Men and Hobbits) of being a single people, and, for a
large part of the last 1,000 years, peace.
--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"
the softrat
<thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>>
>A "de facto" nation? I'm afraid I don't follow what you mean here.
He mean he don' unnerstan' "de factos".
the softrat
Sometimes I get so tired of the taste of my own toes.
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Never trust a pitbull named Fluffy.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>Written language and spoken language are not the same. What one reads
>and what one speaks are not the same. FOr example, all of us can read
>Shakespeare and probably have read Shakespeare, but this doesn't mean
>that we speak in pentameters or pepper our speech (much less our writing
>in NGs!) with "thee, thou" and other charactertistic forms, phrases, and
>words current in the Shakespearean corpus. By analogy then, we
>shouldn't expect the hobbits to be any different, we would in fact
>expect their language, and that of the Breelanders, to differentiate
>itself overtime from the languages in the south...in fact if we look at
>Tolkien's own discussion of the languages of the immortal elves and of
>other men we find just this phenomenon at work. But not here with the
>hobbits.
But Hobbitish speech *had* drifted; it just hadn't moved far enough to
become a separate language rather than a dialect. Factors involved:
Hobbits generations are longer than (non-Numenorean) Big Folk
generations, Hobbits are quite conservative by nature, Hobbits tend to
speak like the local Big Folk, who were small rural populations, whose
language tends to change more slowly, and those other peoples they would
occasionally meet -- Dwarves, Elves, Gandalf -- lived even longer and
would have even slower rates of change. Still, ultimately it comes down
to the needs of the narrative, though. The primary world provides the
*reason* Hobbits and Men and Orcs and Elves (mostly) speak one language
-- except for Frodo, the Hobbits would be linguistically isolated if
they didn't and having your viewpoint characters unable to follow the
dialog doesn't work very well. The secondary world of Middle-Earth only
provides justifications for this fact, and if you don't accept the
justifications given, there isn't much that can be done about it, except
maybe to fall back on blaming it on the Elven Rings and their purpose of
conserving things unchanged.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Belba Grubb From Stock
> On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 12:58:37 -0500, Larry Swain
> <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>
>>A "de facto" nation? I'm afraid I don't follow what you mean here.
>
>
> He mean he don' unnerstan' "de factos".
>
It mean sump'in lak dis 'ear:
Afterward in the peace that followed the Shire-folk ruled
themselves and prospered. They chose a Thain to take the place of
the King, and were content; though for a long time many still
looked for the return of the King. But at last that hope was
forgotten, and remained only in the saying /When the King comes
back,/ used of some good that could not be achieved, or of some
evil that could not be amended.
De jure, OTOH, acquitted OJ Simpson, much to the surprise of the rest of
the civilized world...or sump'in lak dat dere.
Barb
Larry Swain
> Larry Swain wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> John W. Kennedy wrote:
>>
>>> Larry Swain wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> John W. Kennedy wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Larry Swain wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 4) Languages change. How is it that the hobbits and Breelanders
>>>>>> who have long been sundered from other men still speak a form of
>>>>>> Westron perfectly understandable to a man of Gondor. Considering
>>>>>> that other languages change in Tolkien's world, why not this one?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Both kingdoms are still long-lived at the social apex, and
>>>>> culturally conservative; and I imagine that, until a generation or
>>>>> so before the War of the Ring, that there was more trade along the
>>>>> Greenway than we see in the books.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But the North Kingdom has been gone a LONG LONG LONG time by this
>>>> point, more than a couple of generations.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As an effective state, yes. It still exists as a de-facto nation
>>> (else were the original question pointless).
>>>
>> A "de facto" nation? I'm afraid I don't follow what you mean here.
>
>
> There are people there, and local government, a general sense (even, in
> Bree, between Men and Hobbits) of being a single people, and, for a
> large part of the last 1,000 years, peace.
Ah, thanks, but that is precisely what I mean. No matter that the Shire
and Bree (and the other hamlets in the neighborhood) have a certain
understanding of themselves as a "unit", the fact is that other than the
occasional ranger or dwarf passing through Bree and staying at the Inn,
they've no contact with other Westron speakers and there is no
government imposing a language from the top. So over the 1000+
(1974-3018 TA) year period we'd expect some significant if not total
differentiation in Breelandish and Shirespeak (to coin terms for these
dialects of Westron) and the varieties of Westron and spoken by Rohan
and Gondor as we do see similar differentiation between elven languages
and other languages of men sundered for less time and over less distance.
Larry Swain
Emma Pease
> Ah, thanks, but that is precisely what I mean. No matter that the Shire
> and Bree (and the other hamlets in the neighborhood) have a certain
> understanding of themselves as a "unit", the fact is that other than the
> occasional ranger or dwarf passing through Bree and staying at the Inn,
> they've no contact with other Westron speakers and there is no
> government imposing a language from the top. So over the 1000+
> (1974-3018 TA) year period we'd expect some significant if not total
> differentiation in Breelandish and Shirespeak (to coin terms for these
> dialects of Westron) and the varieties of Westron and spoken by Rohan
> and Gondor as we do see similar differentiation between elven languages
> and other languages of men sundered for less time and over less distance.
The Westron speaking dwarves seem to have been fairly common visitors
not only in Bree but also along the main road through the Shire.
Also we have the Westron spoken by the men east of the Misty Mountains
(Dale, Long Lake, Beornings) though how much interaction there was
seems debatable.
Where was Westron spoken?
Gondor - Westron most common birth tongue (some still seem to learn
Sindarin but probably bilingually with Westron).
Rohan - Westron almost always learned as a second language
Dale/Long Lake - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
Beornings - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
Breeland - Westron
Shire - Westron
Tharbad - Westron
Dunedain in Eriador - Sindarin but Westron as a second tongue.
Other dwellings of men in Eriador (e.g., along the coasts or in
isolated valleys). Just because we aren't told about them
doesn't mean they don't exist (it would be interesting to know
how Boromir did his journey to Rivendell, how often did he
have to hunt, how often could he buy supplies after leaving
Rohan).
Dwarves (Blue Mountains, Lonely Mountain, Iron Hills) - Westron to outsiders
Easterlings - A separate language
Haradrim - A separate language (or did they speak Westron?)
Larry Swain
> In article <Ms6dncQV_eK...@rcn.net>, Larry Swain wrote:
>
>
>
>>Ah, thanks, but that is precisely what I mean. No matter that the Shire
>>and Bree (and the other hamlets in the neighborhood) have a certain
>>understanding of themselves as a "unit", the fact is that other than the
>>occasional ranger or dwarf passing through Bree and staying at the Inn,
>>they've no contact with other Westron speakers and there is no
>>government imposing a language from the top. So over the 1000+
>>(1974-3018 TA) year period we'd expect some significant if not total
>>differentiation in Breelandish and Shirespeak (to coin terms for these
>>dialects of Westron) and the varieties of Westron and spoken by Rohan
>>and Gondor as we do see similar differentiation between elven languages
>>and other languages of men sundered for less time and over less distance.
>
>
> The Westron speaking dwarves seem to have been fairly common visitors
> not only in Bree but also along the main road through the Shire.
They went through the Shire frequently, but even saying they stopped
over at an inn frequently, how many hobbits are they going to be talking
to and influencing? Even under the best conditions, a roomful at most,
hardly enough to keep the language of the Shire stable over a 1000 year
period.
> Also we have the Westron spoken by the men east of the Misty Mountains
> (Dale, Long Lake, Beornings) though how much interaction there was
> seems debatable.
a) other than Bilbo there was no direct contact between these peoples
and the Shire/Bree except via dwarvish traffic, for which see above.
b) these men spoke Westron only as a second language, if at all, their
native tongues related to, but not the same as Andunaic, the ancestor of
Westron.
> Where was Westron spoken?
>
> Gondor - Westron most common birth tongue (some still seem to learn
> Sindarin but probably bilingually with Westron).
Yes, according to Tolkien Westron was their "birth" language, Sindarin
and Quenya were learned languages, and both learned only by a few.
> Rohan - Westron almost always learned as a second language
Tolkien mentions specifically the nobles, not the people as a whole.
>
> Dale/Long Lake - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
Not according to Tolkien's own explicit statement to the contrary in the
appendix
> Beornings - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
see above.
>
> Breeland - Westron
Yes, and hence the question I asked.
> Shire - Westron
see above
> Tharbad - Westron
Once under Gondor's control, so yes.
> Dunedain in Eriador - Sindarin but Westron as a second tongue.
Where do you get this? That they spoke both, particularly in the days
after the fall of the NOrth Kingdom when their very survival depended on
Elrond and his people, but that Sindarin was their birth tongue? Evidence?
> Other dwellings of men in Eriador (e.g., along the coasts or in
> isolated valleys). Just because we aren't told about them
> doesn't mean they don't exist (it would be interesting to know
> how Boromir did his journey to Rivendell, how often did he
> have to hunt, how often could he buy supplies after leaving
> Rohan).
Argument from silence. As for Boromir's trip, considering the
Fellowship on foot makes the journey in the winter to Lorien in 3 weeks
or so, Boromir didn't have that much of a problem on horseback. Granted
he had to search for Rivendell and said he had been many weeks on the
road, but he could hunt, there was water in the snow, creeks, and
rivers, and apparently traffic on the Greenway. I don't think we need
posit large population centers or even villages in the North other than
where Tolkien has indicated them.
>
> Dwarves (Blue Mountains, Lonely Mountain, Iron Hills) - Westron to outsiders
As noted in the summary.
Kevin
> Emma Pease wrote:
>> In article <Ms6dncQV_eK...@rcn.net>, Larry Swain wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Ah, thanks, but that is precisely what I mean. No matter that the Shire
>>>and Bree (and the other hamlets in the neighborhood) have a certain
>>>understanding of themselves as a "unit", the fact is that other than the
>>>occasional ranger or dwarf passing through Bree and staying at the Inn,
>>>they've no contact with other Westron speakers and there is no
>>>government imposing a language from the top. So over the 1000+
>>>(1974-3018 TA) year period we'd expect some significant if not total
>>>differentiation in Breelandish and Shirespeak (to coin terms for these
>>>dialects of Westron) and the varieties of Westron and spoken by Rohan
>>>and Gondor as we do see similar differentiation between elven languages
>>>and other languages of men sundered for less time and over less distance.
I think there _was_ significant differentiation, just not total
differentiation. Hobbits and the Men of Gondor could understand each other,
but I think it's pretty clear that there were significant differences in their
accent, sentence structure, etc. For example, hobbits didn't use the formal
form of "you," while the Men of Gondor did.
I imagine that the differentiation was somewhat slowed from what we
might expect simply because both hobbits and Men of Gondor were longer-lived
than we are. I figure that the linguistic differentiation was about what we
might expect after 500 or 600 years of isolation, rather than 1000.
> They went through the Shire frequently, but even saying they stopped
> over at an inn frequently, how many hobbits are they going to be talking
> to and influencing? Even under the best conditions, a roomful at most,
> hardly enough to keep the language of the Shire stable over a 1000 year
> period.
I agree that Dwarves and Rangers probably weren't a major linguistic
influence on hobbits.
>> Other dwellings of men in Eriador (e.g., along the coasts or in
>> isolated valleys). Just because we aren't told about them
>> doesn't mean they don't exist (it would be interesting to know
>> how Boromir did his journey to Rivendell, how often did he
>> have to hunt, how often could he buy supplies after leaving
>> Rohan).
In Unfinished Tales, Tolkien mentions that there were numerous fisher-folk
living on the coast of Eriador. As for what language they spoke, I have
no idea.
Kevin
the softrat
<thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
<snipped -- for clarity>
Larry, Larry, Larry, Larry -----
When *will* you learn??
The hobbits were such boring, stick-in-the-mud people that they didn't
change their language: that would have been too much like work.
PS: They didn't *do* neologisms, either.
HTH!
Yr feind,
the softrat
Sometimes I get so tired of the taste of my own toes.
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Turn on, tune in, drop out. Do not attempt while in an aeroplane.
ojevin...@bredband.net
>Other dwellings of men in Eriador (e.g., along the coasts or in
isolated valleys). Just because we aren't told about them
doesn't mean they don't exist (it would be interesting to know
how Boromir did his journey to Rivendell, how often did he
have to hunt, how often could he buy supplies after leaving Rohan).
I agree. For example, in UT (I think) there is a mention of a forested
cape called Eryn Vorn south of the outlet of the Brandywine. It was
inhabited by people who had lived there since before the Númenoreans
began to visit Middle-earth. However, we are told that they isolated
themselves and were unfriendly to the Númenoreans because of all the
forests the Númenoreans cut down to build ships, so they very likely
spoke another tongue than Westron.
We are also told that the variety of Westron spoken by Hobbits was
regarded as very rustic by the people of Gondor. Still, I agree with
those who say that the difference should be much bigger than he one
depicted. Something like the diference between English and Dutch.
Finally, there are statements of people both in Minas Tirith and
among those whose families had fled from Ithilien speaking Sindarin
with each other in everyday contexts, so it does seem Sindarin had
survived as a first language among a minority of the people of Gondor.
To everybody: please don't snip the followup to alt.fan.tolkien.
Öjevind
Count Menelvagor
ojevin...@bredband.net wrote:
> We are also told that the variety of Westron spoken by Hobbits was
> regarded as very rustic by the people of Gondor. Still, I agree with
> those who say that the difference should be much bigger than he one
> depicted. Something like the diference between English and Dutch.
> Finally, there are statements of people both in Minas Tirith and
> among those whose families had fled from Ithilien speaking Sindarin
> with each other in everyday contexts, so it does seem Sindarin had
> survived as a first language among a minority of the people of Gondor.
i guess sindarin was used as french used to be (and now english is):
for snob appeal (or éclath).
Emma Pease
> Emma Pease wrote:
>> Where was Westron spoken?
>>
>> Gondor - Westron most common birth tongue (some still seem to learn
>> Sindarin but probably bilingually with Westron).
>
> Yes, according to Tolkien Westron was their "birth" language, Sindarin
> and Quenya were learned languages, and both learned only by a few.
Except Sindarin was used in daily conversation by some in Minas Tirith
(note Pippin heard people using it to call others to come see the
ernil ...). Sam also heard some of the rangers using it if I recall
correctly.
My own speculation is that in Numenor most of the inhabitants used
proto-Westron as a birth tongue; however, some among those in the
western area who were most friendly to the elves used Sindarin as a
birth tongue. Among those who escaped Numenor the majority were of
the Sindarin speaking group as were some of the earlier immigrants
though the majority in what was to become Arnor and Gondor were
Westron speakers. Some families continued to use Sindarin in daily
talk.
Also I think Sindarin was still known by most of the Dunedain even at
the time of the War of the Ring.
>> Rohan - Westron almost always learned as a second language
>
> Tolkien mentions specifically the nobles, not the people as a whole.
Not clear in my meaning. I meant that few if none learned it as a
birth tongue (or even bilingually as babies, Theoden would be an
exception as he was born in Gondor).
>> Dale/Long Lake - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
>
> Not according to Tolkien's own explicit statement to the contrary in the
> appendix
But they certainly knew Westron as Bilbo had no trouble understanding
them.
>> Beornings - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
>
> see above.
>>
>> Breeland - Westron
>
> Yes, and hence the question I asked.
>
>> Shire - Westron
>
> see above
>
>> Tharbad - Westron
>
> Once under Gondor's control, so yes.
>
>> Dunedain in Eriador - Sindarin but Westron as a second tongue.
>
> Where do you get this? That they spoke both, particularly in the days
> after the fall of the NOrth Kingdom when their very survival depended on
> Elrond and his people, but that Sindarin was their birth tongue? Evidence?
Well for people like Aragorn who was raised in Rivendell, almost
certainly as a birth tongue.
>> Other dwellings of men in Eriador (e.g., along the coasts or in
>> isolated valleys). Just because we aren't told about them
>> doesn't mean they don't exist (it would be interesting to know
>> how Boromir did his journey to Rivendell, how often did he
>> have to hunt, how often could he buy supplies after leaving
>> Rohan).
>
> Argument from silence. As for Boromir's trip, considering the
> Fellowship on foot makes the journey in the winter to Lorien in 3 weeks
> or so, Boromir didn't have that much of a problem on horseback. Granted
> he had to search for Rivendell and said he had been many weeks on the
> road, but he could hunt, there was water in the snow, creeks, and
> rivers, and apparently traffic on the Greenway. I don't think we need
> posit large population centers or even villages in the North other than
> where Tolkien has indicated them.
Boromir lost his horse at Tharbad. Also did Boromir follow the road
or did he cut cross country after Tharbad.
>> Dwarves (Blue Mountains, Lonely Mountain, Iron Hills) - Westron to outsiders
>
> As noted in the summary.
Prai Jei
<1126215073.1...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>:
Quite likely. It does have that certain je ne sais quoi about it :)
--
There are very few spiders found on bananas that bite.
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Larry Swain
> In article <qrGdnfUNm76...@rcn.net>, Larry Swain wrote:
>
>>Emma Pease wrote:
>
>
>>>Where was Westron spoken?
>>>
>>>Gondor - Westron most common birth tongue (some still seem to learn
>>>Sindarin but probably bilingually with Westron).
>>
>>Yes, according to Tolkien Westron was their "birth" language, Sindarin
>>and Quenya were learned languages, and both learned only by a few.
>
>
> Except Sindarin was used in daily conversation by some in Minas Tirith
> (note Pippin heard people using it to call others to come see the
> ernil ...). Sam also heard some of the rangers using it if I recall
> correctly.
I think you jump to conclusions. The use of a Sindarin phrase in the
presence of Pippin taken to be a lordling is hardly evidence that a)
Sindarin was a "birth language" or that it was used in daily
conversation. The most that can be said is that "many" used it to draw
attention to Peregrin who was walking down the street: a special use.
>
> My own speculation is that in Numenor most of the inhabitants used
> proto-Westron as a birth tongue;
Adunaic.
however, some among those in the
> western area who were most friendly to the elves used Sindarin as a
> birth tongue.
"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.
BUT THE NATIVE SPEECH OF THE NUMENOREANS REMAINED FOR THE MOST PART
THEIR ANCESTRAL MANNISH TONGUE, THE ADUNAIC, AND TO THIS IN THE LATTER
DAYS OF THEIR PRIDE THEIR KINGS AND LORDS RETURNED, ABADNONDING THE
ELVEN SPEECH, SAVE ONLY THOSE FEW THAT HELD STILL TO THEIR ANCIENT
FRIENDSHIP WITH THE ELDAR..." Tolkien, Appendix F, OF Men.
I. E. The "birth" language of the Numenoreans was Adunaic, they learned
Sindarin, and a few learned Quenya. In the latter years, most rejected
things and languages Elven, the Faithful continued to preserve it AS A
MATTER OF LORE, but their birth language was Adunaic.
Among those who escaped Numenor the majority were of
> the Sindarin speaking group as were some of the earlier immigrants
> though the majority in what was to become Arnor and Gondor were
> Westron speakers. Some families continued to use Sindarin in daily
> talk.
>
> Also I think Sindarin was still known by most of the Dunedain even at
> the time of the War of the Ring.
Being known and being one's first language are two different things.
>
>>>Dale/Long Lake - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
>>
>>Not according to Tolkien's own explicit statement to the contrary in the
>>appendix
>
>
> But they certainly knew Westron as Bilbo had no trouble understanding
> them.
Their knowledge of the language isn't in question, it was the claim that
this was their birth tongue. It wasn't.
>
>>>Beornings - Westron seems to have been the birth tongue
>>
>>see above.
