Rook's Writing

duelpersonality:

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starofthemourning:

ceescedasticity:

recklessravager:

esser-z:

sainatsukino:

linguisticparadox:

audreycritter:

whetstonefires:

whetstonefires:

tiny-smol-beastie:

reformedkingsmanagent:

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storywonker:

penny-anna:

penny-anna:

penny-anna:

Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

~*~earlier~*~

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Frodo: Merry. You’re absolutely right. I’ll wait.

#legolas’ hick accent vs #frodo’s ‘i learned it out of a book’ accent #FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Frodo: 🙂

Frodo: Hello. My name is Frodo. I am a Hobbit. How are you?

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo, crying: please I can’t understand what you’r saying

Ok, but Frodo didn’t just learn out of a book. He learned like… Chaucerian Elvish. So actually:

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

Aragorn: *laughing too hard to walk*

@ghostriderofthearagon

dYinGggGggg…

i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.

english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.

they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max.

frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.

so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.

plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.

so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.

to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather
was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a
somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.

so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his
upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his
Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice
from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really
obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!

considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.

…it’s
also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though
with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.

which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.

this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!

Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.

Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*

Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now

Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?

Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?

Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.

Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.

Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y’all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.

Pippin, entering Gondor and speaking to the castle steward: hey yo my man

Boromir, from beyond the grave: j e s u s

Tolkien would be SO PROUD of this post

@words-writ-in-starlight

…You know, dwarves (obviously) don’t have any problem learning other people’s languages. They kinda have to, since they don’t share their own. And they presumably deliberately teach and pass on other people’s languages.

…And historically speaking, they get along better with Noldor than they do with Sindar.

Now, Gimli grew up in exile/as a refugee, so I’m sure lessons in very rare languages you’ll probably never need weren’t heavily featured in his studies. But especially later on in Erebor, it’s not impossible that the library might have an old copy of “Conversational Quenya for Merchants” lying around, and it’s not impossible Gimli might have picked it up – or even have deliberately picked it up later, after the war, so

It’s not completely implausible that upon arriving in Valinor, Gimli would have to try to translate.

this keeps getting better and better does Aragorn have to learn all the languages to have any idea what the rest of them are saying? I suddenly see the appeal of staying a grimy hobo

@duelpersonality

…and I can’t help but add a little bit to this, although on a different tangent brought up by @starofthemourning:

Aragon would have already known multiple languages before he even know his real ancestry, and he certainly never seems to mind switching between them or having difficulty with communication.

But he probably would have preferred staying a grimy hobo anyway. We really only see him express a desire for kingship as a means to appeasing Elrond and getting to marry Arwen (another rant, for another day). He was more about his duty–and making up for the failings of his ancestors–than he was about wanting to be king because he wanted the power. And while things as presented seem to be tied up in a neat little bow by the end of RotK, there were very likely a lot of long days of diplomacy with very trying people, revising policies that were enacted “for the good of Gondor” during a drawn out conflict, and of course trying to drum up the funds from a war torn nation to try and rebuild another kingdom that had long since faded into the grass.

Basically what I’m saying is this: Aragorn would likely have been happy sitting around drinking and throwing unnecessary contractions everywhere with Legolas until they both passed out, and then smoking and telling stories with the hobbits the next day while Legolas moaned about his hangover and they all laughed at his accent.

Unrelated to that, I love the idea of Gimli translating in Valinor. I can just see him glaring at Legolas for being put in this position, and his general frustration boiling over and offending someone important. Things look like they’re about to take a bad turn, and Galadriel walks up and sees what’s happening, bends down and gives Gimli a peck on the cheek, and absolutely everyone is too stunned to say anything for a solid five minutes.