Posted: August 19, 1999 at 22:41:04: by Cuiviar
: : I was in a debate with someone in which I *finally* managed
to convince him that the Rohirrim did not actually speak
Anglo-Saxon. Along the way, he said that Sindarin (and Quenya, by
association) was based on Welsh and that Adunaic/Westron was
based on Semitic or Punic (I think he meant Hebrew). He said that
he read it in a book, but didn't remember the title. I don't know
any of these languages, so I can't comment on the validity of the
claim. Do any of you know whether or not this claim has any
foundation of truth? Even if the book did exist, there's so much
Tolkien apocrypha out there...I think this person might've been talking about "The Languages of
Tolkien's Middle Earth" (or perhaps a simliar book). In "LoTME"
it says that Quenya is based on Finnish, various other languages
based on Old English, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian. I think it
even says that Rohiric is all Old English.
I'd like to know where the author (Ruth S. Noel) got this
information from...because I'm thinking she might've pulled a
David Day on this one. I know that many dwarf names come straight
out of the Prose-Edda, and that Rohiric is *based* on Anglo-Saxon
but I don't know about the rest of these claims.
Anyone out there have the answer?
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