hobbit Langage

Hello,

but what is the hobbit langage. Does any body know what it is???

[Aredhel Idril Telcontar]

Hail and well met, Celeborn. Welcome to the Downs. Have fun being dead [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

To answer your question, Hobbits spoke Westron, the language pretty much everyone spoke in the Third Age (except some Elves, of course). Maybe they had their own language before, but at the time of the Lord of the Rings, they spoke Westron.

-Aredhel

[Tarien Ithil]

Westron wasn't actually written down or 'created' by Tolkien, was it? I always thought it was like English. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
Did the Humans speak it too?

[Mariska Greenleaf]

The Westron language was in fact the "common speech", it was the current language through all the lands of the kings from Arnor to Gondor, and about all the coastsof the Sea from Belfalas to Lune.
The Hobbits used to have their own language, but somehow they forgot a great deal of it, except for some words, like the names of months and days, and a great store of personal names.

[Tarien Ithil]

Oh, all right. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

You seem to know a lot, Mariska!

[burrahobbit]

The Hobbits used to speak a language similar to the language that the people of Rohan spoke. "Master Holbytla" etc.

[Mariska Greenleaf]

Well, actually, I read the part in the Lord of the rings, "concerning Hobbits" just yesterday(for about the zillionth time , that's why I could answer your question... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Finwe]

Actually, Westron wasn't supposed to be like English, but Tolkien anglicized things in his "translation" of the Red Book. Things like Karningul, are words in Westron.

[Lily Bombadil]

So, the fact that hobbits forgot much of their former language except names, months, etc. would explain their names which may seem odd to us? If so, that sheds a lot of light on my unasked questions.

[Lily Bombadil]

It seems to me that Westron was the Universal Laguage, just as English is today. So whether it was English or not it could be compared to it like an analogy.

Westron: English as _______: _______

You get the idea.

[ July 18, 2003: Message edited by: Lily Bombadil ]

[Frodo2968thewhite]

The hobbit language is Kuduk, a language very similar to Rohirric, but VERY FEW Hobbits still use it, as many generations have not learned it. As Aredhel said, Hobbits now use Westron (english). But they also know and use SOME Kuduk.

[Garulf]

In the books westron is portrayed as English. Technically no hobbit, dwarf, or man spoke English. The language of the Rohirrim is an earlier form of Westron, therefore it is portrayed as Old English (the precursor to modern English) The oldd language of the Hobbits was preserved in placenames, names of dates, and words like "smial" and "mathom." These words were similar to Rohan's language

[Jack]

This brings to my mind a question I had... I was reading my appendixes and I came across a passage that says that "o" is a feminine ending for a name... How does this explain FrodO <<<<< ????? Just wondering...

[Sharkû]

"These names I have retained, though I have usually anglicized them by altering their endings, since in Hobbit-names a was a masculine ending, and o and e were feminine." (Appendix F)

With the great influence of Latin and its succeeding languages, the modern reader would perceive a name ending on -a to be feminine (such as Carl[o] vs. Carla). That is why Tolkien decided to anglicize some names such as Frodo, which incidentally would have been fróda in Old English. Some of those names were apperently modernized after already having been translated, such as Frodo, and some were anglicized 'as they were' from Westron.

[Man of the Old Hope]

I'm not sure where that note (about feminine names ending in 'o') occurs in the appendices, but there are certainly plenty of masculine hobbitish names ending in 'o': Frodo, Bilbo, Drogo, Bungo, Polo, Lotho - to mention but a few.

The whole matter of 'translation' is one of the more fascinating aspects of Tolkien's Middle-Earth saga. The section of Appendix F "On Translation" is a sheer joy to read, especially so for me some twenty years ago after I had the opportunity to spend a semester studying Old English while at university. Tolkien philological prowess and love of language shines through his invented languages and his 'translations' of those languages: the 'translation' of Westron by modern English and of Rohirric by words redolent of Old English; his use of varying forms of modern English to represent dialects (such as the more antique, formal-feeling English used to 'translate' the Westron spoken in Gondor); the Finnish resonances of Quenya and the Cymric (Welsh) feel of Sindarin (I have a smattering of Cymraeg, more vocabulary than grammar, but one gets a real feel for the influence that Cymraeg - Welsh - had on Tolkien's development of Sindarin).