>>
>>>Breeland - Westron
>>
>>Yes, and hence the question I asked.
>>
>>
>>>Shire - Westron
>>
>>see above
>>
>>
>>>Tharbad - Westron
>>
>>Once under Gondor's control, so yes.
>>
>>
>>>Dunedain in Eriador - Sindarin but Westron as a second tongue.
>>
>>Where do you get this? That they spoke both, particularly in the days
>>after the fall of the NOrth Kingdom when their very survival depended on
>>Elrond and his people, but that Sindarin was their birth tongue? Evidence?
>
>
> Well for people like Aragorn who was raised in Rivendell, almost
> certainly as a birth tongue.
How do you figure? Do not Elendil and his people know Westron? Do not
a number of them speak it fluently? That Aragorn knew and spoke
Sindarin I think a given, that it was his "birth" language simply
because he was born in Rivendell goes against the evidence.
>
>>>Other dwellings of men in Eriador (e.g., along the coasts or in
>>> isolated valleys). Just because we aren't told about them
>>> doesn't mean they don't exist (it would be interesting to know
>>> how Boromir did his journey to Rivendell, how often did he
>>> have to hunt, how often could he buy supplies after leaving
>>> Rohan).
>>
>>Argument from silence. As for Boromir's trip, considering the
>>Fellowship on foot makes the journey in the winter to Lorien in 3 weeks
>>or so, Boromir didn't have that much of a problem on horseback. Granted
>>he had to search for Rivendell and said he had been many weeks on the
>>road, but he could hunt, there was water in the snow, creeks, and
>>rivers, and apparently traffic on the Greenway. I don't think we need
>>posit large population centers or even villages in the North other than
>>where Tolkien has indicated them.
>
>
> Boromir lost his horse at Tharbad. Also did Boromir follow the road
> or did he cut cross country after Tharbad.
Unknown, we're not given a lot of info about Boromir's journey. We are
told that Tharbad is a deserted and dead town, so no supplies there.
And no supplies from Dunlenders who hated Gondor almost as much as they
did Rohan. So that leaves Boromir two choices: to follow the Greenway
and so come eventually to Bree or to follow the river toward Rivendell.
Much depends on how much Boromir knew (he doesn't give details) about
the general locale of Rivendell (unknown) and what supplies he had at
Tharbad after losing his horse (also unknown). So again, I don't think
we need look for large towns or even hamlets along Boromir's route in
the North.
Troels Forchhammer
Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> enriched us with:
> Emma Pease wrote:
>>
>> In article <qrGdnfUNm76...@rcn.net>, Larry Swain wrote:
>>>
>>> Emma Pease wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Where was Westron spoken?
>>>>
>>>> Gondor - Westron most common birth tongue (some still seem to
>>>> learn Sindarin but probably bilingually with Westron).
>>>
>>> Yes, according to Tolkien Westron was their "birth" language,
>>> Sindarin and Quenya were learned languages, and both learned only
>>> by a few.
>>
>> Except Sindarin was used in daily conversation by some in Minas
>> Tirith (note Pippin heard people using it to call others to come
>> see the ernil ...). Sam also heard some of the rangers using it
>> if I recall correctly.
>
> I think you jump to conclusions. The use of a Sindarin phrase in
> the presence of Pippin taken to be a lordling is hardly evidence
> that a) Sindarin was a "birth language" or that it was used in
> daily conversation.
I was drawn to the conversation between Mablung and Damrod when
guarding Frodo and Sam:
They spoke together in soft voices, at first using the
Common Speech, but after the manner of older days, and
then changing to another language of their own. To his
amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it
was the Elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little
different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he
knew then that they must be Dúnedain of the South, men
of the line of the Lords of Westernesse.
[LotR IV,4 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit']
Would Frodo have mistaken ancient Adûnaic for 'the Elven-tongue'? It
seems to me more likely that they were speaking Sindarin in an older
form ('this they handed on to their children as a matter of lore,
changing little with the passing of the years.'), which would show
that they at least were familiar enough with it to converse in it
when they would (alike, I suspect, to the way many Danish parents
will speak together in English when they don't want the kids to
understand).
<snip>
> I. E. The "birth" language of the Numenoreans was Adunaic, they
> learned Sindarin, and a few learned Quenya. In the latter years,
> most rejected things and languages Elven, the Faithful continued
> to preserve it AS A MATTER OF LORE, but their birth language was
> Adunaic.
Certainly -- Adûnaic was always the native speech of the Númenoreans
and their Dúnedain descendants. My impression is that Sindarin, in
Minas Tirith at the time of the War, held a position similar to that
which English now holds in many countries where it is not the native
speech -- nearly all people learn it, and most people know enough for
at least simple conversations (albeit speaking it haltingly and
horribly mangled <G>), and a few are really proficient with it. Of
course this was declining for Sindarin in Gondor whereas the position
of English is strengthening these years.
The statement about the Dúnedain teaching Sindarin to their children
as a matter of lore would still, IMO, hold for the Dúnedain of Gondor
and Anor, though these had become a minority of the population in
both places. The Dúnedain were the upper class in Gondor and like the
upper class in Europe a century or so ago put great store in knowing
Latin or Greek, so did the Dúnedain, IMO, put great store in knowing
Sindarin.
<snip>
>> Also I think Sindarin was still known by most of the Dunedain
>> even at the time of the War of the Ring.
>
> Being known and being one's first language are two different
> things.
Very much, believe me ;-)
<snip>
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to
pray to.
- /Small Gods/ (Terry Pratchett)
ojevin...@bredband.net
>Emma pease wrote:
>> Except Sindarin was used in daily conversation by some in Minas Tirith
>> (note Pippin heard people using it to call others to come see the
>> ernil ...). Sam also heard some of the rangers using it if I recall
>> correctly.
>I think you jump to conclusions. The use of a Sindarin phrase in the
presence of Pippin taken to be a lordling is hardly evidence that a)
Sindarin was a "birth language" or that it was used in daily
conversation. The most that can be said is that "many" used it to draw
attention to Peregrin who was walking down the street: a special use.
I agree with Emma. If people in the street call to each other in
Sindarin to come and see the "Prince of the halflings", that surely
indicates use of that language in everyday speech. By a minority of
Gondorians, granted, but even so. Don't forget that the Anglo-Normans
genuinely spoke French as their native tongue for generations, even
though they lived among a majority of people whose mother tongue was
English.
Öjevind
Larry Swain
Hi Troels, good to hear from you! I had forgotten about this
conversation. Even so, though, I would say a few things about what it
means to our conversation:
1) it is war time, Sindarin could be being used as a kind of code
language (orcs and Southrons and Haradrim would not understand it;
Sauron, Black Numenoreans, and the 9 would, but I don't think Faramir's
men expect to encounter such in their own encampment).
2) We again have noblemen, not your average run of the mill sort. That
noblemen knew Sindarin and used it was not disputed.
So again, even this conversation and its context does not show a) that
Sindarin was a birth language or b) that it was used in "every day
speech" since the context here is obviously to keep prying ears of
non-Gondorans (Frodo and Sam) from hearing their conversation.
>>I. E. The "birth" language of the Numenoreans was Adunaic, they
>>learned Sindarin, and a few learned Quenya. In the latter years,
>>most rejected things and languages Elven, the Faithful continued
>>to preserve it AS A MATTER OF LORE, but their birth language was
>>Adunaic.
>
>
> Certainly -- Adûnaic was always the native speech of the Númenoreans
> and their Dúnedain descendants. My impression is that Sindarin, in
> Minas Tirith at the time of the War, held a position similar to that
> which English now holds in many countries where it is not the native
> speech -- nearly all people learn it, and most people know enough for
> at least simple conversations (albeit speaking it haltingly and
> horribly mangled <G>), and a few are really proficient with it. Of
> course this was declining for Sindarin in Gondor whereas the position
> of English is strengthening these years.
I think this is the right direction, but overstated. The closer one's
family is to the royal and Steward lines, and the purer one's ancestry
the more likely one would be to know Sindarin well enough to speak. The
further away the less likely.
> The statement about the Dúnedain teaching Sindarin to their children
> as a matter of lore would still, IMO, hold for the Dúnedain of Gondor
> and Anor, though these had become a minority of the population in
> both places.
Agreed, but Emma lacked this specificity in her claim.
The Dúnedain were the upper class in Gondor and like the
> upper class in Europe a century or so ago put great store in knowing
> Latin or Greek, so did the Dúnedain, IMO, put great store in knowing
> Sindarin.
Would agree, and like the upper classes of Europe a century ago,
conversations could be held in those languages (just look at Tolkien as
a wee lad composing debating club speeches in Latin, Greek, and
Gothic!), nonetheless, these languages were not used for daily speech
anymore than they were birth languages for the European nobility.
Always good to have you show me the error of my ways, Troels!
Larry
Larry Swain
So people in a public building asking about "habeas corpus" or in a bar
a chap says "cogito ergo sum" and this indicates that they know Latin
and can speak it in everyday usage? How about people who say "je ne
sais qua"--all of those folk fluent in French? The presence of Ernil i
Pherianath (lit. prince of the halflings) takes 2 people to et the ball
rolling, one to say it and one to repeat it, before being taken up by
"many"--again, not strong evidence of Sindarin as "everyday speech",
only a general familiarity of it among a minority.
The analogy of the Anglo-Normans and Anglo-French doesn't quite work
here. Sindarin was NEVER the birth or native language of the
Numenoreans whether we're speaking of the First Age, the Second, or the
Third. It was always a learned language. Unlike French, which was the
native language of the Anglo-Normans, and until the 14th century was not
a learned language for them. When it became a learned language, they
stopped speaking it in everyday use.
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> The analogy of the Anglo-Normans and Anglo-French doesn't quite work
> here. Sindarin was NEVER the birth or native language of the
> Numenoreans whether we're speaking of the First Age, the Second, or
> the Third. It was always a learned language. Unlike French, which
> was the native language of the Anglo-Normans, and until the 14th
> century was not a learned language for them. When it became a
> learned language, they stopped speaking it in everyday use.
It is an interesting comparison though. Do we have records of how
exactly French declined among the Anglo-Normans, or did the
Anglo-Normans just gradual become English? Would it have started when
they lost their lands in France?
Going back to Middle-earth, I am thinking here of the time when the
Numenoreans FIRST came to Middle-earth and began to explore the coasts
and set up harbours. I think (not entirely sure) that this was a fair
amount of time after Numenor had been founded, but I can't remember what
Tolkien said, if anything, about what language the Numenoreans found
being used by the Men who had lived through the Dark Years.
And then we have the case of the Exiles fleeing the Downfall of Numenor.
You would have them bringing their birth tongue (Adunaic) which would be
similar but different to the languages of the Men they find in
Middle-earth, and also Sindarin. The question would be, how much is the
Westron we see in the Third Age influenced by all this?
Oh. I've just re-read Appendix F.1 and all my questions have been
answered!
I'm also going to go back and read the thread more closely...
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Christopher Kreuzer
Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
> Emma Pease wrote:
<snip>
Larry quoted this bit, and I wanted to comment on it briefly:
> "The Dunedain alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an Elvish
> tongue
"alone of all races". Does this apply throughout the time period
covered, or is Tolkien referring specifically to a point in the Second
Age? If he is referring to the Third Age as well, then it means that the
people of Rohan, apart from Theoden, would not speak any Elvish tongue,
not even the nobility.
Also, note that it says that they "spoke" Elvish. Certainly when the
Edain of Beleriand had been living with Elves in Beleriand, some would
have spoken Sindarin as fluently as their birth tongue. It would have
been more than just a language of lore then. The process of change may
have been gradual, with the fluency of the population of
Sindarin-speakers decreasing with the years as it was less often learnt
from birth, and maybe more often learnt in later years and needed to
converse with the Eldar that visited Numenor.
> 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.
Larry then emphasised the following:
> BUT THE NATIVE SPEECH OF THE NUMENOREANS
> REMAINED FOR THE MOST PART THEIR ANCESTRAL
> MANNISH TONGUE, THE ADUNAIC
"for the most part"?
Does this not imply that some Numenoreans did not have Adunaic as their
birth tongue? I'm not suggesting that the implied exceptions to the rule
were learning an Elvish language. It would make more sense if some were
learning this Common Speech, or some debased form of Adunaic (as opposed
to the pure Adunaic found in Numenor). Tolkien might possibly be
implying that those Numenoreans living on the coasts of Middle-earth,
the colonists so to speak, are the ones that were "going native" so to
speak and adopting a new birth tongue. But see also the next comment.
> AND TO THIS IN
> THE LATTER DAYS OF THEIR PRIDE THEIR KINGS AND
> LORDS RETURNED
They "returned" to Adunaic? In the context of a sentence that starts off
by talking about "native speech", how can you "return" to a native
speech except by having a different native speech to begin with?
> ABANDONING THE ELVEN
> SPEECH, SAVE ONLY THOSE FEW THAT HELD STILL
> TO THEIR ANCIENT FRIENDSHIP WITH THE ELDAR..."
> Tolkien, Appendix F, Of Men.
>
> I. E. The "birth" language of the Numenoreans was Adunaic, they
> learned Sindarin, and a few learned Quenya. In the latter years,
> most rejected things and languages Elven, the Faithful continued to
> preserve it AS A MATTER OF LORE, but their birth language was
> Adunaic.
I don't think that entirely follows from what you quoted.
My commentary above should show why I think this.
Emma then wrote:
>> Well for people like Aragorn who was raised in Rivendell, almost
>> certainly as a birth tongue.
And you replied:
> How do you figure? Do not Elendil and his people know Westron? Do
> not a number of them speak it fluently?
Elendil knew Westron? In Appendix F it seems to say that the process of
Westron forming from the various sources is still very much ongoing in
Elendil's time. I would have thought it very possible that you would
have had translators for the first few years after the Downfall. It says
that they used the Common Speech, but that does not imply fluency.
> That Aragorn knew and spoke
> Sindarin I think a given, that it was his "birth" language simply
> because he was born in Rivendell goes against the evidence.
It depends how old he was. He wasn't born in Rivendell, but was taken
there to live (with his mother) when he was 2 years old, when his father
was slain, and it is implied that this was done because he was now "the
Heir of Isildur".
It is said elsewhere that the sons of the chieftains were fostered in
Rivendell, but this description of the process for Aragorn implies to me
(unless Tolkien is being inconsistent) that it was normal for the first
few years of life for a son of the Chieftain of the Dunedain to be spent
with his birth kindred, and only later (probably after learning the
birth tongue of the Dunedain of the North in the Third Age) being
fostered in Rivendell. It looks like Aragorn was taken to Rivendell
_early_ because his father died early and he was now the Heir.
As a side note: I wonder who ruled the Dunedain until Aragorn came of
age? Would they have had a steward-type figure?
And being raised in Rivendell from such an earlier age (possibly earlier
than normal for a son of the Cheiftains of the Dunedain) may have made
things different for Aragorn, and he may have been more fluent in
Sindarin?
We do see Glorfindel cry out to Aragorn in Sindarin (the "Mae govannen"
bit in 'Flight to the Ford'), but we are not told what language the
subsequent conversation was in.
There is Elvish singing in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell.
In Lothlorien, we see Legolas and Haldir speak in another Elvish tongue,
that Frodo does not understand. I wonder if Aragorn would have
understood it?
We also read about Aragorn murmuring as in a dream to Arwen, at Cerin
Amroth: "Arwen vanimelda, namarie". So we can now ask ourselves what
language Aragorn spoke to Arwen in? Would they have mixed Sindarin and
Westron, or spoken mostly Sindarin?
<snip>
Christopher Kreuzer
> Emma Pease wrote:
<snip>
>> Rohan - Westron almost always learned as a second language
>
> Tolkien mentions specifically the nobles, not the people as a whole.
Appendix F says that the nobles of Rohan spoke the _noble_ form of the
Common Speech (as spoken in Gondor). I think this implies that the
people as a whole spoke Rohirric as their birth tongue, and the nobles
spoke the noble form of the Common Speech as a second language.
Larry Swain
> [Restoring AFT]
>
> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>
>>Emma Pease wrote:
>
>
> <snip>
>
> Larry quoted this bit, and I wanted to comment on it briefly:
>
>
>>"The Dunedain alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an Elvish
>>tongue
>
>
> "alone of all races". Does this apply throughout the time period
> covered, or is Tolkien referring specifically to a point in the Second
> Age?
I think the larger period is in view, not just the second age. Even if
not, however, there is no evidence that any other peoples (whether men,
dwarves, ents, orcs, trolls, etc) spoke an elven tongue.
If he is referring to the Third Age as well, then it means that the
> people of Rohan, apart from Theoden, would not speak any Elvish tongue,
> not even the nobility.
True, and do we have any evidence that any of them did, including
Theoden, who spoke Westron?
>
> Also, note that it says that they "spoke" Elvish. Certainly when the
> Edain of Beleriand had been living with Elves in Beleriand, some would
> have spoken Sindarin as fluently as their birth tongue. It would have
> been more than just a language of lore then.
Depends on who they are speaking to, doesn't it? I think in the First
Age we're talking about the men who interact with elves, rather than all
the members of all 3 houses all the time, or even most of any of those.
I. E. those for whom it was not "just a language of lore" would have
been small in number of the whole. I think the analogy of Latin in
medieval Europe a good model here: there are some who were very fluent
in speaking and reading and composing in Latin. Many more who could
figure some stuff out, but chiefly it was used for diplomacy as a spoken
language when the principles didn't speak a common tongue.
>
>
> Larry then emphasised the following:
>
>
>>BUT THE NATIVE SPEECH OF THE NUMENOREANS
>>REMAINED FOR THE MOST PART THEIR ANCESTRAL
>>MANNISH TONGUE, THE ADUNAIC
>
>
> "for the most part"?
>
> Does this not imply that some Numenoreans did not have Adunaic as their
> birth tongue?
It could, I suppose, but do we really think that Tolkien meant it to be
read that way rather than just as an intensifier?
I'm not suggesting that the implied exceptions to the rule
> were learning an Elvish language. It would make more sense if some were
> learning this Common Speech, or some debased form of Adunaic (as opposed
> to the pure Adunaic found in Numenor).
Which Tolkien suggests at the end of the paragraph and in the next
paragraph: "In the years of their power the Numenoreans had maintained
many forts and havens upon the western coasts of ME for the help of
their ships; and one of the chief of these was at Pelargir....There
Adunaic was spoken and mingled with many words of the languages of
lesser men it became a Common Speech that spread thence along the coasts
among all that had dealings with Westerness.
Tolkien might possibly be
> implying that those Numenoreans living on the coasts of Middle-earth,
> the colonists so to speak, are the ones that were "going native" so to
> speak and adopting a new birth tongue. But see also the next comment.
NOt really, more that the birth tongue, Adunaic, was beginning to change
in Middle Earth through influence with the languages of other men whom
the Numenoreans ruled.
>
>>AND TO THIS IN
>>THE LATTER DAYS OF THEIR PRIDE THEIR KINGS AND
>>LORDS RETURNED
>
>
> They "returned" to Adunaic? In the context of a sentence that starts off
> by talking about "native speech", how can you "return" to a native
> speech except by having a different native speech to begin with?
In the pre-modern period, send an ambassador from Italy to England: the
ambassador speaks Italian, his audience speaks English, and in between
is Latin. He's likely either going to learn English or speak Latin to
be understood and carry out his embassage. Neither language is his
native language.
