Rohanese

Rohanese, known by readers as Rohirric (a term J.R.R. Tolkien did not invent), was the language of Rohan in Middle-earth. It was described by Legolas as "rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains".

Inspiration & Development

It is derived from Old English, and most of its known words are similar:

• Théoden, from þéoden, "chief" or "lord"
• Edoras, from edoras, "courts"
• Wormtongue, from wyrm, "serpent", and tunge, "tongue"
• Simbelmynë, from simbel, "always", and myne, "memory"
• Éomer, from eoh, "warhorse", and mǽre, "famous"
• Éowyn, from eoh, "warhorse", and wynn, "joy"

Tolkien created Rohanese to linguistically be to Westron (the common tongue), as Old English is to Modern English. In Middle-earth Rohanese is related to the languages of Men in the north such as Dale, Esgaroth, and Rhovanion. Hobbit-speech bears much in common with Rohanese, as hobbits once dwelt in the same region as the ancestors of the Rohirrim. An example of this is the Rohanese word for hobbit (kûd-dûkan) and the hobbits' name for themselves, kuduk.

Tolkien rarely used a term for this language; Rohanese and Rohan are used rarely in relatively obscure materials. The term Rohirric was an invention of Robert Foster for The Complete Guide to Middle-earth (1971), which became used by Tolkien's readership given the absence of a relevant term in The Lord of the Rings.

Translations

Foreign Language	Translated name
German	Rohirrische Sprache
Hebrew	רוהירית
Russian	Роханский язык