June 16, 2003

Thoughts on Piper's Question About Rohirric
Bob Praz

I would just like to respond to Piper's posting about Rohirric. Although I haven't delved very deeply in the matter, I think Tolkien did, to some degree, develop a genuine language for the Rohirrim, but how much of Rohirric he developed, I don't think we realy know. To answer Piper's question, here's a quote from the Ardalambion website:
"We don't know much genuine Rohirric, for in LotR, Tolkien rendered it by Old English: He tried to reproduce for English readers its archaic flavour in relationship to the Common Speech (itself represented by modern English - but it must be understood that Rohirric was not the ancestor of the Common Speech the way Old English is of modern English). Thus, names like Éomer and phrases like ferthu Théoden hál are not transcriptions of the actual words used back in the Third Age."