Or to put this in boring ol' prose: Tolkien pretty specifically states
that Sindarin and Quenya are learned languages in Numenor. He indicates
less clearly that the language of the Numenorean court was Sindarin, as
(if we continue the analogy) many native English speakers of the 12-14th
centuries learned French as the language of court, but upon leaving
court they "returned" to their native language.
In this case, we know that Sindarin is a learned language. We also can
safely suspect that the Numenorean court at first used Sindarin as the
language of court. When they began to doubt and question the Ban and
all that, they stopped using Sindarin, and "returned" to using Adunaic
as the language of court and culture, except for the Faithful.
On the other hand, if you have native speech B, but your ancestors had
native speech A, how will you return to native speech A unless someone
is still around to teach it to you? Nowhere does Tolkien suggest that
Sindarin was the native language of Numenor, nowhere does he suggest
that Adunaic was "learned" or "studied" though he does do so in regards
to the elven tongues. It seems to me that the answer to your query
simply is that "turning again" to their native language is not an
implication that Sindarin was their native speech, but that they used
Sindarin, a learned language, and later abandoned the learned language
in favor of their native tongue.
>
>>ABANDONING THE ELVEN
>>SPEECH, SAVE ONLY THOSE FEW THAT HELD STILL
>>TO THEIR ANCIENT FRIENDSHIP WITH THE ELDAR..."
>>Tolkien, Appendix F, Of Men.
>>
>>I. E. The "birth" language of the Numenoreans was Adunaic, they
>>learned Sindarin, and a few learned Quenya. In the latter years,
>>most rejected things and languages Elven, the Faithful continued to
>>preserve it AS A MATTER OF LORE, but their birth language was
>>Adunaic.
>
>
> I don't think that entirely follows from what you quoted.
> My commentary above should show why I think this.
How does this not follow? A. BUT THE NATIVE SPEECH OF THE NUMENOREANS
>>REMAINED FOR THE MOST PART THEIR ANCESTRAL
>>MANNISH TONGUE, THE ADUNAIC--Christopher, according to Tolkien, the
native speech of the Numenoreans was Adunaic, not Sindarin, so that
follows. Where does he say that Sindarin was ever a native language of
any human group,even the Numenoreans? Nowhere I know of. He does
explicitly say that they LEARNED Sindarin and they learned Quenya. So
that follows. We know from the Silm and from earlier in the appendices
that the majority of the Numenoreans rejected things Elven, save the
Faithful, when they began to question and chafe at the ban...so that
follows.
>
> Emma then wrote:
>
>>>Well for people like Aragorn who was raised in Rivendell, almost
>>>certainly as a birth tongue.
>
>
> And you replied:
>
>>How do you figure? Do not Elendil and his people know Westron? Do
>>not a number of them speak it fluently?
>
>
> Elendil knew Westron?
Sorry, I meant Elrond.
>>That Aragorn knew and spoke
>>Sindarin I think a given, that it was his "birth" language simply
>>because he was born in Rivendell goes against the evidence.
>
>
> And being raised in Rivendell from such an earlier age (possibly earlier
> than normal for a son of the Cheiftains of the Dunedain) may have made
> things different for Aragorn, and he may have been more fluent in
> Sindarin?
Being more fluent, particularly as an adult, isn't the point I'm
contending. The point I'm contending is Emma's claim that Sindarin was
Aragorn's BIRTH LANGUAGE, and was the birth language of ALL the Dunedain
in the North.
> We do see Glorfindel cry out to Aragorn in Sindarin (the "Mae govannen"
> bit in 'Flight to the Ford'), but we are not told what language the
> subsequent conversation was in.
>
> There is Elvish singing in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell.
>
> In Lothlorien, we see Legolas and Haldir speak in another Elvish tongue,
> that Frodo does not understand. I wonder if Aragorn would have
> understood it?
>
> We also read about Aragorn murmuring as in a dream to Arwen, at Cerin
> Amroth: "Arwen vanimelda, namarie". So we can now ask ourselves what
> language Aragorn spoke to Arwen in? Would they have mixed Sindarin and
> Westron, or spoken mostly Sindarin?
None of which demonstrate that Aragorn's native, first, "birth" language
was Sindarin, only that as an adult he was fluent, a point I would agree
with.
Larry Swain
If I may quote from my summary:
The people of Rohan, the Eorlingas, were like these: related to the 3
houses, they spoke a language related to Adunaic. After coming south to
occupy Rohan, they still spoke their native tongue among themselves, but
the lords at least of the Rohirrim also spoke Westron and used the
dialect of Gondor and her lords to do so. I've used "proto-mannish" to
describe the root language.
Troels Forchhammer
>
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>
>> In message <news:X6idnSVPzPe...@rcn.net>
>> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> enriched us with:
>>>
>>> Emma Pease wrote:
>>>
The spread of the knowledge of Sindarin in Gondor:
>> Certainly -- Adûnaic was always the native speech of the
>> Númenoreans and their Dúnedain descendants. My impression is that
>> Sindarin, in Minas Tirith at the time of the War, held a position
>> similar to that which English now holds in many countries where
>> it is not the native speech -- nearly all people learn it, and
>> most people know enough for at least simple conversations (albeit
>> speaking it haltingly and horribly mangled <G>), and a few are
>> really proficient with it. Of course this was declining for
>> Sindarin in Gondor whereas the position of English is
>> strengthening these years.
>
> I think this is the right direction, but overstated. The closer
> one's family is to the royal and Steward lines, and the purer
> one's ancestry the more likely one would be to know Sindarin well
> enough to speak. The further away the less likely.
I think that is also part of the point when Pippin is going down the
streets of Minas Tirith:
People stared much as he passed. To his face men were
gravely courteous, saluting him after the manner of Gondor
with bowed head and hands upon the breast; but behind him
he heard many calls, as those out of doors cried to others
within to come and see the Prince of the Halflings, the
companion of Mithrandir. Many used some other tongue than
the Common Speech, but it was not long before he learned
at least what was meant by Ernil i Pheriannath and knew
that his title had gone down before him into the City.
I think the intention is that those 'many' who used 'some other
tongue' were also those who used the phrase /Ernil i Pheriannath/ --
in other words that they used Sindarin for the whole gossip message
rather than only the title.
The point, however, is that this is in a city at war. Most of the
commoners have left (and those who hadn't would be on their way out
of the city at that moment or had special permission to stay), and we
are left only with the soldiers and nobles.
We must also recall that this was the heart of the Dúnedain realms at
the time -- Gondor in general and Minas Tirith in particular had the
largest concentration of Dúnedain anywhere (in particular because the
Dunédain in Gondor were the Lords -- the 'Important People' who have
a tendency to gravitate towards the centre of power -- in Gondor the
power of the Steward, exerted from Ecthelion's tower).
I would, in other words, expect the frequency of Sindarin-speaking
people to be far larger in Minas Tirith than anywhere else in the
realm -- so high that most of them could expect to live within
shouting distance of a neighbour of similar education.
How well the Elven-tongue was known among those of mixed heritage is
impossible to say -- it probably depended on their position in
society -- but I think that only very few of those without Númenorean
blood would know any Elvish.
>> The Dúnedain were the upper class in Gondor and like the
>> upper class in Europe a century or so ago put great store in
>> knowing Latin or Greek, so did the Dúnedain, IMO, put great store
>> in knowing Sindarin.
>
> Would agree, and like the upper classes of Europe a century ago,
> conversations could be held in those languages (just look at
> Tolkien as a wee lad composing debating club speeches in Latin,
> Greek, and Gothic!), nonetheless, these languages were not used
> for daily speech anymore than they were birth languages for the
> European nobility.
Precisely. But if you took a stroll from Magdalen Bridge to
Christchurch, you would still expect to be understood by someone if
you should cry out 'Look at that midget' in Greek ;-)
> Always good to have you show me the error of my ways, Troels!
All that talk about classic education and Oxford made me recall a
famous detective who, in his Oxford days, one never failed to find
'planted in the centre of the quad and laying down the law with
exquisite insolence to somebody.' (should be easy -- only a two-point
quotation that).
I do not aim that high, though ;-)
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left
the path of wisdom.
- Gandalf, /The Fellowship of the Ring/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Graeme Thomas
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid> writes
>All that talk about classic education and Oxford made me recall a
>famous detective who, in his Oxford days, one never failed to find
>'planted in the centre of the quad and laying down the law with
>exquisite insolence to somebody.' (should be easy -- only a two-point
>quotation that).
That's two of the easiest points on offer anywhere.
Lord Peter Wimsey ("Wimsey of Balliol"), as referred to by Peake of
Brasenose, in _Gaudy Night_ by Dorothy L Sayers. Page 275 in my copy.
--
Graeme Thomas
Christopher Kreuzer
> Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>> [Restoring AFT]
>>
>> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Emma Pease wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> Larry quoted this bit, and I wanted to comment on it briefly:
>>
>>> "The Dunedain alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an Elvish
>>> tongue
>>
>> "alone of all races". Does this apply throughout the time period
>> covered, or is Tolkien referring specifically to a point in the
>> Second Age?
>
> I think the larger period is in view, not just the second age. Even
> if not, however, there is no evidence that any other peoples (whether
> men, dwarves, ents, orcs, trolls, etc) spoke an elven tongue.
OK. This bit was because of my confusion below.
> If he is referring to the Third Age as well, then it means that the
>> people of Rohan, apart from Theoden, would not speak any Elvish
>> tongue, not even the nobility.
>
> True, and do we have any evidence that any of them did, including
> Theoden, who spoke Westron?
Oops. I got confused here and thought that the bits about Theoden
learning a second language were talking about him learning Sindarin in
Gondor. Silly me. It was saying he learnt 'high' Westron, as I realised
in another post. Sorry about that.
>> Also, note that it says that they "spoke" Elvish. Certainly when the
>> Edain of Beleriand had been living with Elves in Beleriand, some
>> would have spoken Sindarin as fluently as their birth tongue. It
>> would have been more than just a language of lore then.
>
> Depends on who they are speaking to, doesn't it? I think in the First
> Age we're talking about the men who interact with elves, rather than
> all the members of all 3 houses all the time, or even most of any of
> those. I. E. those for whom it was not "just a language of lore"
> would have
> been small in number of the whole.
I vaguely remember that in the early days some sons of the Edain went
off to serve in Elvish households. But you are probably right about the
number being small. Moving away from birth tongues, how many Men would
have learnt Sindarin to communicate with the Elves, and how many Elves
would have learnt Adunaic to communicate with Men? And would the dwarves
have learnt Sindarin and Adunaic to communicate with Men and Elves in
the First Age? I guess what I am saying is: was there another 'Common
Speech' that was used in the First Age (and maybe even the Second Age),
and was it different from the Westron of the Third Age?
There are references to Andunaic being enriched and softened by the
influence of Sindarin in the First Age, but I wonder whether it went
further than that, and if not, why not? I couldn't find anything
definite in Appendix F. Did Tolkien say anything in HoME or /The
Silmarillion/ about First Age languages and a First Age 'Common Speech'
or were the populations and timescales too small? I think it was only a
few hundred years from the Return of the Noldor to the War of Wrath.
There are definitely Men who dwelt for long periods of time with Elves.
We know that Turin lived in Doriath for many years, and also in
Nargothrond. Beren had to speak with Luthien somehow. And Hurin and Huor
spent time in Gondolin. Tuor stayed in Gondolin and married (and
hopefully talked with) Idril and was high in the counsel of Turgon. Lots
of Sindarin there. I guess all these examples of Men living with Elves
would have Adunaic as their birth tongues, with varying levels of skill
in Sindarin for the Men.
But what about the offspring of parents with different birth tongues? I
wonder what Earendil's birth tongue was? What about Dior? What about
Eldarian for that matter. Would Arwen have taught Sindarin to him and
his sisters?
> I think the analogy of Latin in
> medieval Europe a good model here: there are some who were very fluent
> in speaking and reading and composing in Latin. Many more who could
> figure some stuff out, but chiefly it was used for diplomacy as a
> spoken language when the principles didn't speak a common tongue.
Would that fit the First Age issues I raised above? Would Sindarin have
been the Common Tongue of First Age Beleriand?
>> Larry then emphasised the following:
>>
>>> BUT THE NATIVE SPEECH OF THE NUMENOREANS
>>> REMAINED FOR THE MOST PART THEIR ANCESTRAL
>>> MANNISH TONGUE, THE ADUNAIC
>>
>> "for the most part"?
>>
>> Does this not imply that some Numenoreans did not have Adunaic as
>> their birth tongue?
>
> It could, I suppose, but do we really think that Tolkien meant it to
> be read that way rather than just as an intensifier?
Maybe you could give an example of where the phrase "for the most part"
is used as an intensifier without implying that there is an exception to
the rule?
> I'm not suggesting that the implied exceptions to the rule
>> were learning an Elvish language. It would make more sense if some
>> were learning this Common Speech, or some debased form of Adunaic
>> (as opposed to the pure Adunaic found in Numenor).
>
> Which Tolkien suggests at the end of the paragraph and in the next
> paragraph: "In the years of their power the Numenoreans had maintained
> many forts and havens upon the western coasts of ME for the help of
> their ships; and one of the chief of these was at Pelargir....There
> Adunaic was spoken and mingled with many words of the languages of
> lesser men it became a Common Speech that spread thence along the
> coasts among all that had dealings with Westerness.
>
> Tolkien might possibly be
>> implying that those Numenoreans living on the coasts of Middle-earth,
>> the colonists so to speak, are the ones that were "going native" so
>> to speak and adopting a new birth tongue. But see also the next
>> comment.
>
> NOt really, more that the birth tongue, Adunaic, was beginning to
> change in Middle Earth through influence with the languages of
> other men whom the Numenoreans ruled.
That is definitely a better way to put it. But my point is that you
couldn't really say that these Numenoreans had the same birth tongue as
the Numenoreans back in Numenor. At what point does a divergence produce
a totally new language? I guess without isolation, the change is
gradual, but if the forces driving the change continue to have their
effect, at some point the lack of comprehension between speakers of
languages diverging from a common root reaches a critical level.
But hey. I'm sure there is LOTS of theory out there about this!
>>> AND TO THIS IN
>>> THE LATTER DAYS OF THEIR PRIDE THEIR KINGS AND
>>> LORDS RETURNED
If I understand what you have said below, the above fragment is saying:
"...and to this [native speech called Adunaic] in the latter days of
their pride their Kings and Lords returned[,] [using it as their courtly
language instead of Sindarin]."
>> They "returned" to Adunaic? In the context of a sentence that starts
>> off by talking about "native speech", how can you "return" to a
>> native speech except by having a different native speech to begin
>> with?
>
> In the pre-modern period, send an ambassador from Italy to England:
> the ambassador speaks Italian, his audience speaks English, and in
> between
> is Latin. He's likely either going to learn English or speak Latin to
> be understood and carry out his embassage. Neither language is his
> native language.
>
> Or to put this in boring ol' prose: Tolkien pretty specifically states
> that Sindarin and Quenya are learned languages in Numenor. He
> indicates less clearly that the language of the Numenorean court was
> Sindarin, as (if we continue the analogy) many native English
> speakers of the 12-14th centuries learned French as the language of
> court, but upon leaving
> court they "returned" to their native language.
>
> In this case, we know that Sindarin is a learned language. We also
> can safely suspect that the Numenorean court at first used Sindarin
> as the language of court. When they began to doubt and question the
> Ban and
> all that, they stopped using Sindarin, and "returned" to using Adunaic
> as the language of court and culture, except for the Faithful.
You've convinced me. Thanks! :-)
> On the other hand, if you have native speech B, but your ancestors had
> native speech A, how will you return to native speech A unless someone
> is still around to teach it to you?
Doh! Should have thought of that!
> Nowhere does Tolkien suggest that
> Sindarin was the native language of Numenor, nowhere does he suggest
> that Adunaic was "learned" or "studied" though he does do so in
> regards
> to the elven tongues. It seems to me that the answer to your query
> simply is that "turning again" to their native language is not an
> implication that Sindarin was their native speech, but that they used
> Sindarin, a learned language, and later abandoned the learned language
> in favor of their native tongue.
It all seems so clear now!
>>> ABANDONING THE ELVEN
>>> SPEECH
[as their learned language]
>>> SAVE ONLY THOSE FEW THAT HELD STILL
>>> TO THEIR ANCIENT FRIENDSHIP WITH THE ELDAR..."
Noting that this was still a learned language, BUT, the Faithful of the
Second Age were interacting with native speakers of the language. This
situation contrasts sharply with many of the speakers of Sindarin in the
Third Age. Specifically, for the Gondorians, Sindarin really was now a
language of lore as they were no longer interacting with the Eldar. By
contrast, Aragorn at least, and maybe a proportion of the Northern
Dunedain, were still interacting with Elves who were native speakers of
Sindarin.
Maybe not really related to the preceding discussion, but something I
thought of just now. I know the thread was about 'The Languages and
Peoples of the Third Age', but I'm finding this discussion of First Age
and Second Age stuff very interesting!
>>> Tolkien, Appendix F, Of Men.
>>>
>>> I. E. The "birth" language of the Numenoreans was Adunaic, they
>>> learned Sindarin, and a few learned Quenya. In the latter years,
>>> most rejected things and languages Elven, the Faithful continued to
>>> preserve it AS A MATTER OF LORE, but their birth language was
>>> Adunaic.
>>
>> I don't think that entirely follows from what you quoted.
>> My commentary above should show why I think this.
>
> How does this not follow?
I retract that! It does follow! :-)
Except that Third-Age-Dunedain Sindarin was more lore and a learned
language than Second-Age-Dunedain Sindarin. What language would Elendil
and Gil-galad have spoken in? Would there have been a common tongue for
the Armies of the Last Alliance, or even indeed for the Battles in the
First Age where Men, Elves and Dwarves fought together and communication
would have been very important.
>> Emma then wrote:
>>
>>>> Well for people like Aragorn who was raised in Rivendell, almost
>>>> certainly as a birth tongue.
>>
>> And you replied:
>>
>>> How do you figure? Do not Elendil and his people know Westron? Do
>>> not a number of them speak it fluently?
>>
>> Elendil knew Westron?
>
> Sorry, I meant Elrond.
Of the Third Age Elves we see, many seem to know it fluently. The
exceptions being the border-guard Elves (Haldir, Rumil and Orophin) we
see in Lorien. The impression I get is that the general (Silvan)
populace of Lorien (and probably also Mirkwood - though the interactions
in /The Hobbit/ seem to suggest otherwise) would use Westron
infrequently, while the ruling class (Sindarin Elves) such as Legolas
and Thranduil would be more conversant in Westron, as are, of course,
the rulers of Lorien: Celeborn and Galadriel.
>>> That Aragorn knew and spoke
>>> Sindarin I think a given, that it was his "birth" language simply
>>> because he was born in Rivendell goes against the evidence.
>>
> > And being raised in Rivendell from such an earlier age (possibly
> earlier
>> than normal for a son of the Cheiftains of the Dunedain) may have
>> made things different for Aragorn, and he may have been more fluent
>> in Sindarin?
>
> Being more fluent, particularly as an adult, isn't the point I'm
> contending. The point I'm contending is Emma's claim that Sindarin
> was Aragorn's BIRTH LANGUAGE, and was the birth language of ALL the
> Dunedain
> in the North.
I agree that is unlikely.
>> We do see Glorfindel cry out to Aragorn in Sindarin (the "Mae
>> govannen" bit in 'Flight to the Ford'), but we are not told what
>> language the subsequent conversation was in.
>>
>> There is Elvish singing in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell.
