Westron

SPOKEN BY

Westron is spoken by all (except the Elves) who inhabit the western lands of the Middle-earth.

DOCUMENTED BY

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) explored many languages and cultures as he told the stories of Middle-earth: The Hobbit (1937), The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), and The Return of the King (1955). (The last three are collectively called The Lord of the Rings.) After his death, his son Christopher Tolkien (1924– ) edited The Silmarillion (1977) with the help of Guy Gavriel Kay (1954– ). Christopher Tolkien then deeply analyzed his father’s notebooks, letters, and drafts to produce an extended study of Middle-earth and its creation: The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (1983), The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two (1984), The Lays of Beleriand (1985), The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986), The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987), The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One) (1988), The Treason of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part Two) (1989), The War of the Ring (The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part Three) (1990), Sauron Defeated (The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part Four) (1992), Morgoth’s Ring (The Later Silmarillion, Part One) (1993), The War of the Jewels (The Later Silmarillion, Part Two) (1994), and The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996).

BEHIND THE WORDS

Westron—also called the Common Speech—is the language in which the
Middle-earth stories are experienced. When we read the novels and stories, we presume we are reading stories originally written in Westron. It was widely spoken in Middle-earth, though there were some—for example, the Elves of Lothlorien—who purposely refrained from using it.

DERIVATION OF THE LANGUAGE

Westron derived from Adûnaic, the language of Númenor. It spread over the lands of Middle-earth with the exception of Mordor, which employed the Black Speech. This means that most of the characters encountered in The Lord of the Rings are effectively bilingual; Eomer, Eowyn, and Theoden, for instance, speak the language of the Rohirrim among themselves but readily communicate with the hobbits Merry and Pippin in Westron. (Curiously, Tolkien never invented a language for the hobbits, though there are words such as mathom that seem to be peculiar to their society.)

PHILOLOGICAL FACT

Although the account of the events of The Lord of the Rings (primarily The Red Book of Westmarch) was originally written in Westron, Tolkien—so he tells us—has translated the book into English. Thus the Anglicized names given to some places and people (e.g., Brandywine River) are actually English translations of Westron names. (The Westron name for the Brandywine is, in fact, Branda-nîn, which means border water. The Sindarin translation is Baranduin, meaning gold-brown river.)

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Review the works listed above, the resources listed in the bibliography, and the web pages: “Ardalambion” (www.folk.uib.no/hnohf/), “Cirth” (www.omniglot.com/writing/cirth.htm), “How many languages did J.R.R. Tolkien make?” (www.folk.uib.no/hnohf/howmany.htm), “J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch” (www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html), “Sarati alphabet” (www.omniglot.com/writing/sarati.htm), “Tengwar” (www.omniglot.com/writing/tengwar.htm), and “Westron—the Common Speech” (www.folk.uib.no/hnohf/westron.htm).