Free The Peoples of Middle-earth by J. R. R. Tolkien Page A

Lord of old, but it was so full of harsh and hideous sounds and vile words that other mouths found it difficult to compass, and few indeed were willing to make the attempt. And these creatures, being filled with all malice and hatred, so that they did not love even their own kind, had soon diversified their barbarous and unwritten speech into as many jargons as there were groups or settlements of Orcs. Thus they were driven to use the language of their enemies even in conversing with other Orcs of different breed or distant dwellings. In the Misty Mountains, and in other lingering Orc-holds in the far North-west, they had indeed abandoned their native tongue and used the Common Speech, though in such a fashion as to make it scarcely less unlovely than the Orkish.
    $17. Trolls, in their beginning creatures of lumpish and brutal nature, had nothing that could be called true language (* For there was an ancient enmity between Dwarf and Elf and neither would learn the other's tongue.)
    of their own; but the evil Power had at various times made use of them, teaching them what little they could learn, and even crossing their breed with that of the larger Orcs. Trolls thus took such language as they could from the Orcs, and in the west-lands the Trolls of the hills and mountains spoke a debased form of the Common Westron speech.
    $18. Elves, it may be thought, had no need of other languages than their own. They did not, indeed, like the Dwarves hide their own language, and they were willing to teach the Elven-tongues to any who desired or were able to learn them. But these were few, apart from the lords of Numenorean descent. The Elves, therefore, who remained in the west-lands used the Common Speech in their dealings with Men or other speaking-folk; but they used it in an older and more gracious form, that of the lords of the Dunedain rather than that of the Shire. Among themselves they spoke and sang in Elven-tongues, and throughout Eriador from Lindon to Imladrist [> Imladris] they used the Noldorin speech; for in those lands, especially in Rivendell and at the Grey Havens, but also elsewhere in other secret places, there were still many of the exiled Noldor abiding or wandering in the wild. Beyond the Misty Mountains there were still Eldar who used the Lemberin
    [> Telerian] tongue. Such were the people of the elf-kingdom in Northern Mirkwood, whence came Legolas. Lemberin
    [> Telerian] was the native tongue also of Celeborn and the Elves of the hidden land of Lorien. There the Common Speech was known only to a few, for that people strayed seldom from their borders.*
    $19. The Elvish names that appear in this book are mainly of Noldorin form; but some are Lemberin [> Telerian], of which the chief are [added: Thranduil,] Legolas, Lorien, Caras Galadon, Nimrodel, Amroth; and also the names of the House of Dol Amroth: Finduilas, [added: Adrahil,] and Imrahil. The exiled Eldar still preserved in memory, as has been said, the High-elven Quenya; and it was from Noldorin visitants to the Shire that Bilbo (and from him Frodo) learned a little of that ancient speech. In Quenya is the polite greeting that Frodo addressed to Gildor (in Chapter III). The farewell song of Galadriel in Lorien (in Chapter ) [sic] is also in Quenya. Tree-

    (* But the lady of that land, Galadriel, was of Noldorin race, and in her household that language was also spoken.)
    beard knew this tongue as the noblest of the 'hasty' languages, and frequently used it. His address to Galadriel and Celeborn is in Quenya; so are most of the words and names that he uses which are not in the Common Speech.(9)
    $20. To speak last of Hobbits. According to accounts compiled in the Shire, the Hobbits, though in origin one race, became divided in remote antiquity into three somewhat different breeds: Stoors, Harfoots, and Fallohides, which have already been described. [Struck out:] No tradition, however, remains of any difference of speech between these three kinds.(10) $21. Since