>>
>> In Lothlorien, we see Legolas and Haldir speak in another Elvish
>> tongue, that Frodo does not understand. I wonder if Aragorn would
>> have understood it?
>>
>> We also read about Aragorn murmuring as in a dream to Arwen, at Cerin
>> Amroth: "Arwen vanimelda, namarie". So we can now ask ourselves what
>> language Aragorn spoke to Arwen in? Would they have mixed Sindarin
>> and Westron, or spoken mostly Sindarin?
>
> None of which demonstrate that Aragorn's native, first, "birth"
> language was Sindarin, only that as an adult he was fluent, a point I
> would agree with.
Can we hazard a guess at how fluent Faramir would be? Seeing that Damrod
and Mablung speak at least a recognisable version of Sindarin, and that
the herbmaster knows Quenya words, how would they compare to Aragorn and
to real, actual, live Elves!
I would say that the Elves are obviously the most fluent, it being their
birth tongue. Then Aragorn. Then, a lot less fluent, we have Faramir,
and maybe Bilbo was (at some point in his long life) learned enough in
Sindarin (at least when reading it - a totally different thing to
speaking it) to interact with Elves and tell them what he wanted for
breakfast! Though I guess that as a rule, and out of courtesy, Elves
would speak in the Common Speech around Men and Hobbits (as we see the
Elves mostly doing in LotR - except that weird singing Elf Queen in
Lorien).
Can we speculate as to whether Damrod and Mablung knew more or less
Sindarin than, say Faramir, Denethor and Boromir, and also compare to
Frodo?
And how long does it take Gandalf to learn these pesky languages! :-)
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> If I may quote from my summary:
>
> The people of Rohan, the Eorlingas, were like these: related to the 3
> houses, they spoke a language related to Adunaic. After coming south
> to occupy Rohan, they still spoke their native tongue among
> themselves, but the lords at least of the Rohirrim also spoke Westron
> and used the dialect of Gondor and her lords to do so. I've used
> "proto-mannish" to describe the root language.
I thought you must have mentioned it!
Sorry to repeat stuff. :-)
BTW, your language trees didn't really come through. Is there a way to
do them so that the links you draw can be seen. Maybe just list the
levels and use labels and say that A links to B and D to F and so on?
Emma Pease
In English terms like habeas corpus or cogito ergo sum are units in
and of themselves, most people couldn't parse them into their parts or
vary them in any way. This is not the case with the term Ernil i
Pherianath; creating and having it understood implies fluency
especially since I doubt the term Pherianath was commonly known. If
you think Pherianath might be more commonly spread around because of
Faramir's dream, the dream words were in Westron not Sindarin (unless
Boromir translated them into Westron for the council meeting which
I think would be unlikely).
I will retract my statement that Sindarin was a birth tongue though I
still think the Dunedain at least in the families keeping the old
traditions learned it early and at an age where children pick up
languages easily (e.g., < 5 years of age) and were often fluent.
R. Dan Henry
<spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>But what about the offspring of parents with different birth tongues? I
>wonder what Earendil's birth tongue was? What about Dior? What about
>Eldarian for that matter. Would Arwen have taught Sindarin to him and
>his sisters?
I expect at least some would have been raised bilingual from birth. I
had a couple of professors who were raising their girl English-Spanish
bilingual (the mother was from Spain). Since Aragorn was already
Sindarin-fluent and Sindarin was a language of the elite in Gondor (and
presumably the new Arnor), I would not be at all surprised if Arwen's
children had two birth tongues.
>Maybe you could give an example of where the phrase "for the most part"
>is used as an intensifier without implying that there is an exception to
>the rule?
While "for the most part" must be a *qualifier* rather than an
*intensifier*, one should note that this appendix is clearly written by
Tolkien-as-translator and therefore from a non-omniscient viewpoint.
Thus a qualifier might well be in order even if an omniscient author
could have omitted it. The Numenoreans were much scattered at their
height and who can say what habits some might have picked up, such as
speaking pig-Quenya (which is just a silly variant of Adunaic) as their
normal speech.
>Of the Third Age Elves we see, many seem to know it fluently. The
>exceptions being the border-guard Elves (Haldir, Rumil and Orophin) we
>see in Lorien. The impression I get is that the general (Silvan)
>populace of Lorien (and probably also Mirkwood - though the interactions
>in /The Hobbit/ seem to suggest otherwise) would use Westron
>infrequently, while the ruling class (Sindarin Elves) such as Legolas
>and Thranduil would be more conversant in Westron, as are, of course,
>the rulers of Lorien: Celeborn and Galadriel.
When you live for centuries, and long tales and song, picking up some
extra languages is probably a pretty common activity.
(Wild speculation warning!) Maybe the translation abilities of the One
Ring *don't* apply just to servants of the Enemy and Bilbo understood
the Elves because of it.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Odysseus
>
<snip>
>
> I was drawn to the conversation between Mablung and Damrod when
> guarding Frodo and Sam:
>
> They spoke together in soft voices, at first using the
> Common Speech, but after the manner of older days, and
> then changing to another language of their own. To his
> amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it
> was the Elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little
> different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he
> knew then that they must be Dúnedain of the South, men
> of the line of the Lords of Westernesse.
> [LotR IV,4 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit']
>
> Would Frodo have mistaken ancient Adûnaic for 'the Elven-tongue'?
Hardly: to me it seems quite clear that Frodo perceived the Rangers'
switch from old-fashioned Westron, which he could understand with
minimal effort, to the Elvish, which took him some time to recognize.
I presume he'd heard or read that only the true Dúnedain (the "upper
class", as you later decribed them, which portion of the message I've
snipped) used Elvish.
> It seems to me more likely that they were speaking Sindarin in an
> older form ('this they handed on to their children as a matter of lore,
> changing little with the passing of the years.'), which would show
> that they at least were familiar enough with it to converse in it
> when they would (alike, I suspect, to the way many Danish parents
> will speak together in English when they don't want the kids to
> understand).
I don't read the passage as implying that the Elvish was an older
form than Frodo had encountered, but the Men's accent may have been
peculiar, or at least unfamiliar to him. That he wasn't expecting to
hear Elvish from them could explain his delayed recognition as well.
I've had at least one similar experience: waiting for a connection in
Frankfurt airport I was addressed by a stranger, to whom I mumbled
"Nicht sprache Deutsch" or something of the kind, and it wasn't until
some time after he'd repeated himself that I realized he was speaking
perfectly comprehensible English, albeit with a strong Glasgow
accent. My being surrounded by German billboards and so on, and the
sleep-deprived daze induced by the many preceding hours of travel,
was probably a contributing factor ...
--
Odysseus
Troels Forchhammer
Odysseus <odysseu...@yahoo-dot.ca> enriched us with:
>
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>
<snip>
>> It seems to me more likely that they were speaking Sindarin in an
>> older form ('this they handed on to their children as a matter of
>> lore, changing little with the passing of the years.'), which
>> would show that they at least were familiar enough with it to
>> converse in it when they would (alike, I suspect, to the way many
>> Danish parents will speak together in English when they don't
>> want the kids to understand).
>
> I don't read the passage as implying that the Elvish was an older
> form than Frodo had encountered,
I believe you're right -- at least I seem to recall reading somewhere
that the Elvish languanges changed only very little and very slowly
(except in the case of deliberate change, IIRC).
> but the Men's accent may have been peculiar, or at least
> unfamiliar to him. That he wasn't expecting to hear Elvish from
> them could explain his delayed recognition as well.
Indeed
I wonder how much Elvish -- both Quenya and Sindarin -- Frodo
actually knew.
In I,3 he speaks with the Noldor in Gildor's party.
Frodo sat, eating, drinking, and talking with delight;
but his mind was chiefly on the words spoken. He knew a
little of the elf-speech and listened eagerly. Now and
again he spoke to those that served him and thanked them
in their own language. They smiled at him and said
laughing: 'Here is a jewel among hobbits!'
'A little' it is said, but of which? His greeting ('/Elen síla
lúmenn' omentielvo/') is in Quenya, but,IIRC, the exiles habitually
spoke Sindarin even among themselves, didn't they?
Still, I don't think Frodo was all that proficient in either
language, and I agree that it would take him a little while to
recognise it when he didn't expect it.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
The errors hardest
to condone
in other people
are one's own.
- Piet Hein, /Our Own Motes/
Öjevind Lång
>The analogy of the Anglo-Normans and Anglo-French doesn't quite work
here. Sindarin was NEVER the birth or native language of the
Numenoreans whether we're speaking of the First Age, the Second, or the
Third. It was always a learned language. Unlike French, which was the
native language of the Anglo-Normans, and until the 14th century was
not
a learned language for them. When it became a learned language, they
stopped speaking it in everyday use.
As early as the 13th century, many of them had to learn the language
from primers. The fact that French primers began to be written shows
that the number of people whose natural language was French was
decreasing; the first generations needed no primers for their children.
Also, French visitors at that time remarked that "many gentlemen in
England speak no French at all". There was an additional complication:
by the same century, Anglo-Norman French dialect had started to sound
archaic, as well as too unlike the French of Ile-de-France (the area
around Paris), which by then had gained supremacy as the "best" French.
(At the time of the Norman Conquest, the dialects of Ile-de-France,
Normandy, Picardie and Anjou had had about equal status.) It was also
during the 13th century that the French started to write comical poems
about the French spoken in England. At first, the Anglo-Normans reacted
by trying to teach their children "proper" French; in the long run,
however, they became annoyed, and in the 14th century they started to
declare that they preferred "honest English" to the language of the
"false and devious French". One reason was an armistice treaty during
the Hundred Years' War where the English nobles misunderstood what the
treaty document said... After that, they demanded that all treaties be
written in both French and English, but the French nobles haughtily
declared that they refsued to sign their names to documents written in
a barbarous language like English. (I believe the two sides finally
compromised on writing treaties in Latin.) Towards the end of the 14th
century, they spoke English even at the court in London, and
parliamentary sessions were conducted exclusively in the same English.
The last holdout was the lawyers, of course, but even they had to give
in at last and write in English. (Except for "Oyez!" and "mortmain" and
stuff like that.)
As for the statement that Sindarin was "handed down as a language of
lore", and hence chanegd little, this *is* what Tolkien says. I just
find it remarkable that people would use this language of lore when
calling to each other in the streets - and there were more than two
people doing so.
Öjevind
Prai Jei
message <04GVe.108136$G8.8...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
> [Restoring AFT]
>
> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>> Emma Pease wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Larry quoted this bit, and I wanted to comment on it briefly:
>
>> "The Dunedain alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an Elvish
>> tongue
>
> "alone of all races". Does this apply throughout the time period
> covered, or is Tolkien referring specifically to a point in the Second
> Age? If he is referring to the Third Age as well, then it means that the
> people of Rohan, apart from Theoden, would not speak any Elvish tongue,
> not even the nobility.
I see no particular time reference, merely a statement on the uniqueness of
the achievement. Even if they don't know and speak the Elvish tongue "now",
they did at least do so once, to their eternal credit.
Other, lesser races would have probably scorned the use of that tongue, not
bothering to learn it. Even if occasional scholars did learn the language,
it would not become a working language of the people as a whole.
Implication: with this attitude they would remain forever "lesser".
Christopher Kreuzer
> On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 23:12:44 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
> <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> But what about the offspring of parents with different birth
>> tongues? I wonder what Earendil's birth tongue was? What about Dior?
>> What about Eldarian for that matter. Would Arwen have taught
>> Sindarin to him and his sisters?
>
> I expect at least some would have been raised bilingual from birth. I
> had a couple of professors who were raising their girl English-Spanish
> bilingual (the mother was from Spain). Since Aragorn was already
> Sindarin-fluent and Sindarin was a language of the elite in Gondor
> (and presumably the new Arnor), I would not be at all surprised if
> Arwen's children had two birth tongues.
Picking up on how far we can go with this idea of Sindarin as a language
for the elite (ie. was it just a ceremonial language, or the main
tongue, though still learned and not birth, of the ruling elite), I just
thought of another example where Aragorn uses Sindarin. At his
coronation (the "Et Earello..." bit). At least I presume that is
Sindarin. And what is more, we are told that those are the words Elendil
spoke when he came up out of the Sea to Middle-earth. Unless that is an
event that has been since codified in legend and written down in
Sindarin, it looks like Elendil spoke Sindarin more often than just as a
ceremonial language.
JimboCat
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
> > Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
> >> [Restoring AFT]
> >>
> >> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Emma Pease wrote:
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >>> BUT THE NATIVE SPEECH OF THE NUMENOREANS
> >>> REMAINED FOR THE MOST PART THEIR ANCESTRAL
> >>> MANNISH TONGUE, THE ADUNAIC
> >>
> >> "for the most part"?
> >>
> >> Does this not imply that some Numenoreans did not have Adunaic as
> >> their birth tongue?
> >
> > It could, I suppose, but do we really think that Tolkien meant it to
> > be read that way rather than just as an intensifier?
>
> Maybe you could give an example of where the phrase "for the most part"
> is used as an intensifier without implying that there is an exception to
> the rule?
Can do!
"The sum of two plus two for the most part equals four."
I think in this example, "for the most part" gives the sentence its
sarcasm, but functionally the phrase is, indeed, an intensifier. And
of course it does not imply that exceptions exist: it is in fact
mocking the idea that exceptions *could* exist.
Ain't English a grand language?
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed."
-- Louis Epstein
"Barad-dûr MUST rise again, at least as tall as
before...or Frodo has triumphed."
-- Flame of the West
"New Orleans MUST be flooded again, at least as deep
as before...or Katrina has triumphed."
-- JimboCat
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> in the 14th century they started to declare that they
> preferred "honest English" to the language of the "false and devious
> French". [...] the French nobles haughtily declared
> that they refsued to sign their names to documents written in a
> barbarous language like English. (I believe the two sides finally
> compromised on writing treaties in Latin.)
LOL! Nice little history lesson there. Thanks, Ojevind.
You couldn't point to a website or two about this could you?
I wonder what language(s) the nations of Middle-earth wrote their
treaties in? Wasn't there something similar for the Oath of Cirion and
Eorl? I also vaguely remember something about memorials being written in
several languages, and I wrote enough about this for a separate post.
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> Those are the words Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea to
> Middle-earth. Unless that is an event that has been since codified in
> legend and written down in Sindarin, it looks like Elendil spoke
> Sindarin more often than just as a ceremonial language.
Unless....
<a wet and bedraggled Elendil staggers up the beach>
Glorfindel: Ai na vedui Dunadan! Mae govannen!
Elendil (thinking): [What the hell? Oh, he's speaking that funny Elvish
lingo. Let's see if I can remember how to say: "We got blown here in a
storm and want somewhere to stay for a bit".]
Elendil (hesitantly): Et Earello Endo... Endorenna utulien.... Sino...
Sinome maruvan ar Hildy... Hildinyar tennen... tenn' Ambar-metta!
Glorfindel (thinking): [Huh? What's he saying? "Out of the Great Sea to
Middle-earth he is come. In this place will he abide, and his heirs,
unto the ending of the world."? Oh, by Eru, was this what I came back to
Middle-earth for? Upstart Men wanting to usurp the Elder Kindred? Hmph!]
Glorfindel (smirking): Oh. I guess you'll be needing somewhere to stay
then? I've heard there's some land going cheap down by Mordor...
[NB. This exchange was scribbled on the back of a scrap of paper found
in the 'fair copy' manuscript of the Akallabeth. At the end was the
note: "No. This is not working. Have Glorfindel return later, in the
Third Age, with Gandalf."]
R. Dan Henry
I think that was rather a ceremonial occasion. And speaking Elvish at
that moment would have been a highly symbolic act by one of the
Faithful. It is obvious that Sindarin is not yet terribly obscure to the
Dunedain of Gondor, but Westron seems to be by far the predominant
tongue. But even those with only a smattering of Sindarin would likely
know the familiar quotations like Elendil's arrival statement. Elendil
himself, being a paragon of Men, would have been fluent and eloquent in
Sindarin, Adunaic, and any other tongue he had cause to learn.
Emma Pease
Sindarin was also used at the Field of Cormallen (sp?) though as a
formal occasion it might have been expected.
Elendil's words were almost certainly ceremonial (his actual first
words were, "stop rowing" just as the ship's boat taking him ashore
beached).
Count Menelvagor
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
> Christopher Kreuzer <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Those are the words Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea to
> > Middle-earth. Unless that is an event that has been since codified in
> > legend and written down in Sindarin, it looks like Elendil spoke
> > Sindarin more often than just as a ceremonial language.
that's quenya.:-) and i'd call that a very ceemonial occasion;
equivalent to planting a flag or cross or whatever.
> Glorfindel (smirking): Oh. I guess you'll be needing somewhere to stay
> then? I've heard there's some land going cheap down by Mordor...
lollo
Troels Forchhammer
<news:1126753356.0...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> "Count
Menelvagor" <Menel...@mailandnews.com> enriched us with:
> Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>> Christopher Kreuzer <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>> Those are the words Elendil spoke when he came up out of the
>>> Sea to Middle-earth. Unless that is an event that has been
>>> since codified in legend and written down in Sindarin, it looks
>>> like Elendil spoke Sindarin more often than just as a
>>> ceremonial language.
>
> that's quenya.:-) and i'd call that a very ceemonial occasion;
> equivalent to planting a flag or cross or whatever.
I was about to post the exact same complaints, but now I guess I have
to add something like, 'Cerimonial? Bah! It was not like the man had
any choice, was it? Just because the man was a pompous git who had to
start "monologging" when all he wanted to say was "Gee! I'm glad we
survived!"' ;-)
>> Glorfindel (smirking): Oh. I guess you'll be needing somewhere to
>> stay then? I've heard there's some land going cheap down by
>> Mordor...
>
> lollo
LOL! Indeed ;-)
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don't want to mend
their own ways, but each other's.
- Piet Hein, /Mankind/
Derek Broughton
> Christopher Kreuzer <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Those are the words Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea to
>> Middle-earth. Unless that is an event that has been since codified in
>> legend and written down in Sindarin, it looks like Elendil spoke
>> Sindarin more often than just as a ceremonial language.
>
> Unless....
>
> <a wet and bedraggled Elendil staggers up the beach>
>
> Glorfindel: Ai na vedui Dunadan! Mae govannen!
>
> Elendil (thinking): [What the hell? Oh, he's speaking that funny Elvish
> lingo. Let's see if I can remember how to say: "We got blown here in a
> storm and want somewhere to stay for a bit".
LOL.
That's one possibility. The other is just that it was a ceremonial
occasion. True, it wasn't as if they'd just gone on a voyage of
exploration to find this land, but perhaps Elendil explicitly wanted to
give his followers a sense of a beginning, rather than an ending.
I find the argument that people in the streets of Gondor seemed to use
Sindarin to refer to Pippin much more compelling than this one.
--
derek
Ost...@theonering.net
Christopher Kreuzer <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Picking up on how far we can go with this idea of Sindarin as a language
>for the elite (ie. was it just a ceremonial language, or the main
>tongue, though still learned and not birth, of the ruling elite), I just
>thought of another example where Aragorn uses Sindarin. At his
>coronation (the "Et Earello..." bit). At least I presume that is
>Sindarin.
Quenya, actually.
Larry Swain
> The spread of the knowledge of Sindarin in Gondor:
>
>
T'would seem that we are on the same page on this one, Troels.
