The Lord of the Rings

Dwarvish
Angerthas Moria. 1
The Dwarves of Moria, as can be seen, introduced a number of unsystematic changes in value, as well as certain new
cirth:
37, 40, 41, 53, 55, 56. The dislocation in values was due mainly to two causes: (1) the alteration in the values of 34, 35, 54 respectively to
h, ’
(the clear or glottal beginning of a word with an initial vowel that appeared in Khuzdul), and
s;
(2) the abandonment of the Nos. 14, 16 for which the Dwarves substituted 29, 30. The consequent use of 12 for
r
, the invention of 53 for
n
(and its confusion with 22); the use of 17 as
z,
to go with 54 in its value
s,
and the consequent use of 36 as
q
and the new
certh
37 for
ng
may also be observed. The new 55, 56 were in origin a halved form of 46, and were used for vowels like those heard in English
butter,
which were frequent in Dwarvish and in the Westron. When weak or evanescent they were often reduced to a mere stroke without a stem. This
Angerthas Moria
is represented in the tomb-inscription.
    The Dwarves of Erebor used a further modification of this system, known as the mode of Erebor, and exemplified in the Book of Mazarbul. Its chief characteristics were: the use of 43 as
z;
of 17 as
ks (x);
and the invention of two new
cirth,
57, 58 for
ps
and
ts.
They also reintroduced 14, 16 for the values
j
,
zh;
but used 29, 30 for
g, gh,
or as mere variants of 19, 21. These peculiarities are not included in the table, except for the special Ereborian
cirth,
57, 58.

I
THE LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES OF THE THIRD AGE
     
    The language represented in this history by English was the
Westron
or ‘Common Speech’ of the West-lands of Middle-earth in the Third Age. In the course of that age it had become the native language of nearly all the speaking-peoples (save the Elves) who dwelt within the bounds of the old kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor; that is along all the coasts from Umbar northward to the Bay of Forochel, and inland as far as the Misty Mountains and the Ephel Dúath. It had also spread north up the Anduin, occupying the lands west of the River and east of the mountains as far as the Gladden Fields.
    At the time of the War of the Ring at the end of the age these were still its bounds as a native tongue, though large parts of Eriador were now deserted, and few Men dwelt on the shores of the Anduin between the Gladden and Rauros.
    A few of the ancient Wild Men still lurked in the Drúadan Forest in Anórien; and in the hills of Dunland a remnant lingered of an old people, the former inhabitants of much of Gondor. These clung to their own languages; while in the plains of Rohan there dwelt now a Northern people, the Rohirrim, who had come into that land some five hundred years earlier. But the Westron was used as a second language of intercourse by all those who still retained a speech of their own, even by the Elves, not only in Arnor and Gondor but throughout the vales of Anduin, and eastward to the further eaves of Mirkwood. Even among the Wild Men and the Dunlendings who shunned other folk there were some that could speak it, though brokenly.
    OF THE ELVES
     
    The Elves far back in the Elder Days became divided into two main branches: the West-elves (the
Eldar
) and the East-elves. Of the latter kind were most of the Elven-folk of Mirkwood and Lórien; but their languages do not appear in this history, in which all the Elvish names and words are of
Eldarin
form. 1 Of the
Eldarin
tongues two are found in this book: the High-elven or
Quenya,
and the Grey-elven or
Sindarin.
The High-elven was an ancienttongue of Eldamar beyond the Sea, the first to be recorded in writing. It was no longer a birth-tongue, but had become, as it were, an ‘Elvenlatin’, still used for ceremony, and for high matters of lore and song, by the High Elves, who had returned in exile to Middle-earth at the end of the First Age.
    The Grey-elven was in origin akin to
Quenya;
for it was the language of those Eldar who, coming to the shores of Middle-earth, had not passed over the Sea but had lingered on the coasts in the country of Beleriand. There Thingol Greycloak of Doriath was their king, and in the long twilight their tongue had changed with the changefulness of mortal lands and had become far estranged from the speech of the Eldar from beyond the Sea.
    The Exiles, dwelling among the more numerous Grey-elves, had adopted the
Sindarin
for daily use; and hence it was the tongue of all those Elves and Elf-lords that appear in this history. For these