In Letter 144 (To Naomi Mitchison) Tolkien wrote:

'If it will interest you, I will send you a copy (rather rough) of the matter dealing with Languages (and Writing), Peoples and Translation.

'The latter has given me much thought. It seems seldom regarded by other creators of imaginary worlds, however gifted as narrators (such as Eddison). But then I am a philologist, and much though I should like to be more precise on other cultural aspects and features, that is not within my competence. Anyway 'language' is the most important, for the story has to be told, and the dialogue conducted in a language; but English cannot have been the language of any people at that time. What I have, in fact done, is to equate the Westron or wide-spread Common Speech of the Third Age with English; and translate everything, including names such as The Shire, that was in the Westron into English terms, with some differentiation of style to represent dialectical differences.'

Apropos hobbits, Tolkien's letters are full of explanations for how he came to choose the 'translations' that he did for given and family names among the hobbits.

[Man of the Old Hope]

More may be found regarding Tolkien's conception of languages in Middle-Earth at the end of the Third Age in The Peoples of Middle-Earth, Volume XII of The History of Middle-Earth, on pages 28-84, in which Christopher Tolkien gives us a rather longer and carefully worked out earlier form of Appendix F (of The Return of the King), along with his own comments and a few other notes and a letter or two. (JRR) Tolkien devotes much of this earlier form of Appendix F to a history of the hobbits, in greater detail than we have in LOTR, as well as having notes on the translation of hobbit names (of which we have only the briefest mention at the conclusion of the printed Appendix F).

For those searching for more lore concerning the hobbits' language and their history, I recommend consulting that text.

[Lost One]

I had the impression that the hobbits had never had their own language, but used that of the Men around them: hence, Westron in Eriador, and a variety of Rohirric when they lived in the north.

[Man of the Old Hope]

You're right, Lost One.

In Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings, in the section "Of Hobbits", we read:

"The Hobbits of the Shire and of Bree had at this time, for probably a thousand years, adopted the Common Speech. They used it in their own manner freely and carelessly; though the more learned among them had still at their command a more formal language when occasion required. [By which Tolkien means a formal version of Westron, perhaps like that spoken by the great in Rohan and by the folk of Gondor. He does not mean a different language altogether.]

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

In manuscript F2, an early version of "The Appendix on Languages" which was edited into the published Appendix F, and which may be found (edited and with comments by Christopher Tolkien) in The Peoples of Middle-Earth (volume 12 of The History of Middle-Earth), Professor Tolkien gives us a more fleshed-out story:

"§22 Among Hobbits [added: now] there are two opinions. Some hold that originally they had a language peculiar to themselves. Others assert that from the beginning they spoke a Mannish tongue [> Mannish tongues], being, in fact a branch of the race of Men. But in any case it is agreed that after migration to Eriador they soon adopted the Westron under the influence of the Dúnedain of the North-kingdom. The first opinion is now favoured by Hobbits [> is favored by many Hobbits], because of their growing distaste for Men; but there is in fact no trace to be discovered of any special Hobbit-language in antiquity. The second opinion is clearly the right one, and is held by those of most linguistic learning. Investigation not only of surviving Hobbit-lore but of the far more considerable records of Gondor supports it. All such enquiries show that before their crossing of the Mountains the Hobbits spoke the same language as Men in the higher vales of the Anduin, roughly between the Carrock and the Gladden Fields.

"§23 Now that language was nearly the same as the language of the ancestors of the Rohirrim; and it was also allied, as has been said above, both to the languages of Men further north and east (as in Dale and Esgaroth), and to those further south from which Westron itself was derived."

[Man of the Old Hope]

By the way, Sharkû, thanks for the citation!

I missed it for writing my rather prolix post while yours was going up.

You made the point, more canonically and with more information packed in fewer words, than I did! (Good point especially about the influence of Latin on our perception of the gender of names.)