Larry Swain
>
>>The analogy of the Anglo-Normans and Anglo-French doesn't quite work
>>here. Sindarin was NEVER the birth or native language of the
>>Numenoreans whether we're speaking of the First Age, the Second, or
>>the Third. It was always a learned language. Unlike French, which
>>was the native language of the Anglo-Normans, and until the 14th
>>century was not a learned language for them. When it became a
>>learned language, they stopped speaking it in everyday use.
>
>
> exactly French declined among the Anglo-Normans, or did the
> Anglo-Normans just gradual become English?
Not as precise or as full as we would like, no. But we do have
statements, and we have documents ranging from literature to charters
that help us out...the later, the more we have. But yes, gradually they
adopted English, helped out rather significantly by the 100 Years War
and the "Us Vs. Them" attitudes it engendered. So French language
became unpopular and finally with Henry VI became the language of court,
and during his reign for the first time was Parliament opened in
English-late fourteenth century.
Would it have started when
> they lost their lands in France?
It really starts long before. Gradually after 1066 with intermarriage
and such so that by the middle of the twelfth century the process is
well on the way....except then you have the reign of Henry II and a
whole new influx of Frenchmen and French language and from that moment
on, French becomes even more official than it was before. It takes
another century before we begin to get English alongside of French in
official proclamations, but French still prevails.
> Going back to Middle-earth, I am thinking here of the time when the
> Numenoreans FIRST came to Middle-earth and began to explore the coasts
> and set up harbours. I think (not entirely sure) that this was a fair
> amount of time after Numenor had been founded, but I can't remember what
> Tolkien said, if anything, about what language the Numenoreans found
> being used by the Men who had lived through the Dark Years.
He mentions in Appendix F that it wasn't Adunaic but isn't specific
about who spoke what where.
>
> And then we have the case of the Exiles fleeing the Downfall of Numenor.
> You would have them bringing their birth tongue (Adunaic) which would be
> similar but different to the languages of the Men they find in
> Middle-earth, and also Sindarin. The question would be, how much is the
> Westron we see in the Third Age influenced by all this?
All of it. Westron as a language in origin is Adunaic mixed with words
and phrases from the languages of the Numenorean kingdoms, to be
influenced again by the coming of the Exiles with an influx of Adunaic
mixed with Sindarin.
> Oh. I've just re-read Appendix F.1 and all my questions have been
> answered!
>
> I'm also going to go back and read the thread more closely...
>
> Christopher
>
Larry Swain
I would disagree, though acknowledge that this is a very good point.
Ernil for example is the word for "prince", and we know that some level
of knowledge of Sindarin existed in both Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth so
that even the average Minas Tirith dweller would know Ernil Imroth's
name and so would recognize the term Ernil. In UT Tolkien remarks that
in the days of the 2 kingdoms, though estranged in some ways, yet
remained remarkably informed of doings in each other's kingdom's, and so
the presence of the hobbits in the north would be known in the south,
and that Boromir in the Council would have recognized Frodo as one of
that race, though previously he likely considered perianath people of
legend and myth. We know about say dragons (though you may not know the
word is Greek in origin, drakwn), basilisk, banshees, werwolves, and
other creatures of myth and legend and we know their names without
knowing the details of the languages from which those names come. In
the case of perianath, Boromir and Minas Tirith would know it as a
Sindarin name for which Westron was "halfling". All that to say that a
statement about Ernil i pherianath need not imply detailed knowledge of
Sindarin NOR AND ESPECIALLY use of Sindarin as everyday speech.
If
> you think Pherianath might be more commonly spread around because of
> Faramir's dream, the dream words were in Westron not Sindarin (unless
> Boromir translated them into Westron for the council meeting which
> I think would be unlikely).
We aren't told, so I shan't speculate, though I find it problematic that
you find it unlikely that Boromir should translate into Westron? Why?
If you think he is fluent in both and that Sindarin is a "daily speech"
language for the people of Gondor, why wouldn't it be very easy for him
to translate?
On an unrelated and minor note since by itself it proves nothing, I will
point out that in the vision the name Imladris is given in its Sindarin
(?) form, not in the Westron Rivendell.
> I will retract my statement that Sindarin was a birth tongue
Ok.
though I
> still think the Dunedain at least in the families keeping the old
> traditions learned it early and at an age where children pick up
> languages easily (e.g., < 5 years of age) and were often fluent.
I wouldn't be that specific, but I have no problem with some being
fluent in Sindarin.
Larry Swain
> Larry Swain wrote:
>
>
>>The analogy of the Anglo-Normans and Anglo-French doesn't quite work
> here. Sindarin was NEVER the birth or native language of the
> Numenoreans whether we're speaking of the First Age, the Second, or the
> Third. It was always a learned language. Unlike French, which was the
> native language of the Anglo-Normans, and until the 14th century was
> not a learned language for them. When it became a learned language, they
> stopped speaking it in everyday use.<<
>
> As early as the 13th century, many of them had to learn the language
> from primers.
In point of fact, these "primers" were not designed for beginning
learners. Two or three in particular state that they wish to deal with
French no one knows, or teach those who do know how to do it better.
Robert of Gloucester writing about 1300 remarks "bote a man conne
frenss, metelth of him lute--unless a man know French, he is thought
little of.
The thirteenth century is certainly one of change where particularly
after 1225 we see a steady shift of French as an artificially maintained
language and increasingly a learned one, but nonetheless it is the 14th
century that sees the real shift where we can safely say that French is
learned not native and that the language that everyone speaks as a
native is English.
This doesn't make the analogy any more apt. It is a minor corrective to
my statement about the 14th century where we really see that MOST if not
all are acquiring French as a learned language, unlike in the 13th
century where those Anglo-Normans learning French as a second language
are not yet the majority.
The fact that French primers began to be written shows
> that the number of people whose natural language was French was
> decreasing;
Well, no, actually it doesn't. It shows that the number of people whose
natural language was not French wanted to learn French and that the
means to do so were becoming more widespread and available than hitherto.
the first generations needed no primers for their children.
> Also, French visitors at that time remarked that "many gentlemen in
> England speak no French at all".
Sure, but certainly false on the face of it. Considering that French
was the language of court, of culture, of religion (monasteries and
abbots preached sermons in French and the ability to do so in English is
remarked on as unusual and notable), and certainly of the majority of
vernacular literature. It is difficult to think of a "gentleman", a
nobleman who was so cut off from the mainstreams of his own culture as
not to know French.
There was an additional complication:
> by the same century, Anglo-Norman French dialect had started to sound
> archaic, as well as too unlike the French of Ile-de-France (the area
> around Paris), which by then had gained supremacy as the "best" French.
Yes, as the centralization of France was progressing the Parisian
dialect came to the fore and we still see the effects of that movement.
And naturally the Anglo-Norman dialect, always distinct from the
Parisian, continued to change as the trilingual situation (and int he
early days quadrilingual) in England continued to have its effects. So
what? This certainly doesn't make Anglo-Norman any the less a dialect of
French, and certainly again does not strengthen the aptness of the
analogy you wished to draw.
> (At the time of the Norman Conquest, the dialects of Ile-de-France,
> Normandy, Picardie and Anjou had had about equal status.)
This "status" however is a cultural status, not a measure of the
language as language. In this case it has everything to do with politics.
It was also
> during the 13th century that the French started to write comical poems
> about the French spoken in England.
Yep, but again, so what? The French are making fun of the English in
the 13th century...how does this "complicate" matters? It doesn't, its
motivated by politics and the need to see one's own culture as superior.
So what?
At first, the Anglo-Normans reacted
> by trying to teach their children "proper" French; in the long run,
> however, they became annoyed, and in the 14th century they started to
> declare that they preferred "honest English" to the language of the
> "false and devious French". One reason was an armistice treaty during
> the Hundred Years' War where the English nobles misunderstood what the
> treaty document said... After that, they demanded that all treaties be
> written in both French and English, but the French nobles haughtily
> declared that they refsued to sign their names to documents written in
> a barbarous language like English.
Like I said....we really see the movement away from French to English in
the 14th century.
(I believe the two sides finally
> compromised on writing treaties in Latin.) Towards the end of the 14th
> century, they spoke English even at the court in London, and
> parliamentary sessions were conducted exclusively in the same English.
See above.
> The last holdout was the lawyers, of course, but even they had to give
> in at last and write in English. (Except for "Oyez!" and "mortmain" and
> stuff like that.)
Yep, even later.
But I fail to see how any of this makes your analogy any the more apt
for Middle Earth, unless you want to draw an analogy between England of
the 14th century and Gondor....but then we're no longer really talking
about a culture identifying itself as "French" or even "Norman", but as
English, and so calling it "Anglo-Norman" is a misnomer.
> As for the statement that Sindarin was "handed down as a language of
> lore", and hence chanegd little, this *is* what Tolkien says.
*I KNOW*. *I* referred to it often in the forgoing discussion.
I just
> find it remarkable that people would use this language of lore when
> calling to each other in the streets - and there were more than two
> people doing so.
a) I don't. I think Troels has this correctly.
b) as for the number, I think you've misunderstood me. All it takes for
the phrase to be taken up and passed on is for one speaker to say it and
another to take up the phrase to pass it on...which doesn't again
suggest "daily language" use so much as it indicates a crowd reacting to
a wonder.
Öjevind Lång
>LOL! Nice little history lesson there. Thanks, Ojevind.
You couldn't point to a website or two about this could you?
No, I'm afraid I have it from a printed book: "A History of the English
Language" by Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable. It describes in great
detail how the knowledge of French began to decline as early as the
middle of the 13th century. In the last decades of that century, the
great Benedictine monasteries of Canterbury and Westminster adopted
regulations forbidding the novices to use English in school or cloister
and requiring all conversation to be in French. This had not happened
in the previous century; it is the sign of a language in rereat that
tries to maintain its position. In the 1280's, Archbishop Peckham
complained that the Fellows at Merton College talked English at table
and wore "dishonest shoes". I could go on.
The process was for all practical purposes finished by the early 15th
century. In 1400 George Dunbar, Earl of March, in writing to the king
in English, says: "And noble Prince, marvel ye not that I write my
letters in English, for that is more clear to my understanding that
Latin or French." A very droll case is offered by a letter to the king
from Richard Kingston, dean of Windsor, in 1403. Out of deference to
custom, the dean "begins bravely enough in French" (as Baugh and Cable
say), but towardas the close, when he becomes particularly earnest, he
passes instinctively from French to English in the middle of a
sentence, viz.:
"Jeo prie a la Benoit Trinite que vous ottroie bone vie ove tresentier
sauntee a treslonge durre, and sende youwe sone to ows in helþ and
prosperitee; for, in god fey, I hope to Al Mighty God that, yef ye come
youre owne persone, ye schulle have the victorie of alle youre enemyes.
"And for salvation of youre Schire and Marches al aboute, treste ye
nought to no Leutenaunt.
"Escript a Hereford, en tresgraunte haste, a trois de la clocke apres
noone, le tierce jour de Septembre."
Öjevind
Christopher Kreuzer
is
> >Sindarin.
>
> Quenya, actually.
As quite a few people have pointed out.
I need to brush up on my Elvish. :-(
I wonder if there is there an _easy_ way to tell Quenya and Sindarin
apart. Either by looking at the words, or by remembering who spoke what?
I would have thought those who spoke Quenya could all speak Sindarin,
but in any Sindarin-speaking population, only a few would be able to
speak Quenya?
Christopher Kreuzer
> And naturally the Anglo-Norman dialect, always distinct
> from the Parisian, continued to change as the trilingual situation
> (and int he early days quadrilingual) in England continued to have
> its effects.
Trilingual? Quadrilingual??
I thought this was just English and French (bilingual).
What are these other languages?
Öjevind Lång
>In point of fact, these "primers" were not designed for beginning
>learners. Two or three in particular state that they wish to deal with
>French no one knows, or teach those who do know how to do it better.
>Robert of Gloucester writing about 1300 remarks "bote a man conne
>frenss, metelth of him lute--unless a man know French, he is thought
>little of.
And my point was precisely that the primers were not exclusively
designed for beginning learners. They were also for people who felt
that their Anglo-Norman French was "wrong", an idea that would never
have occurred to their grandparents.
>The thirteenth century is certainly one of change where particularly
>after 1225 we see a steady shift of French as an artificially maintained
>language and increasingly a learned one, but nonetheless it is the 14th
>century that sees the real shift where we can safely say that French is
>learned not native and that the language that everyone speaks as a
>native is English.
Yes. Where did I deny that?
>This doesn't make the analogy any more apt. It is a minor corrective to
>my statement about the 14th century where we really see that MOST if not
>all are acquiring French as a learned language, unlike in the 13th
>century where those Anglo-Normans learning French as a second language
>are not yet the majority.
You don' seem to quite take in what I write. I was not talking about
the analogy between French and Sindarin, since I left that discussion a
while ago. In the post you replied to, I wrote about French in England
and said that there was a gradual shift, and that in the 13th centry,
there were (according to French visitors) already many gentlemen who
spoke no French. Incidentally, I said nothing about majorities.
This ground has already been covered, but let me repeat it once more:
Before making the post to which you replied I had already, in another
post, acknowledged that Tolkien does say in his Appendices and other
commentary that Sindarin was "a language of lore" and not spoken as a
first language by any Dúnedain, even though the behaviour of some
people in the novel proper would indicate the opposite. If you take the
trouble to really read my previous post, you will find that it is
exclusively about Anglo-Norman French and English. So we don't need to
go back and forth about Sindarin and Westron. If you enjoy circuitous
exchanges, my advice to you is to jump into one of the political
threads.
>>The fact that French primers began to be written shows
>> that the number of people whose natural language was French was
>> decreasing;
>Well, no, actually it doesn't. It shows that the number of people whose
>natural language was not French wanted to learn French and that the
>means to do so were becoming more widespread and available than hitherto.
Here you contradict yourself. Above, you say that, and I quote, "these
'primers' were not designed for beginning learners." Correct. They were
not only for those. They were also (and perhaps primarily) for
upper-class people whose confidence in their French (and in their
ability to teach it "correctly" to their children) was slipping. This
is supported by the fact that the primers first started to appear in
the middle of the 13th century, when the sources show that Anglo-Norman
was losing its respectability, instead of during the previous century,
which would have been logical if they had been primarily intended for
ambitious people whose native tongue was English.
> Also, French visitors at that time remarked that "many gentlemen in
> England speak no French at all".
>Sure, but certainly false on the face of it. Considering that French
>was the language of court, of culture, of religion (monasteries and
>abbots preached sermons in French and the ability to do so in English is
>remarked on as unusual and notable), and certainly of the majority of
>vernacular literature. It is difficult to think of a "gentleman", a
>nobleman who was so cut off from the mainstreams of his own culture as
>not to know French.
I can only acknowledge that you think you know more about the
linguistic situation in medieval England than contemporary observers.
>> There was an additional complication:
>> by the same century, Anglo-Norman French dialect had started to sound
>> archaic, as well as too unlike the French of Ile-de-France (the area
>> around Paris), which by then had gained supremacy as the "best" French.
>Yes, as the centralization of France was progressing the Parisian
>dialect came to the fore and we still see the effects of that movement.
> And naturally the Anglo-Norman dialect, always distinct from the
>Parisian, continued to change as the trilingual situation (and int he
>early days quadrilingual) in England continued to have its effects. So
>what? This certainly doesn't make Anglo-Norman any the less a dialect of
>French, and certainly again does not strengthen the aptness of the
>analogy you wished to draw.
An analogy which I have abandoned. My previous post was about
Anglo-Norman, not about Sindarin. I have snipped the rest of your post
because it basically gives the same historical outline for the
linguistics of medieval England that I gave, if one removes various
quibbles.
Öjevind
Öjevind Lång
>Trilingual? Quadrilingual??
>I thought this was just English and French (bilingual).
>What are these other languages?
No doubt Larry Swain is thinking of Latin, which was of course the
primary language of the church, and often used in documents.
Öjevind
Christopher Kreuzer
> Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>
>> LOL! Nice little history lesson there. Thanks, Ojevind.
> You couldn't point to a website or two about this could you?
>
> No, I'm afraid I have it from a printed book: "A History of the
> English Language" by Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable.
Thanks for the reference.
> A very droll case is offered by
> a letter to the king from Richard Kingston, dean of Windsor, in 1403.
> Out of deference to custom, the dean "begins bravely enough in
> French" (as Baugh and Cable say), but towardas the close, when he
> becomes particularly earnest, he passes instinctively from French to
> English in the middle of a sentence, viz.:
>
> "Jeo prie a la Benoit Trinite que vous ottroie bone vie ove tresentier
> sauntee a treslonge durre, and sende youwe sone to ows in helþ and
> prosperitee; for, in god fey, I hope to Al Mighty God that, yef ye
> come youre owne persone, ye schulle have the victorie of alle youre
> enemyes. "And for salvation of youre Schire and Marches al aboute,
> treste ye nought to no Leutenaunt.
> "Escript a Hereford, en tresgraunte haste, a trois de la clocke
> apres noone, le tierce jour de Septembre."
Oh. Let's see if I can understand this Middle English. If it is Middle
English. I've alway found those original versions of Chaucer hard to
understand. This looks a bit easier:
> "Jeo prie a la Benoit Trinite que vous ottroie bone vie ove tresentier
I pray to the Holy Trinity that your life is well and you have guarded
> sauntee a treslonge durre, and sende youwe sone to ows in helþ and
health and very long and enduring, and send you some to us in help and
> prosperitee; for, in god fey, I hope to Al Mighty God that, yef ye
prosperity; for, in good fear, I hope to Almighty God that, if you
> come youre owne persone, ye schulle have the victorie of alle youre
come your own person, you shall have the victory over all your
> enemyes. "And for salvation of youre Schire and Marches al aboute,
enemies. And for salvation of your Shire and Marches all around,
> treste ye nought to no Leutenaunt.
trust you not to no Leutenaunt.
> "Escript a Hereford, en tresgraunte haste, a trois de la clocke
> apres noone, le tierce jour de Septembre."
Written at Hereford, in very great haste, at three of the clock after
noon, the thirteenth day of September.
To make it a bit more readable:
ORIGINAL: "Jeo prie a la Benoit Trinite que vous ottroie bone vie ove
tresentier sauntee a treslonge durre, and sende youwe sone to ows in
helþ and
prosperitee; for, in god fey, I hope to Al Mighty God that, yef ye come
youre owne persone, ye schulle have the victorie of alle youre enemyes.
And for salvation of youre Schire and Marches al aboute, treste ye
nought to no Leutenaunt. Escript a Hereford, en tresgraunte haste, a
trois de la clocke apres noone, le tierce jour de Septembre."
KREUZER: "I pray to the Holy Trinity that your life is well and you have
guarded health and very long and enduring, and send you some to us in
help and prosperity; for, in good fear, I hope to Almighty God that, if
you come your own person, you shall have the victory over all your
enemies. And for salvation of your Shire and Marches all around, trust
you not to no Leutenaunt. Written at Hereford, in very great haste, at
three of the clock after noon, the thirteenth day of September."
I did try some online translation engines, going back and forth between
French and English, but they couldn't make much sense of it. Though they
did suggest that it was the third day of September, not the thirteenth.
I must be forgetting my elementary French.
Emma Pease
Probably the Celtic languages such as Cornish and Welsh (Cornish
didn't completely die out till the 1700s, Welsh is still around). I
think Danish might also have been spoken around the Danelaw.
Emma
the softrat
<em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>Probably the Celtic languages such as Cornish and Welsh (Cornish
>didn't completely die out till the 1700s, Welsh is still around). I
>think Danish might also have been spoken around the Danelaw.
>
words still in use, especially in the North Country.
(I can't think of any at the moment however .....)
