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Entish
"was unlike all others: slow, sonorous, agglomerated, repetitive...formed of a multiplicity of vowel-shade and distinctions
of tone and quality which even the lore-masters of the Eldar ahd not attempted to represent in writing." (RotK 472)
They
loved to learn languages. Of all non-Entish languages they loved Quenya best.
The
Dwarves had their own tongue which, like much else, they guarded jealously, not revealing it even to their friends.
It had "become a tongue of lore rather than a cradle-speech, and they tended it and guarded it as a treasure of the past."
(RotK 474)
The
names of the Dwarves are all of Mannish origin since they do not reveal their true names to anyone. (RotK 474)
The
Orcs took what they could of other tongues and perverted them to their own liking. In the Third Age the Orcs were forced
to use Westron because there were too many Orkish dialects--they could not understand each other.
There
was also the Black Speech. It is said that Sauron devised it in the Dark Years. (RotK 473) The inscription
on the One Ring was in the ancient Black Speech, though the characters were in Elvish script.
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There
were several tongues spoken by Númenorian
Men (including the Rohirrim). These were:
Westron: This is also called
the Common Speech. It was the Mannish language most frequently spoken in Middle-earth. It had been enriched
and softened by the influence of the Elves. (468)
Adûnaic: This
was the Númenorian tongue. Before the Downfall of Númenór its Men had largely
abandoned Elvish for Adûnaic. After the Drowning the Elf-friends brought it to
the Middle-earth once more but they seldom used it since they had clung to the Elvish tongues in Númenór. From Adûnaic came
Westron. (469)
Rohirrim: The Rohirrim had their own ancestral tongue which they brought with them,
although they most often used Common Speech. They named almost all of the places in Rohan with their own speech.
(RotK 470)
The Hobbits too had adopted Common Speech. They had never had their own language, or
if they did it was so far removed that they did not remember it. (RotK 471) They were called by the Men 'halflings'
and by the Elves 'periannath.' 'Hobbit' seems to have been a wearing down of the word 'holbytla' or 'hole-builder.'
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. New York: Ballantine Books,
1956.
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