Language Question

[afro-elf]

Common and Westron, are the same and Adunaic is the basis for Westron?

How closely related is Westron( common) to the tongue of the Northmen ( including the Rohirrim)?

IIRC the language of Rohan was like Old English compared to Modern English or was the difference not so pronounced( no pun intended) If it were it seems like a pretty big gap at least to me as when I listen to Old English I am can only gather a few words here and there.

However, when I sometimes listen to a Scottish, Northern English, or New Zealand show it takes me several minutes for my ear to adjust then I can follow along.

So perhaps it is more like an ear adjustment for the characters or does one need a learn another language skill.

I know in the books the Hobbits spoke to everyone and they seemed ok, but was it that they people they spoke with people who happened to be more learned. Would a regular farmer from Rohan have been so easy to converse with?

What about the languages of the men of Wilderland? I assume they are close enough to each other and Rohirric that it would be just like listening to someone with a thick regional accent.

[Earniel]

If I recall correctly, in LoTR when Gandalf and the other come to Meduseld for the first time, they are spoken to in Rohirric and when Gandalf makes a comment on the choice of language, they are told that the King commands that only who know the Rohirric speech may enter.

Gandalf even remarks in his first comment that few people do know the speech of the Riddermark as opposed to the Common Speech, so clearly it must be quite distinct from it, much more different than would be a local dialect.

Judging by my memory of the appendices, Hobbits have forsaken any tongue of thein own for Westron. But I recall very few examples (apart from Hobbit names) of Westron as compared to English. Of Adunaic I think I recall has been a more worked-out language but I haven't delved in it and only know examples from the King Lists of Númenor where the later kings chose names in Adunaic. So there are too few words known to me to make any judgement on any linguistic kinship between them.