Yr. Fiend,
the softrat
Unless Barad-dur is rebuilt, twice as evil as before, Frodo has triumphed!
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be
lazy. -- Steven Wright
Troels Forchhammer
Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> enriched us with:
>
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>
>> The spread of the knowledge of Sindarin in Gondor:
>
> T'would seem that we are on the same page on this one, Troels.
Just found this
In the days of the Númenorean kings this ennobled Westron
speech spread far and wide, even among their enemies; and
it became used more and more by the Dúnedain themselves,
so that at the time of the War of the Ring the Elven-tongue
was known to only a small part of the peoples of Gondor,
and spoken daily by fewer.
[LotR App. F,I 'Of Men']
Of course we could always start bickering over what he meant by 'small
part' and 'fewer' ;-)
That certainly puts the knowledge of Sindarin in Gondor at a lower
level than the knowledge of English in Denmark.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
The errors hardest
Dirk Thierbach
> I wonder if there is there an _easy_ way to tell Quenya and Sindarin
> apart.
The phonetics are quite different. If you've seen the movie, remember
the part where Saruman speaks in Quenya when the fellowship is at
Caradhras? It's not quite loud enough, but if you listen closely, it
sounds very different from all the Sindarin they are speaking in other
places.
I cannot describe the difference very well in words, but Quenya is very
"vocalic", and the case endings ("-enna", "-ello", etc.) are quite
distinctive. Sindarin is somewhat "darker", and more "celtic".
So reading it out loud may help :-)
- Dirk
Jamie Andrews; real address @ bottom of message
> I wonder if there is there an _easy_ way to tell Quenya and Sindarin
> apart. Either by looking at the words, or by remembering who spoke what?
Quenya tends to have more words ending in vowels. I think
also that Sindarin has certain fricatives like dh, ch, th, etc.
that Quenya does not have. Compare the Quenya of Galadriel's
lament:
Ai! Laurie lantar lassi surinen,
Yeni unotime ve ramar aldaron.
Yeni ve linte yuldar avanier,
Mi oromardi lisse miruvoreva
Andune pella, Vardo tellumar nu luini
Yassen tintilar i eleni omaryo airetari-lirinen.
with the Sindarin of the Elbereth song:
A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
Silivren penna miriel,
O menel aglar elenath;
Na-chaered palan-diriel
O galadhremmin ennorath
Fanuilos, le linnathon
Nef aear, si nef aearon!
--Jamie. (Celebrating (?) 20 years on Usenet!)
andrews .uwo } Merge these two lines to obtain my e-mail address.
@csd .ca } (Unsolicited "bulk" e-mail costs everyone.)
Derek Broughton
>
> That certainly puts the knowledge of Sindarin in Gondor at a lower
> level than the knowledge of English in Denmark.
Glad to hear it. I'm hoping to get a contract to spend a year in
Copenhagen...
--
derek
Öjevind Lång
>To make it a bit more readable:
>ORIGINAL: "Jeo prie a la Benoit Trinite que vous ottroie bone vie ove
tresentier sauntee a treslonge durre, and sende youwe sone to ows in
helþ and
prosperitee; for, in god fey, I hope to Al Mighty God that, yef ye come
youre owne persone, ye schulle have the victorie of alle youre enemyes.
And for salvation of youre Schire and Marches al aboute, treste ye
nought to no Leutenaunt. Escript a Hereford, en tresgraunte haste, a
trois de la clocke apres noone, le tierce jour de Septembre."
>KREUZER: "I pray to the Holy Trinity that your life is well and you have
guarded health and very long and enduring, and send you some to us in
help and prosperity; for, in good fear, I hope to Almighty God that, if
you come your own person, you shall have the victory over all your
enemies. And for salvation of your Shire and Marches all around, trust
you not to no Leutenaunt. Written at Hereford, in very great haste, at
three of the clock after noon, the thirteenth day of September."
I think you only missed a couple of minor points. I believe it means
something like this: "I pray to the Holy Trinity which endows you with
good life (that it) will preserve good health of very long duration
(for you), and send you soon to us in health and prosperity; for, in
good faith, I hope to Almighty God that if you come here in your own
person, you shall have the victory over all your enemies. And for
salvation of your Shire and Marches all around, trust you not to no
Lieutenant. Written at Hereford, in very great haste, at three o'clock
after noon, the third day of September."
Öjevind
Troels Forchhammer
Graeme Thomas <gra...@graemet.demon.co.uk> enriched us with:
>
> In article <Xns96D16AE9...@130.133.1.4>, Troels
> Forchhammer <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid> writes
>>
>> All that talk about classic education and Oxford made me recall a
>> famous detective who, in his Oxford days, one never failed to find
>> 'planted in the centre of the quad and laying down the law with
>> exquisite insolence to somebody.' (should be easy -- only a
>> two-point quotation that).
>
> That's two of the easiest points on offer anywhere.
See, I'm a much nicer guy than that quiz-master, Mr Kreuzer ;-)
(Yes, I'm still a bit disappointed over my performance in those songs
quizzes <G>)
> Lord Peter Wimsey ("Wimsey of Balliol"), as referred to by Peake
> of Brasenose, in _Gaudy Night_ by Dorothy L Sayers.
Precisely.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought
which they avoid.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Larry Swain
Troels Forchhammer
<ne...@pointerstop.ca> enriched us with:
As long as you're not hoping to learn any Danish ... (I've had English-
speaking colleagues who were hoping to pick up a little Danish on the
street, but everybody insisted on speaking English to them -- my
Finnish colleagues, however, seem enthusiastic of the same fact <G>).
I'll be delighted to buy you beer, should you get the contract ...
R. Dan Henry
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote:
>In message <news:qgrqv2-...@othello.pointerstop.ca> Derek Broughton
><ne...@pointerstop.ca> enriched us with:
>
>> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>>
>>> That certainly puts the knowledge of Sindarin in Gondor at a lower
>>> level than the knowledge of English in Denmark.
>>
>> Glad to hear it. I'm hoping to get a contract to spend a year in
>> Copenhagen...
>
>As long as you're not hoping to learn any Danish ... (I've had English-
>speaking colleagues who were hoping to pick up a little Danish on the
>street, but everybody insisted on speaking English to them -- my
>Finnish colleagues, however, seem enthusiastic of the same fact <G>).
Ah, but if you pretend your native language is something else and you
don't speak English... perhaps trying a few Sindarin sentences before
stumbling through one's beginner Danish?
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Derek Broughton
> In message <news:qgrqv2-...@othello.pointerstop.ca> Derek Broughton
> <ne...@pointerstop.ca> enriched us with:
>
>> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>>
>>> That certainly puts the knowledge of Sindarin in Gondor at a lower
>>> level than the knowledge of English in Denmark.
>>
>> Glad to hear it. I'm hoping to get a contract to spend a year in
>> Copenhagen...
>
> As long as you're not hoping to learn any Danish ... (I've had English-
> speaking colleagues who were hoping to pick up a little Danish on the
> street, but everybody insisted on speaking English to them -- my
> Finnish colleagues, however, seem enthusiastic of the same fact <G>).
Damn. I _was_ hoping :-) I spent a few years in the north of England as a
kid, and I'm told that Danish is as close to that as you'll find anywhere
else.
> I'll be delighted to buy you beer, should you get the contract ...
And then I'll buy you one, and we'll be off to a good start! I don't know
much about Danish beer, except that Carlsberg invented lager. Is the
selection anywhere near as good as that paradise on Earth - Belgium?
--
derek
Yuk Tang
wrote in news:3p02u2F...@individual.net:
> <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> I wonder if there is there an _easy_ way to tell Quenya and
>> Sindarin apart. Either by looking at the words, or by remembering
>> who spoke what?
>
> Quenya tends to have more words ending in vowels. I think
> also that Sindarin has certain fricatives like dh, ch, th, etc.
> that Quenya does not have. Compare the Quenya of Galadriel's
> lament:
>
> Ai! Laurie lantar lassi surinen,
> Yeni unotime ve ramar aldaron.
> Yeni ve linte yuldar avanier,
> Mi oromardi lisse miruvoreva
> Andune pella, Vardo tellumar nu luini
> Yassen tintilar i eleni omaryo airetari-lirinen.
>
> with the Sindarin of the Elbereth song:
> A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
> Silivren penna miriel,
> O menel aglar elenath;
> Na-chaered palan-diriel
> O galadhremmin ennorath
> Fanuilos, le linnathon
> Nef aear, si nef aearon!
If you know any Chinese, Quenya can be compared to the more flowing
Mandarin, while Sindarin is more like the harder-sounding Cantonese.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Troels Forchhammer
<snip>
>> As long as you're not hoping to learn any Danish ...
[...]
>
> Damn. I _was_ hoping :-)
Well -- I suppose you might get lucky if you point it out explicitly
;-)
> I spent a few years in the north of England as a kid, and I'm told
> that Danish is as close to that as you'll find anywhere else.
I've heard that as well from a Danish view-point. The story goes that
the fishermen can speak easily when they meet at sea. Unfortunately I
cannot really say if they speak Danish (those from the Danish side, I
mean), because I don't understand a word of their local dialect ;-)
>> I'll be delighted to buy you beer, should you get the contract
>> ...
>
> And then I'll buy you one, and we'll be off to a good start!
You could go into any Danish bar with that kind of proposal and at
least expect a hearing ;-)
> I don't know much about Danish beer, except that Carlsberg invented
> lager. Is the selection anywhere near as good as that paradise on
> Earth - Belgium?
Not quite as excellent, I'm afraid, though there's a number of beers
brewed only for the national market (many Danish beer-lovers deplore
the low quality of the high-volume Carlsberg and Tuborg beers).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Love while you've got
love to give.
Live while you've got
life to live.
- Piet Hein, /Memento Vivere/
Odysseus
>
> Öjevind Lång <ojevin...@bredband.net> wrote:
> > Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
> >
>
> > A very droll case is offered by
> > a letter to the king from Richard Kingston, dean of Windsor, in 1403.
> > Out of deference to custom, the dean "begins bravely enough in
> > French" (as Baugh and Cable say), but towardas the close, when he
> > becomes particularly earnest, he passes instinctively from French to
> > English in the middle of a sentence, viz.:
> >
> > "Jeo prie a la Benoit Trinite que vous ottroie bone vie ove tresentier
> > sauntee a treslonge durre, and sende youwe sone to ows in helþ and
> > prosperitee; for, in god fey, I hope to Al Mighty God that, yef ye
> > come youre owne persone, ye schulle have the victorie of alle youre
> > enemyes. "And for salvation of youre Schire and Marches al aboute,
> > treste ye nought to no Leutenaunt.
> > "Escript a Hereford, en tresgraunte haste, a trois de la clocke
> > apres noone, le tierce jour de Septembre."
>
> Oh. Let's see if I can understand this Middle English. If it is Middle
> English. I've alway found those original versions of Chaucer hard to
> understand. This looks a bit easier:
>
The central part is late Middle English, I think, but it certainly
begins and ends in French.
> I pray to the Holy Trinity that your life is well and you have guarded
> health and very long and enduring, and send you some to us in help and
> prosperity; for, in good fear, [...]
"I pray to the Blessed Trinity that you might attract (_attraie_? --
modern _attiriez_?) good life in very complete health and of very
long duration" -- here is where the English begins -- "and send you
soon to us in health and prosperity; for, in good faith, ..."
I wrote "Blessed" rather than "Holy" because the latter would be
_Sancte_ (modern _La Sainte-Trinité_) or something of the kind -- cf.
Lat. _benedictus_ and _sanctus_ -- not that it makes much difference.
[...]
> trust you not to no Leutenaunt.
"Nothing" for "not" -- "naught" (or "nowt") is still used in some
English dialects. Standard modern English would call for "any" rather
than "no" -- and of course the spelling "Lieutenant".
> Written at Hereford, in very great haste, at three of the clock after
> noon, the thirteenth day of September.
Back to French with the occasional English word. _Tierce_ is "third";
"thirteenth" would be something like _treizime_.
--
Odysseus
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip translations>
> I think you only missed a couple of minor points. I believe it means
> something like this:
<snip>
Thanks!
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> If you know any Chinese, Quenya can be compared to the more flowing
> Mandarin, while Sindarin is more like the harder-sounding Cantonese.
Thanks for the tip. Surely I'd be better of, though, listening to people
speaking Finnish and Welsh. Does anyone think that would help?
Christopher Kreuzer
> In rec.arts.books.tolkien Christopher Kreuzer
> <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>> I wonder if there is there an _easy_ way to tell Quenya and Sindarin
>> apart. Either by looking at the words, or by remembering who spoke
>> what?
>
> Quenya tends to have more words ending in vowels. I think
> also that Sindarin has certain fricatives like dh, ch, th, etc.
> that Quenya does not have. Compare the Quenya of Galadriel's
> lament:
Thanks for this, and thanks to the helpful comments from others as well.
These two examples have shown clearly how I should have realised that
Aragorn's coronation chant was Quenya.
> Ai! Laurie lantar lassi surinen,
<snip>
> with the Sindarin of the Elbereth song:
> A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
<snip>
But I'm still not sure how to distinguish them if you only have one or
two words, like in a place name. Does that make it a bit more difficult?
Christopher Kreuzer
> I wrote "Blessed" rather than "Holy" because the latter would be
> _Sancte_ (modern _La Sainte-Trinité_) or something of the kind -- cf.
> Lat. _benedictus_ and _sanctus_ -- not that it makes much difference.
Ah, yes. Thanks for that. I see Ojevind translated it as "Holy Trinity".
But I'd agree with what you say here.
> [...]
>
>> trust you not to no Leutenaunt.
>
> "Nothing" for "not" -- "naught" (or "nowt") is still used in some
> English dialects. Standard modern English would call for "any" rather
> than "no" -- and of course the spelling "Lieutenant".
Is there a difference between "trust you not" and "trust you nothing".
Surely one is just a colloquialism of the other?
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> Ah, but if you pretend your native language is something else and you
> don't speak English... perhaps trying a few Sindarin sentences before
> stumbling through one's beginner Danish?
LOL! Or maybe try Quenya? They might think you are Finnish?
Odysseus
>
[translating Richard Kingston's "treste ye nought to no Leutenaunt."]
> >
> >> trust you not to no Leutenaunt.
> >
>
> > "Nothing" for "not" -- "naught" (or "nowt") is still used in some
> > English dialects. Standard modern English would call for "any" rather
> > than "no" -- and of course the spelling "Lieutenant".
>
> Is there a difference between "trust you not" and "trust you nothing".
> Surely one is just a colloquialism of the other?
Notice the "to": "trust ... to s.o." requires a direct object (as
does "entrust") in addition to the indirect object (the person
concerned). In other words, as I read the passage Kingston isn't
advising the king against generally putting trust in his agents,
which would be "treste ye not no (sc. any) Leutenaunt", but rather to
leave no task in their hands: instead of just "don't trust them",
"don't entrust them with anything". There's only a slight semantic
difference, but the former comes across as a warning against
treachery, while the latter might only imply that the king's
lieutenants are likely to be lax, negligent, or otherwise
incompetent. At any rate "not" strikes me as quite unidiomatic here
-- even leaving aside that "nought" should need no translation.
--
Odysseus
Odysseus
>
> Jamie Andrews; real address @ bottom of message <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
<snip>
> These two examples have shown clearly how I should have realised that
> Aragorn's coronation chant was Quenya.
>
> > Ai! Laurie lantar lassi surinen,
>
> <snip>
>
> > with the Sindarin of the Elbereth song:
> > A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
>
> <snip>
>
> But I'm still not sure how to distinguish them if you only have one or
> two words, like in a place name. Does that make it a bit more difficult?
Yes, but there will sometimes be diagnostic clues in the spelling or
implied phonetics. For example I'm pretty sure you won't find "qu"
(kw), "ngw", "hy", consonantal "y", or a diaeresis (as in _lauriė_)
in transliterated Sindarin. Jamie's tips would still work, where
applicable -- although IIRC "th" is only rare in Quenya, or archaic
(whether 'story-internally' or in terms of Tolkien's development of
the languages), rather than quite non-existent.
You might find the Ardalambion website helpful in identifying some
other characteristic features; compare
<http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/quenya.htm#Heading6>
with
<http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/sindarin.htm#Heading6>.
--
Odysseus
Öjevind Lång
>[translating Richard Kingston's "treste ye nought to no Leutenaunt."]
[snip]
>Notice the "to": "trust ... to s.o." requires a direct object (as
does "entrust") in addition to the indirect object (the person
concerned). In other words, as I read the passage Kingston isn't
advising the king against generally putting trust in his agents,
which would be "treste ye not no (sc. any) Leutenaunt", but rather to
leave no task in their hands: instead of just "don't trust them",
"don't entrust them with anything". There's only a slight semantic
difference, but the former comes across as a warning against
treachery, while the latter might only imply that the king's
lieutenants are likely to be lax, negligent, or otherwise
incompetent. At any rate "not" strikes me as quite unidiomatic here
-- even leaving aside that "nought" should need no translation.
I wonder if Kingston wrote "nought" as "not" because he pronounced the
two words the same way or if it simply was a typo because he was in
such a wicked hurry; after all, his French is rather more elliptical
than I think was the case then (or now). With the suggestions and
emendations from the three of us, I now advance the following
rendition, though I will confess that I am still not quite sure about
one item at the beginning:
"I pray to the Blessed Trinity which endows you with
good life [= grants you life] (that it) will preserve good health of
very long duration
(for you), and send you soon to us in health and prosperity; for, in
good faith, I hope to Almighty God that if you come here in your own
person, you shall have the victory over all your enemies. And for
salvation of your Shire and Marches all around, trust you naught to no
Dirk Thierbach
> But I'm still not sure how to distinguish them if you only have one or
> two words, like in a place name. Does that make it a bit more difficult?
Same principle. If you cannot work it out from phonetics, try to look
up the meaning, or see if you can identify parts of it. (Anything with
"barad" in it must be Sindarin, for example.)
- Dirk
R. Dan Henry
<odysseu...@yahoo-dot.ca> wrote:
>There's only a slight semantic
>difference, but the former comes across as a warning against
>treachery, while the latter might only imply that the king's
>lieutenants are likely to be lax, negligent, or otherwise
>incompetent.
Or even not specifically about the lieutenants -- if you want something
done right, do it yourself.
Larry Swain
> Larry Swain wrote:
>
>
>>In point of fact, these "primers" were not designed for beginning
>>learners. Two or three in particular state that they wish to deal with
>>French no one knows, or teach those who do know how to do it better.
>>Robert of Gloucester writing about 1300 remarks "bote a man conne
>>frenss, metelth of him lute--unless a man know French, he is thought
>>little of.
>
>
> And my point was precisely that the primers were not exclusively
> designed for beginning learners. They were also for people who felt
> that their Anglo-Norman French was "wrong", an idea that would never
> have occurred to their grandparents.
Forgive my tardiness in responding. But I'm afraid I have ask some sort
of explanation here. Here you state that your point was PRECISELY that
the primers were intended not for beginning learners exclusively but
also for those wanting to learn Parisian French, yet in your post on
Sept. 14 you state: "The fact that French primers began to be written
shows that the number of people whose natural language was French was
decreasing; the first generations needed no primers for their children."
That seems to indicate to me that you are saying the primers are
designed for beginning learners. Yes, you do speak of the issue of
Parisian French becoming the more desireable dialect, but don't seem to
in connection with the primers at all. But now you're saying that
indeed that whole long piece should be taken as about the use of primers
in the 14th century?
