return

1482 the return of the king
of men
The Westron was a Mannish speech, though enriched and softened
under Elvish influence. It was in origin the language of
those whom the Eldar called the Atani or Edain, ‘Fathers of
Men’, being especially the people of the Three Houses of the
Elf-friends who came west into Beleriand in the First Age, and
aided the Eldar in the War of the Great Jewels against the Dark
Power of the North.
After the overthrow of the Dark Power, in which Beleriand
was for the most part drowned or broken, it was granted as a
reward to the Elf-friends that they also, as the Eldar, might pass
west over Sea. But since the Undying Realm was forbidden to
them, a great isle was set apart for them, most westerly of all
mortal lands. The name of that isle was Númenor (Westernesse).
Most of the Elf-friends, therefore, departed and dwelt in
Númenor, and there they became great and powerful, mariners
of renown and lords of many ships. They were fair of face and
tall, and the span of their lives was thrice that of the Men of
Middle-earth. These were the Númenóreans, the Kings of Men,
whom the Elves called the Dúnedain.
The Dúnedain alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an
Elvish tongue; for their forefathers had learned the Sindarin
tongue, and this they handed on to their children as a matter of
lore, changing little with the passing of the years. And their men
of wisdom learned also the High-elven Quenya and esteemed it
above all other tongues, and in it they made names for many
places of fame and reverence, and for many men of royalty and
great renown. 1
But the native speech of the Númenóreans remained for the
most part their ancestral Mannish tongue, the Adûnaic, and to
this in the latter days of their pride their kings and lords returned,
1 Quenya, for example, are the names Númenor (or in full Númenóre),
and Elendil, Isildur, and Anárion, and all the royal names of Gondor,
including Elessar ‘Elfstone’. Most of the names of the other men and
women of the Dúnedain, such as Aragorn, Denethor, Gilraen are of Sindarin
form, being often the names of Elves or Men remembered in the
songs and histories of the First Age (as Beren, Húrin). Some few are of
mixed forms, as Boromir.