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Homogenized Races?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7640661" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I'm pretty sure the convention is, like so much of fantasy, from Tolkien.</p><p></p><p>In the Lord of the Rings, several characters make reference to "the common tongue" and I think that the writers of D&D assumed that "common" was the name of the language. But "the common tongue" being referred to is actually called "Westron" and is basically is to Numenorean what modern English is to Norman French. Ironically, the language isn't even really used in the text, as unlike any of the other languages in Middle Earth, when a Westron word or name would appear in the text, Tolkien produced an Anglicized equivalent to make the sound more pronounable and familiar to the reader rather than alien or foreign (which is achieved by leaving the other languages in their 'true' form). "Westron" itself is an example of this, as the word an actual speaker of the language would use for it is "Aduni". The "real" name of the character "Sam Gamgee" is Banazîr Galbasi.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7640661, member: 4937"] I'm pretty sure the convention is, like so much of fantasy, from Tolkien. In the Lord of the Rings, several characters make reference to "the common tongue" and I think that the writers of D&D assumed that "common" was the name of the language. But "the common tongue" being referred to is actually called "Westron" and is basically is to Numenorean what modern English is to Norman French. Ironically, the language isn't even really used in the text, as unlike any of the other languages in Middle Earth, when a Westron word or name would appear in the text, Tolkien produced an Anglicized equivalent to make the sound more pronounable and familiar to the reader rather than alien or foreign (which is achieved by leaving the other languages in their 'true' form). "Westron" itself is an example of this, as the word an actual speaker of the language would use for it is "Aduni". The "real" name of the character "Sam Gamgee" is Banazîr Galbasi. [/QUOTE]
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