>
>
>>The thirteenth century is certainly one of change where particularly
>>after 1225 we see a steady shift of French as an artificially maintained
>>language and increasingly a learned one, but nonetheless it is the 14th
>>century that sees the real shift where we can safely say that French is
>>learned not native and that the language that everyone speaks as a
>>native is English.
>
>
> Yes. Where did I deny that?
You didn't per se. But this is what I stated in my first response to
you when you drew the analogy between Anglo-Norman French and Sindarin
in Gondor. After I stated this, you then responded with the Baugh and
Cable material. I didn't see anything in your post that indicated that
you were merely floshing out what I stated, but were rather offering it
as a corrective to what I stated. But now we're in agreement?
>
>
>>This doesn't make the analogy any more apt. It is a minor corrective to
>>my statement about the 14th century where we really see that MOST if not
>>all are acquiring French as a learned language, unlike in the 13th
>>century where those Anglo-Normans learning French as a second language
>>are not yet the majority.
>
>
> You don' seem to quite take in what I write. I was not talking about
> the analogy between French and Sindarin, since I left that discussion a
> while ago.
Where? You made the analogy on 9/13. I responded on the same day. You
responded again with the post summarizing Baugh and Cable on 9/14--and
in neither post of 9/13 or 9/14 did you indicate that you had "left" the
discussion or that you had dropped the analogy of Sindarin language use
and Anglo-Norman French. I hope you'll pardon me if I don't quite see
where between 9/13 and 9/16 (the post I'm responding to) you abandoned
the analogy or "left" that discussion. Am I missing a post somewhere?
In the post you replied to, I wrote about French in England
> and said that there was a gradual shift, and that in the 13th centry,
> there were (according to French visitors) already many gentlemen who
> spoke no French. Incidentally, I said nothing about majorities.
> This ground has already been covered, but let me repeat it once more:
> Before making the post to which you replied I had already, in another
> post, acknowledged that Tolkien does say in his Appendices and other
> commentary that Sindarin was "a language of lore" and not spoken as a
> first language by any Dúnedain, even though the behaviour of some
> people in the novel proper would indicate the opposite. If you take the
> trouble to really read my previous post, you will find that it is
> exclusively about Anglo-Norman French and English. So we don't need to
> go back and forth about Sindarin and Westron. If you enjoy circuitous
> exchanges, my advice to you is to jump into one of the political
> threads.
I did read your previous post in this thread. And yes you did make that
statement that you acknowledge that Tolkien said it, but you also
indicate there and here that you disagree with the statement because of
how you read the characters actions indicating the opposite. Your
actions and replies seem to indicate the opposite of what you are saying
your intent is, so I hope you'll forgive my confusion.
>
>
>>>The fact that French primers began to be written shows
>>>that the number of people whose natural language was French was
>>>decreasing;
>
>
>>Well, no, actually it doesn't. It shows that the number of people whose
>>natural language was not French wanted to learn French and that the
>>means to do so were becoming more widespread and available than hitherto.
>
>
> Here you contradict yourself. Above, you say that, and I quote, "these
> 'primers' were not designed for beginning learners." Correct. They were
> not only for those.
So when I make this point its a contradiction, but when you make this
point it isn't?
They were also (and perhaps primarily) for
> upper-class people whose confidence in their French (and in their
> ability to teach it "correctly" to their children) was slipping.
No disagreement there.
This
> is supported by the fact that the primers first started to appear in
> the middle of the 13th century, when the sources show that Anglo-Norman
> was losing its respectability, instead of during the previous century,
> which would have been logical if they had been primarily intended for
> ambitious people whose native tongue was English.
>
>
>>Also, French visitors at that time remarked that "many gentlemen in
>>England speak no French at all".
>
>
>>Sure, but certainly false on the face of it. Considering that French
>>was the language of court, of culture, of religion (monasteries and
>>abbots preached sermons in French and the ability to do so in English is
>>remarked on as unusual and notable), and certainly of the majority of
>>vernacular literature. It is difficult to think of a "gentleman", a
>>nobleman who was so cut off from the mainstreams of his own culture as
>>not to know French.
>
>
> I can only acknowledge that you think you know more about the
> linguistic situation in medieval England than contemporary observers.
I do. Unlike the 13th century Frenchman who had a cultural and
political axe to grind about those chappies across the channel speaking
a rustic form of French, I have none of that baggage. Further, I have
the advantage of being able to trace the developments, growth, changes,
and mutations of French, Latin, and English across several centuries.
Just applying a bit of logic to what you yourself already know: how do
these English gentleman (i. e. nobles) access courth, parliament, or the
law courts or collect taxes since all of that was done in French? They
may not have spoken a form of French recognizable as such to a 13th
century Parisian, but they did know something of the language in which
their daily business was conducted. Those of us who go into this line
of talking about languages are called philologists.
>
>>> There was an additional complication:
>>>by the same century, Anglo-Norman French dialect had started to sound
>>>archaic, as well as too unlike the French of Ile-de-France (the area
>>>around Paris), which by then had gained supremacy as the "best" French.
>
>
>
>>Yes, as the centralization of France was progressing the Parisian
>>dialect came to the fore and we still see the effects of that movement.
>> And naturally the Anglo-Norman dialect, always distinct from the
>>Parisian, continued to change as the trilingual situation (and int he
>>early days quadrilingual) in England continued to have its effects. So
>>what? This certainly doesn't make Anglo-Norman any the less a dialect of
>>French, and certainly again does not strengthen the aptness of the
>>analogy you wished to draw.
>
>
> An analogy which I have abandoned. My previous post was about
> Anglo-Norman, not about Sindarin. I have snipped the rest of your post
> because it basically gives the same historical outline for the
> linguistics of medieval England that I gave, if one removes various
> quibbles.
>
> Öjevind
>
Öjevind Lång
>Öjevind Lång wrote:
>> Larry Swain wrote:
>>>In point of fact, these "primers" were not designed for beginning
>>>learners. Two or three in particular state that they wish to deal with
>>>French no one knows, or teach those who do know how to do it better.
>>>Robert of Gloucester writing about 1300 remarks "bote a man conne
>>>frenss, metelth of him lute--unless a man know French, he is thought
>>>little of.
>> And my point was precisely that the primers were not exclusively
>> designed for beginning learners. They were also for people who felt
>> that their Anglo-Norman French was "wrong", an idea that would never
>> have occurred to their grandparents.
>Forgive my tardiness in responding. But I'm afraid I have ask some sort
of explanation here. Here you state that your point was PRECISELY that
the primers were intended not for beginning learners exclusively but
also for those wanting to learn Parisian French, yet in your post on
Sept. 14 you state: "The fact that French primers began to be written
shows that the number of people whose natural language was French was
decreasing; the first generations needed no primers for their
children."
If you read my post in its entirety, you would have noticed that that
was indeed precisely what I was saying. The primers were not
exclusively intended for beginning learners, but the fact that they
started to appear in the 13th century and not earlier shows that the
number of people whose natural language was French was decreasing;
also, of course, that those whose birth tongue was French no longer
felt that their ancestral Anglo-Norman version of it was "good enough".
For generations, they apologized for their crappy French before simply
deciding that knowing French didn't matter.
Let me repeat: the primers started to appear in order for the
Anglo-Normans to learn how to write "properly". But as it happens, they
also started to appear at a time when, according to contemporary French
visitors, "there is many a gentleman who has no French". That is to
say, some noblemen in the shires no longer learned the language at all,
except, I daresay, for the occasional "Moi?" or "Mercy bookoo". No
doubt they had clerks or scribes to help them out at need. *And*
primers.
To quote Baugh and Cable again: "The effect of the foreign incursions
in the thirteenth century [that is to say, the wholesale introduction
of fresh French aristocrats by Henry III] was undoubtedly to delay
somewhat the natural spread of the use of English by the upper classes
that had begun." Look at the last words: "That had begun". Baugh and
Cable continue: "But it was to arouse such widespread hostility to
foreigners as greatly to stimulate the consciousness of the difference
between those who for a generation or several generations had so
participated in English as to consider themselves Englishmen, and to
cause them to unite against the newcomers who had flocked to England to
bask in the sun of Henry's favor. One of the reproaches frequently
leveled at the latter is that they did not know English. It would be
nautral if some knowledge fo English should come to be regarded as a
proper masrk of an Englishman."
>That seems to indicate to me that you are saying the primers are
designed for beginning learners. Yes, you do speak of the issue of
Parisian French becoming the more desireable dialect, but don't seem to
in connection with the primers at all. But now you're saying that
indeed that whole long piece should be taken as about the use of
primers
in the 14th century?
They began to appear in the 13th century. Please read my posts before
responding to them.
>>>The thirteenth century is certainly one of change where particularly
>>>after 1225 we see a steady shift of French as an artificially maintained
>>>language and increasingly a learned one, but nonetheless it is the 14th
>>>century that sees the real shift where we can safely say that French is
>>>learned not native and that the language that everyone speaks as a
>>>native is English.
>> Yes. Where did I deny that?
>You didn't per se. But this is what I stated in my first response to
you when you drew the analogy between Anglo-Norman French and Sindarin
in Gondor. After I stated this, you then responded with the Baugh and
Cable material. I didn't see anything in your post that indicated that
you were merely floshing out what I stated, but were rather offering it
as a corrective to what I stated. But now we're in agreement?
"I didn't per se." That's right; I didn't deny that. You simply keep
repeating things in order to point out that you mentioned them first?
Feel free...
[snip]
>> You don' seem to quite take in what I write. I was not talking about
>> the analogy between French and Sindarin, since I left that discussion a
>> while ago.
>Where? You made the analogy on 9/13. I responded on the same day. You
responded again with the post summarizing Baugh and Cable on 9/14--and
in neither post of 9/13 or 9/14 did you indicate that you had "left"
the
discussion or that you had dropped the analogy of Sindarin language use
and Anglo-Norman French. I hope you'll pardon me if I don't quite see
where between 9/13 and 9/16 (the post I'm responding to) you abandoned
the analogy or "left" that discussion. Am I missing a post somewhere?
Apparently. At least one of them was a post not addressed to you.
Please forgive me if I can't be bothered to locate them for you. Also,
the post by me that has led you to make lengthy posts about how right
you are was very clearly not about Sindarin. It was about Anglo-Norman
French. Everybody else got that; why didn't you?
[snip]
>I did read your previous post in this thread. And yes you did make that
statement that you acknowledge that Tolkien said it, but you also
indicate there and here that you disagree with the statement because of
how you read the characters actions indicating the opposite. Your
actions and replies seem to indicate the opposite of what you are
saying
your intent is, so I hope you'll forgive my confusion.
OK. [SIGH] I simply think that Tolkien is inconsistent in his claims
about the use of Sindarin among the Dúnedain in Gondor. There is the
quote we both know, the one saying that the Exiles "handed it down as a
language of lore" that changed little over the years. But in the same
Appendix you also find the following statements:
"But the native speech of the Númenoreans remained for the most part
their ancestral Mannish tongue"
and
"After the Downfall of Númenor, Elendil led the survivors of the
Elf-friends back to ... Middle-earth. There many already dwelt who were
in whole or part of Númenorean blood; but few of them remembered the
Elvish speech. All told the Dúnedain were thus from the beginning far
fewer in number than the lesser men among whom they dwelt ... They used
therefore the Common Speech in their dealings with other folk and in
the government of their wide realm."
Note the expression "the native speech of the Númenoreans remained for
the most part their ancestral Mannish tongue". That seems to indicate
that to some Númenoreans (a minority)it was indeed the native speech
and something more than just a "language of lore". Add to that the
people who, in the streets of Minas Tirith, called out to each other in
Sindarin to come and see the "Prince of the halflings". You can try to
twist that into something other than an indication that there were
people in Minas Tirith who used Sindarin in everyday speech. However,
such an endeavour makes no sense to me. For my part, all I can say is
that the matter of Sindarin as spoken by Dúnedain shows (for those who
needed additional proof) that Tolkien was able of contradicting
himself, sometimes on the same page. One could perhaps also claim that
to Tolkien, a "language of lore" could at the same time be a language
used in everyday speech, in the street. I don't know. I don't think
anyone can know. Therefore, further discussion of this point is
meaningless.
>>>>The fact that French primers began to be written shows
>>>>that the number of people whose natural language was French was
>>>>decreasing;
>>>Well, no, actually it doesn't. It shows that the number of people whose
>>>natural language was not French wanted to learn French and that the
>>>means to do so were becoming more widespread and available than hitherto.
>> Here you contradict yourself. Above, you say that, and I quote, "these
>> 'primers' were not designed for beginning learners." Correct. They were
>> not only for those.
>So when I make this point its a contradiction, but when you make this
point it isn't?
The only way you manage to make out that I contradict myself is by
snipping what I say into tiny fragments and starting up false hares. I
tried to describe the various aspects of a very intricate process. You
make one very categorical statement in one part of your post and an
another equally categorical statement (which contradicts the first one)
further on. There is a difference.
[snip]
>> I can only acknowledge that you think you know more about the
>> linguistic situation in medieval England than contemporary observers.
>I do. Unlike the 13th century Frenchman who had a cultural and
political axe to grind about those chappies across the channel speaking
a rustic form of French, I have none of that baggage.
What "political axe"? I am talking about something that began long
before the Hundred Years' War. Also, the French visitors who made this
observation seem more surprised than scornful. And finally, you just
can't deny a statement by claiming that whoever made it "had an axe to
grind".
>Further, I have
the advantage of being able to trace the developments, growth, changes,
and mutations of French, Latin, and English across several centuries.
Just applying a bit of logic to what you yourself already know: how do
these English gentleman (i. e. nobles) access courth, parliament, or
the
law courts or collect taxes since all of that was done in French? They
may not have spoken a form of French recognizable as such to a 13th
century Parisian, but they did know something of the language in which
their daily business was conducted. Those of us who go into this line
of talking about languages are called philologists.
So you are right and I am wrong because you say that you are "a
philologist"? I'm sorry, but I don't find that argument very
impressive. I have seen too many posters here say things like "I know
this better than you because I have read millions of documents and
books about economics/American politics/the chain of responsibility
during a hurricane" to be very impressed by it.
I also suspect the use of clerks was somewhat more important in many
of these transactions than you seem to think.
The discussion between you and me has turned into a pissing contest.
I'm out of it.
Öjevind
R. Dan Henry
<ojevin...@bredband.net> wrote:
> To quote Baugh and Cable again: "The effect of the foreign incursions
>in the thirteenth century [that is to say, the wholesale introduction
>of fresh French aristocrats by Henry III] was undoubtedly to delay
>somewhat the natural spread of the use of English by the upper classes
>that had begun." Look at the last words: "That had begun". Baugh and
>Cable continue: "But it was to arouse such widespread hostility to
>foreigners as greatly to stimulate the consciousness of the difference
>between those who for a generation or several generations had so
>participated in English as to consider themselves Englishmen, and to
>cause them to unite against the newcomers who had flocked to England to
>bask in the sun of Henry's favor. One of the reproaches frequently
>leveled at the latter is that they did not know English. It would be
>nautral if some knowledge fo English should come to be regarded as a
>proper masrk of an Englishman."
Actually this rather suggests that some English lords might well pretend
not to speak French to irritate a Frenchy visitor as some French will
pretend not to understand English today to annoy bothersome tourists.
>One could perhaps also claim that
>to Tolkien, a "language of lore" could at the same time be a language
>used in everyday speech, in the street.
That was certainly true of Latin for rather a long time. Not everyone
would be ready to toss around a few sentences of Latin with confidence,
but in the right circles it would be quite common and use of an
"elevated" language of lore to mark the specialness of the occasion (and
maybe publicly demonstrate one's educational level) wouldn't be
surprising.
Larry Swain
> Larry Swain wrote:
>
>
>>Öjevind Lång wrote:
>>
>>>Larry Swain wrote:
>
>
>>>>In point of fact, these "primers" were not designed for beginning
>>>>learners. Two or three in particular state that they wish to deal with
>>>>French no one knows, or teach those who do know how to do it better.
>>>>Robert of Gloucester writing about 1300 remarks "bote a man conne
>>>>frenss, metelth of him lute--unless a man know French, he is thought
>>>>little of.
>
>
>>>And my point was precisely that the primers were not exclusively
>>>designed for beginning learners. They were also for people who felt
>>>that their Anglo-Norman French was "wrong", an idea that would never
>>>have occurred to their grandparents.
>
>
>>Forgive my tardiness in responding. But I'm afraid I have ask some sort
>
> of explanation here. Here you state that your point was PRECISELY that
>
> the primers were intended not for beginning learners exclusively but
> also for those wanting to learn Parisian French, yet in your post on
> Sept. 14 you state: "The fact that French primers began to be written
> shows that the number of people whose natural language was French was
> decreasing; the first generations needed no primers for their
> children."
>
> If you read my post in its entirety, you would have noticed that that
> was indeed precisely what I was saying.
I did read your post in its entirety, several times. I'm afraid it
remains unclear to me.
The primers were not
> exclusively intended for beginning learners, but the fact that they
> started to appear in the 13th century and not earlier shows that the
> number of people whose natural language was French was decreasing;
Again, not really, since they're own stated use was to teach "Parisian"
or "proper" French.
> also, of course, that those whose birth tongue was French no longer
> felt that their ancestral Anglo-Norman version of it was "good enough".
Which has nothing to do with knowing the language, it has to do with
favoring one dialect above another for any number of reasons, to enforce
a "Received Standard".
> For generations, they apologized for their crappy French before simply
> deciding that knowing French didn't matter.
Yep.
> Let me repeat: the primers started to appear in order for the
> Anglo-Normans to learn how to write "properly". But as it happens, they
> also started to appear at a time when, according to contemporary French
> visitors, "there is many a gentleman who has no French". That is to
> say, some noblemen in the shires no longer learned the language at all,
> except, I daresay, for the occasional "Moi?" or "Mercy bookoo". No
> doubt they had clerks or scribes to help them out at need. *And*
> primers.
"Properly" is in the eye of the beholder and the culture, and has
nothing to do with knowledge of a language as a native speaker. In any
given country there are many, in fact the majority, of speakers who do
not speak or write "properly", that is, according to rules and standard
of the Received Standard. So it doesn't follow that the use of primers
indicates ignorance of the language.
> To quote Baugh and Cable again: "The effect of the foreign incursions
> in the thirteenth century [that is to say, the wholesale introduction
> of fresh French aristocrats by Henry III] was undoubtedly to delay
> somewhat the natural spread of the use of English by the upper classes
> that had begun." Look at the last words: "That had begun".
I haven't disputed that it "had begun". You seem to be reading this
though as if it were "They spoke English or they spoke French"--the
increased use of English among the upper classes does not mean that they
were also fluent in French, or at least in "Anglo-Norman" French. In
fact the whole process of borrowing so much of English vocabulary from
French is simply because these French speakers are trying to express
themselves in English (instead of going through interpreters), and can
not find or do not know the ENglish word, so they use the word they know
from French. That is to say, while they are speaking more and more
English, they still know and are falling back on French as their primary
language. By the end of the 13th century, that has changed as we both
have said, but at the beginning of the reign of Henry III, it had only
just begun.
Baugh and
> Cable continue: "But it was to arouse such widespread hostility to
> foreigners as greatly to stimulate the consciousness of the difference
> between those who for a generation or several generations had so
> participated in English as to consider themselves Englishmen, and to
> cause them to unite against the newcomers who had flocked to England to
> bask in the sun of Henry's favor. One of the reproaches frequently
> leveled at the latter is that they did not know English. It would be
> nautral if some knowledge fo English should come to be regarded as a
> proper masrk of an Englishman."
