return

1484 the return of the king
further north and east the Men of the Long Lake and of Dale.
From the lands between the Gladden and the Carrock came the
folk that were known in Gondor as the Rohirrim, Masters of
Horses. They still spoke their ancestral tongue, and gave new
names in it to nearly all the places in their new country; and they
called themselves the Eorlings, or the Men of the Riddermark.
But the lords of that people used the Common Speech freely,
and spoke it nobly after the manner of their allies in Gondor; for
in Gondor whence it came the Westron kept still a more gracious
and antique style.
Wholly alien was the speech of the Wild Men of Drúadan
Forest. Alien, too, or only remotely akin, was the language of the
Dunlendings. These were a remnant of the peoples that had
dwelt in the vales of the White Mountains in ages past. The
Dead Men of Dunharrow were of their kin. But in the Dark
Years others had removed to the southern dales of the Misty
Mountains; and thence some had passed into the empty lands
as far north as the Barrow-downs. From them came the Men of
Bree; but long before these had become subjects of the North
Kingdom of Arnor and had taken up the Westron tongue. Only
in Dunland did Men of this race hold to their old speech and
manners: a secret folk, unfriendly to the Dúnedain, hating the
Rohirrim.
Of their language nothing appears in this book, save the name
Forgoil which they gave to the Rohirrim (meaning Strawheads,
it is said). Dunland and Dunlending are the names that the Rohirrim
gave to them, because they were swarthy and dark-haired;
there is thus no connexion between the word dunn in these
names and the Grey-elven word Dûn ‘west’.
of hobbits
The Hobbits of the Shire and of Bree had at this time, for
probably a thousand years, adopted the Common Speech. They
used it in their own manner freely and carelessly; though the
more learned among them had still at their command a more
formal language when occasion required.
There is no record of any language peculiar to Hobbits. In
ancient days they seem always to have used the languages of