– Fellowship concept from last year – Sketches I did today of: Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Arwen, Boromir and Faramir. Boromir originally had dark bluish-black hair but I kind of like brown ah hah.
– Please don’t repost/use/post my art on other websites without my permission –
I was thinking about Tolkien and accents today, and I really like this idea that even within the Fellowship, you’ve got this happy cacophony of different accents. Boromir speaking Sindarin with a distinctly Gondorian lilt, his Westron a functional thing cobbled-together from the slang of his men and what he learned in order to speak with traders, messengers, foreigners.
Aragorn, so widely-traveled, being an excellent mimic—he can speak Dalish like a man of Laketown or a Haradrim like trader from South Gondor, but in moments of sincerity or seriousness, he slips into the tones of Rivendell, with all the careful articulation of someone who was scoffed at for every slip into the harsher pronunciation of Arnor.
Legolas who speaks Sindarin as his mother-tongue cool and green and fine, but whose Westron is harshly-accented, borrowed from fishermen and dwarves.
Gimli who speaks Khuzdul with that particular Longbeard cadence, which not even growing up in the Iron Hills as part of the Erebor diaspora could shake from him. Exile from Erebor forced many of the dwarves to become, if not fluent, then at least conversant in the languages of Men, in order to trade and travel on soil not their own—Gimli is no exception. (It amuses him to no end to speak to Aragorn in Dalish, and have Legolas puff up, offended not to be part of the conversation.)
Merry and Frodo and Pippin and Sam speaking Westron like the country bumpkins they are, all rounded vowels and drawls, but happy to learn all the languages that fly about them, laughing with their fellows when they mangle even the simplest of Sindarin words.
All of them sitting around the fire, telling stories, laughing at Gandalf when he can’t remember the Westron word for the Sindarin word for the Quendian word for the Valarin, who protests that he is an old man and has known too many tongues, so stop laughing, Peregrin Took, you are spraying crumbs everywhere.
Yes -I remember reading fics in which Boromir was portrayed as paranoid every time Legolas and Aragorn spoke Sindarin, and I was like, ‘It’s his native language, you dolts!‘ (At least, I think so. Tolkien sort of waffles a bit. But he definitely spoke it.)
And even the Hobbits have variation – Frodo is the most educated and speaks more like an Elf, and Sam, being of working class, is more creative with his grammar.
That’s one of the things I really liked about the films – PJ really tried to get this part right.
I really like the idea of Legolas being this stereotypical elf all grace and refinement and sing-song voice but as soon as he speaks Westron, he sounds like an odd combination of a dwarf and man from Laketown and that really soothes my soul idk.
willowfoot 