"Some knowledge of English" is not equivalent to "no knowledge of French."
>
>>That seems to indicate to me that you are saying the primers are
>
> designed for beginning learners. Yes, you do speak of the issue of
> Parisian French becoming the more desireable dialect, but don't seem to
>
> in connection with the primers at all. But now you're saying that
> indeed that whole long piece should be taken as about the use of
> primers
> in the 14th century?
>
> They began to appear in the 13th century. Please read my posts before
> responding to them.
Ah yes, the standard NG response when pressed. Unimpressive.
>
>
>>>>The thirteenth century is certainly one of change where particularly
>>>>after 1225 we see a steady shift of French as an artificially maintained
>>>>language and increasingly a learned one, but nonetheless it is the 14th
>>>>century that sees the real shift where we can safely say that French is
>>>>learned not native and that the language that everyone speaks as a
>>>>native is English.
>
>
>>>Yes. Where did I deny that?
>
>
>>You didn't per se. But this is what I stated in my first response to
>
> you when you drew the analogy between Anglo-Norman French and Sindarin
> in Gondor. After I stated this, you then responded with the Baugh and
> Cable material. I didn't see anything in your post that indicated that
>
> you were merely floshing out what I stated, but were rather offering it
>
> as a corrective to what I stated. But now we're in agreement?
>
> "I didn't per se." That's right; I didn't deny that. You simply keep
> repeating things in order to point out that you mentioned them first?
> Feel free...
No, I'm trying to figure out why when I say something you feel it
necessary to send whole paragraphs essentially coming to the same
conclusion I did, encourage me to read your posts, and then when I point
out that your post says some of the same things mine did, that I'm
suddenly the bad guy. My apologies for seeking clarification, I'll
remember in future not to ask you to clarify things.
> [snip]
>
>
>>>You don' seem to quite take in what I write. I was not talking about
>>>the analogy between French and Sindarin, since I left that discussion a
>>>while ago.
>
>
>>Where? You made the analogy on 9/13. I responded on the same day. You
>
> responded again with the post summarizing Baugh and Cable on 9/14--and
> in neither post of 9/13 or 9/14 did you indicate that you had "left"
> the
> discussion or that you had dropped the analogy of Sindarin language use
>
> and Anglo-Norman French. I hope you'll pardon me if I don't quite see
> where between 9/13 and 9/16 (the post I'm responding to) you abandoned
> the analogy or "left" that discussion. Am I missing a post somewhere?
>
> Apparently. At least one of them was a post not addressed to you.
Which one? Where did you explicitly say that you had dropped the
analogy before your post on 9/16? Your response not addressed to me in
this thread was addressed to Christopher on 9/15 and doesn't include
such a statement. Forgive me for pointing out that it might be
advisable to read your own posts before telling others too in a less
than cordial fashion? Just a thought that practicing what one preaches
is a desirable attribute.
> Please forgive me if I can't be bothered to locate them for you.
Claiming you've said something and having actually said it are two
different things. Pardon me if I begin to smell something rotten here.
Also,
> the post by me that has led you to make lengthy posts about how right
> you are was very clearly not about Sindarin. It was about Anglo-Norman
> French. Everybody else got that; why didn't you?
I don't see anyone else commenting on it. On 9/13 you made the
connection by analogy between Sindarin in Gondor and French in
Anglo-Norman England. There is no subsequent indication that you had
abandoned that analogy until 9/16 where you roundly criticize me for not
knowing that you had abandoned it. Your lengthy post on Anglo-Norman
seems then to be an attempt to bolster the analogy which I had
criticized, especially since in the message tree it was made as a direct
response to that criticism. YOU connected Anglo-Norman and Sindarin,
not I. Why don't you admit that and admit that you were less than clear
on your intents?
>
>
> OK. [SIGH] I simply think that Tolkien is inconsistent in his claims
> about the use of Sindarin among the Dúnedain in Gondor. There is the
> quote we both know, the one saying that the Exiles "handed it down as a
> language of lore" that changed little over the years. But in the same
> Appendix you also find the following statements:
>
> "But the native speech of the Númenoreans remained for the most part
> their ancestral Mannish tongue"
>
> and
>
> "After the Downfall of Númenor, Elendil led the survivors of the
> Elf-friends back to ... Middle-earth. There many already dwelt who were
> in whole or part of Númenorean blood; but few of them remembered the
> Elvish speech. All told the Dúnedain were thus from the beginning far
> fewer in number than the lesser men among whom they dwelt ... They used
> therefore the Common Speech in their dealings with other folk and in
> the government of their wide realm."
>
> Note the expression "the native speech of the Númenoreans remained for
> the most part their ancestral Mannish tongue". That seems to indicate
> that to some Númenoreans (a minority)it was indeed the native speech
> and something more than just a "language of lore".
No it doesn't. Its rather a leap in logic to proceed from Tolkien's
statement to your conclusion. First, you take "for the most part" as
partitive rather than intensive or emphatic. Second, even if we take
"for the most part" in the way you do, as I believe it was Troels
pointed out, there are a host of languages in and around Middle Earth
for that minority to be speaking rather than Sindarin.
Add to that the
> people who, in the streets of Minas Tirith, called out to each other in
> Sindarin to come and see the "Prince of the halflings". You can try to
> twist that into something other than an indication that there were
> people in Minas Tirith who used Sindarin in everyday speech. However,
> such an endeavour makes no sense to me.
Well technically all that is reported that they actually SAID was
"prince of the halflings" in Sindarin. Furthermore, as I pointed out in
a previous post neither the word for Prince, known from Imrahil's title,
nor "halfling" be particularly arcane or unknown words of Sindarin...so
again, the use of a common word with a less common but still known word
to apply to Pippin hardly constitutes "everyday speech" anymore than
scientists and lawyers using Latin terms or Greek terms indicates they
know those languages.
For my part, all I can say is
> that the matter of Sindarin as spoken by Dúnedain shows (for those who
> needed additional proof) that Tolkien was able of contradicting
> himself, sometimes on the same page.
Sometimes, but I don't think this is one of those cases. Even Emma has
withdrawn her contention that Sindarin was an everyday spoken language,
and she and I agree on everything else.
One could perhaps also claim that
> to Tolkien, a "language of lore" could at the same time be a language
> used in everyday speech, in the street. I don't know. I don't think
> anyone can know. Therefore, further discussion of this point is
> meaningless.
YOu mean we could claim that Tolkien expected his "language of lore" to
be used like real life "languages of lore" such as Latin which until the
last half century could be heard on the streets of Oxford peppering
conversations, correspondance etc without being the language of
discourse? Huh, well, surprise, surprise, surprise.
>
>>>>>The fact that French primers began to be written shows
>>>>>that the number of people whose natural language was French was
>>>>>decreasing;
>
>
>>>>Well, no, actually it doesn't. It shows that the number of people whose
>>>>natural language was not French wanted to learn French and that the
>>>>means to do so were becoming more widespread and available than hitherto.
>
>
>
>>>Here you contradict yourself. Above, you say that, and I quote, "these
>>>'primers' were not designed for beginning learners." Correct. They were
>>>not only for those.
>
>
>>So when I make this point its a contradiction, but when you make this
>
> point it isn't?
>
> The only way you manage to make out that I contradict myself is by
> snipping what I say into tiny fragments and starting up false hares.
I didn't say you contradicted yourself. What I said was that you are
applying a double standard, when I say something its a contradiction and
you say the same thing and its a valid point.
I
> tried to describe the various aspects of a very intricate process.
More to the point, you summarized and quoted from a single, out of
print, and out of date history of the English language. It is an
intricate process and certainly more intricate than 3 page
summary/discussion in a book will allow.
You
> make one very categorical statement in one part of your post and an
> another equally categorical statement (which contradicts the first one)
> further on. There is a difference.
I don't see it. Further, you state that a) the primers were for first
language learners and b) that they were for others who knew French to
speak "proper" French. YOu make both these categorical statements and
claims without qualification or explaining how both can be true. In
short, again, you apply a double standard.
>
> [snip]
>
>
>>>I can only acknowledge that you think you know more about the
>>>linguistic situation in medieval England than contemporary observers.
>
>
>>I do. Unlike the 13th century Frenchman who had a cultural and
>
> political axe to grind about those chappies across the channel speaking
>
> a rustic form of French, I have none of that baggage.
>
> What "political axe"? I am talking about something that began long
> before the Hundred Years' War.
So am I. Do you really think that the friction between England and
France didn't begin until the early 14th century? Or that the cultural
tension between Paris and the increasing centralization of the monarchy
there had no impact before then? These processes begin really in the
12th century.
Also, the French visitors who made this
> observation seem more surprised than scornful.
Really? You've read this in the original and have the full context do you?
And finally, you just
> can't deny a statement by claiming that whoever made it "had an axe to
> grind".
If you follow your own advice and read the post as I wrote it, you'll
note that I said a good deal more than this.
> >Further, I have
> the advantage of being able to trace the developments, growth, changes,
>
> and mutations of French, Latin, and English across several centuries.
> Just applying a bit of logic to what you yourself already know: how do
> these English gentleman (i. e. nobles) access courth, parliament, or
> the
> law courts or collect taxes since all of that was done in French? They
>
> may not have spoken a form of French recognizable as such to a 13th
> century Parisian, but they did know something of the language in which
> their daily business was conducted. Those of us who go into this line
> of talking about languages are called philologists.
>
> So you are right and I am wrong because you say that you are "a
> philologist"?
>I'm sorry, but I don't find that argument very
> impressive.
Of course you do. You cited Baugh and Cable as authoritative. If you
didn't find it impressive you wouldn't have cited them. I haven't yet
achieved the stature of Baugh at the end of his career 40 years ago, but
I'm getting there. So I find that once again you seem to be applying a
double standard. You're right because....?
As for not being impressed, ah well, such is life. Fortunately, you
don't get a vote. When I described the situation in 14th and 13th
century England I did so from my own experience with the languages,
literature, and written remains of the period, not by consulting a 50
year old text book.
As for being right, since we both said very much the same kind of
things, what is really in quetion is what you think those facts signify
and why you say that you are relating them. Being "right" isn't the
question.
I have seen too many posters here say things like "I know
> this better than you because I have read millions of documents and
> books about economics/American politics/the chain of responsibility
> during a hurricane" to be very impressed by it.
Including yourself apparently....otherwise why insist on citing B&C?
> I also suspect the use of clerks was somewhat more important in many
> of these transactions than you seem to think.
> The discussion between you and me has turned into a pissing contest.
> I'm out of it.
We have evidence of clerks being used to translate from Latin and French
to English, but extremely little evidence to suggest that they went from
English to French. Further, that process of translation was generally
from top down--i. e. things were translated for the benefit of the lower
classes. And I know of no evidence whatsoever that suggests that 13th
century noblemen had translators and clerks translate from English to
French so that they could particiapte in parliament, speak with the king
and attend court. Perhaps y ou could provide some?
As for your pissing match, my post was an attempt to seek some
clarification and explanation of what the deal was. If that constitutes
a "pissing match", then so be it. I've engaged in such matches here,
tis true, most notably with Michael Martinez, but this certainly was not
one for me. I'm sorry that it was for you.
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> I haven't disputed that it "had begun". You seem to be reading this
> though as if it were "They spoke English or they spoke French"--the
> increased use of English among the upper classes does not mean that
> they were also fluent in French, or at least in "Anglo-Norman"
> French.
Surely they had to be fluent in _something_, otherwise they wouldn't
have been able to talk in everyday situations. Are you really saying
that their language was in such a state of flux that they went through a
period of genuine bilingualism?
> In fact the whole process of borrowing so much of English vocabulary
> from French is simply because these French speakers are trying to
express
> themselves in English (instead of going through interpreters), and can
> not find or do not know the English word, so they use the word they
> know from French. That is to say, while they are speaking more and
> more English, they still know and are falling back on French as their
> primary language. By the end of the 13th century, that has changed
> as we both have said, but at the beginning of the reign of Henry III,
> it had only just begun.
Is it an oversimplification to say that at some early point you have
French, and at some later point you have English, and everything
inbetween is just a steady movement from one to the other?
Or can you identify periods when a hybrid language existed that was
neither fully English or fully French? Or is it unhelpful to think of it
like that?
<snip>
> More to the point, you summarized and quoted from a single, out of
> print, and out of date history of the English language. It is an
> intricate process and certainly more intricate than 3 page
> summary/discussion in a book will allow.
I assumed you are referring to Ojevind's quoting from Baugh and Cable.
When was that published, and what would be a more up-to-date treatment
of the subject? Is it a case of being genuinely outdated (ie. there is
lost of new evidence), or is it one of those cases where theories go in
and out of fashion?
Larry Swain
> On 21 Sep 2005 11:52:24 -0700, "Öjevind Lång"
> <ojevin...@bredband.net> wrote:
>
>
>> To quote Baugh and Cable again: "The effect of the foreign incursions
>>in the thirteenth century [that is to say, the wholesale introduction
>>of fresh French aristocrats by Henry III] was undoubtedly to delay
>>somewhat the natural spread of the use of English by the upper classes
>>that had begun." Look at the last words: "That had begun". Baugh and
>>Cable continue: "But it was to arouse such widespread hostility to
>>foreigners as greatly to stimulate the consciousness of the difference
>>between those who for a generation or several generations had so
>>participated in English as to consider themselves Englishmen, and to
>>cause them to unite against the newcomers who had flocked to England to
>>bask in the sun of Henry's favor. One of the reproaches frequently
>>leveled at the latter is that they did not know English. It would be
>>nautral if some knowledge fo English should come to be regarded as a
>>proper masrk of an Englishman."
>
>
> Actually this rather suggests that some English lords might well pretend
> not to speak French to irritate a Frenchy visitor as some French will
> pretend not to understand English today to annoy bothersome tourists.
Indeed.
>
>
>>One could perhaps also claim that
>>to Tolkien, a "language of lore" could at the same time be a language
>>used in everyday speech, in the street.
>
>
> That was certainly true of Latin for rather a long time. Not everyone
> would be ready to toss around a few sentences of Latin with confidence,
> but in the right circles it would be quite common and use of an
> "elevated" language of lore to mark the specialness of the occasion (and
> maybe publicly demonstrate one's educational level) wouldn't be
> surprising.
>
Further, many who would not be ready to toss a few sentences around,
depending on the words of those sentences, very likely understood them
and could ape them. In fact, such is the case of hoc est corpus, said
during the Latin Mass, which for a long time lay people could and
apparently did repeat in various practices frowned upon by the church.
It wasn't until later when Latin became even MORE of a "language of
lore" in the Reformation that the phrase became hocus corpus, then hocus
pocus. All that to say that everyday knowledge of a language is
unnecessary to repeat a title down the line.
Larry Swain
> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>I haven't disputed that it "had begun". You seem to be reading this
>>though as if it were "They spoke English or they spoke French"--the
>>increased use of English among the upper classes does not mean that
>>they were also fluent in French, or at least in "Anglo-Norman"
>>French.
>
>
> Surely they had to be fluent in _something_, otherwise they wouldn't
> have been able to talk in everyday situations. Are you really saying
> that their language was in such a state of flux that they went through a
> period of genuine bilingualism?
>
Of course not, Christopher. You live in Europe. How many French or
Germans who speak their native languages also speak English? Rather
than some sort of exclusivity that they spoke one or the other, I'm
saying that there were various levels and varieties of bi- and
tri-lingualism, and in particular that an increased use of English among
the upper classes does not preclude, prevent, or mean that they were not
also speaking French. I'm not sure that being bilingual or trilingual
means one's language is "in flux", but some are going to be more
bilingual than others, and as we move through the 13th century the
balance shifts from French as native language, to French as learned
language, to French as not very well known language, but that process is
about 3 generations long.
I also missed a "not" up there: "The increased use of English among the
upper classes does not mean that they were NOT also fluent in French...."
>
>>In fact the whole process of borrowing so much of English vocabulary
>>from French is simply because these French speakers are trying to
>
> express
>
>>themselves in English (instead of going through interpreters), and can
>>not find or do not know the English word, so they use the word they
>> know from French. That is to say, while they are speaking more and
>>more English, they still know and are falling back on French as their
>>primary language. By the end of the 13th century, that has changed
>>as we both have said, but at the beginning of the reign of Henry III,
>>it had only just begun.
>
>
> Is it an oversimplification to say that at some early point you have
> French, and at some later point you have English, and everything
> inbetween is just a steady movement from one to the other?
It is an oversimplification, but yes, that is about the size of it.
>
> Or can you identify periods when a hybrid language existed that was
> neither fully English or fully French? Or is it unhelpful to think of it
> like that?
Well, no, not a hybrid language. If you speak a foreign language only a
little, and are trying to express youself, words from the better known
language pop into your speech. If you are speaking to another of your
class and background that person is going to understand you, if that
makes sense. So they're trying to speak English, but French words keep
popping up, but no, I wouldn't call it a hybrid language of Frenglish or
anything like that.
> <snip>
>
>>More to the point, you summarized and quoted from a single, out of
>>print, and out of date history of the English language. It is an
>>intricate process and certainly more intricate than 3 page
>>summary/discussion in a book will allow.
>
>
> I assumed you are referring to Ojevind's quoting from Baugh and Cable.
> When was that published, and what would be a more up-to-date treatment
> of the subject? Is it a case of being genuinely outdated (ie. there is
> lost of new evidence), or is it one of those cases where theories go in
> and out of fashion?
NOne of those, really, so much as the book itself is a survey of the
history of the English language and can not in a few pages give more
than the general lay of the land. It has been superseded in that we
think in terms now of Received Standard and dialects rather than
"proper" vs. "improper" language as B&C described the approach to
learning Parisian French, using of course medieval attitudes, etc. The
language has also been better studied, more documents accounted for. So
not huge shifts, but shifts nonetheless. Don't get me wrong, its a
solid book and I do cull from it when I teach.
The first edition of Baugh's HEL was printed in 1938. The second
edition, the second edition in 1957. The third edition adding Cable who
updated the modern language areas was done 1978. A fourth edition was
done in 1993, and a fifth in 2002. I've not compared the various
editions in excruciating detail or anything like that, but what
comparisons I have made is that the chapters on medieval English have
changed little over the years with the addition of bibliography being
the main change....but I've not seen the fifth edition. Again, its a
good book and a good resource, BUT I'd use something different and more
detailed were I to carry on this conversation.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>I don't see anyone else commenting on it. On 9/13 you made the
>connection by analogy between Sindarin in Gondor and French in
>Anglo-Norman England. There is no subsequent indication that you had
>abandoned that analogy until 9/16 where you roundly criticize me for not
> knowing that you had abandoned it.
Also, if he was abandoning any analogy to Middle-Earth, he should have
stuck an off-topic ("[OT]") marker and a new subject in the Subject:
line.
And if you two aren't going to return to something having to do with the
"Languages and Peoples of the *Third Age*" (emphasis added), you should
change the Subject: line now.
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
Thanks for the publication history of Baugh and Cable.
Just one final comment.
During the transition stage, of about three generations: "from French as
native language, to French as learned language, to French as not very
well known language", would I be right to say that the individuals
themselves would mostly be one or the other - either having French or
English as their native language, and the only thing that really changed
was the relative numbers? Except how does the transistion point from
French to English occur within, say, a specific family? Would a
French-speaking nobleman make a decision to bring his children up
speaking English? And the switch would have occurred for that family?
And also, what changed for individuals was not the primary language, but
how well they knew a second language, if at all?