[Saralitazie]

Haha, just had to add my two cents... I was recently exploring my appendices and rereading the part in TTT where Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli reach Rohan. (Don't you just love that poem Aragorn recites: "Where now the horse and the rider, etc".) My opinion would be that the Common Tongue would have been fairly prevailent amongst the upper classes - but perhaps not so much the lower classes. The lords of the Riddermark were, after all, in association with those outside of Rohan, and I think it likely that they would have taught their sons, who would have taught their sons...after all, they DID swear an oath to Gondor - hopefully ya'll know what I'm talking about, and if not, read your appendices! - so it would have been a good thing to speak the same language.

As for the lower classes, when would they need it? Why bother learning it? It's my opinion that the knowledge of Westron among them was much like most [teens] knowledge of - say, French - today. Limited, probably to a few common words and phrases.

And that concludes Sarah's oh-so-profound restatement of what every one else said.

[SilverMoonLady]

Well thanks:)
Lots of useful info:)

[Taethowen]

okay . . . I've skim-read this thread, so if I missed it, I'm sorry, but the one thing I've seen in here is that it looks like everyone thinks that the language of Rohan was Westron, but it wasn't.

There were similarities between the language of the Shire and the language of Rohan, because it says in The Two Towers that Merry and Pippin recognized many of the words. But it was a different language from Westron, because when Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli arrived at Meduseld, the guard they talked to said that he had orders not to let anyone in who couldn't understand and speak the language of the Rohirrim. Gandalf and Aragorn were the only two of that group that could, I believe.

Tolkien chose to represent the language of the Rohirrim with Old English, and many of the names and words used in the books can be traced back to OE. I use OE for my Rohirric stories. I use the same dictionary as Ania, and I highly recommend it.

[SilverMoonLady]

That was somewhat the concensus we reached, but thanks for your continued interest:)

And welcome to the forum:)

[Eyborg]

But the hobbits in the Shire still spoke Westron, didn't they?

[SilverMoonLady]

Hobbits of the Shire (and Bree) did speak Westron as they learned it from the Men they encountered, though with an "accent" and their own twists on usage & the like. It is theorized (by Tolkien himself if I remember correctly) that they used to speak a language akin to that of the Rohirrim and the Men of the Gladden Fields area, as some old words have remained in the language and the place names, especially in Buckland and the Marish (where the Stoors settled). There is no record or memory of their original language if they had one.
The language of Rohan has the same root as Westron, but only the way french and italian have the same root. There is a similarity, so that it 'feels' less foreign than say dutch or russian, but it is not comprehensible without learning.
That is why Merry is described as feeling familiar with the words sung and spoken around him while he traveled with them, but he could not actually "understand" the words.

[Taethowen]

They did, Eyborg, but they still had some words that came from the language they spoke before settling in the Shire that were similar to the language of Rohan at the time of the War of the Ring.

<lalala . . . simul post . . . ignore mine *points up* that one's much better . . . *g*>

[Andreth]

Here's a link to the sections of Ardalambion that explain Westron (including much Hobbit-ish info about it) -

http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/westron.htm

and some of the various Mannish languages -

http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/mannish.htm

in case anyone hadn't seen them and wanted to have a look through.

Although Miss Silver seems to have explained things well enough.

[SilverMoonLady]

Yes, I am disgustingly obsessed
And a complete anthro geek to boot

[Eyborg]

Thanks Sil and Taethowen! That's actually what I had in mind too.
I guess it would be similar to me going to Scandinavia and understanding some of the words, although it's still a different language (I actually understand the Scandinavian languages, but that's because I've learned them).