The accents

[farinal]

Do you use accents for playing respective Middle Earth characters? If so which ones? For example does your dwarves talk with a Scottish accent? What kind of English accents Tolkien had in mind for the races of Middle Earth? It is hard to say since none of them actually talk English.

The question becomes more complex when you are not a native English speaker or do not play your games in English. For example the Turkish translation of LOTR (Which is a master piece translation work) claims that the Elves are speaking in a heavy, artsy, Shakespearean, treacly kind of way and they have used the Ottoman Palace Turkish for it and used "Central Asian" kind of Turkic for the horse riding Rohirrims. The hobbits also are using the same "villager" kind of speaking in the translation like Sam's infamous saying of potatoes.

So to keep the Middle Earth's spirit intact and correct what kind of accents do you use if do you use at all?

[Rich H]

I certainly don't use things like Scottish accents for dwarves, etc - I find that kind of thing really grating. What I do try and do is use different vocabulary for different races, classes, and cultures. For instance, common menfolk will use a lot more slang whereas Elves do not use slang of any kind. A cultured man will use a wider range of vocab and articulate his ideas and feelings with far more depth and clarity than woodman wanderer who spends little time in the halls of his home.

[ThrorII]

I'm not a good accent guy.

That being said, I try to differentiate between my NPC's, using speech patterns, pitches in my voice, and bad accents.

Yes, all my dwarves are done in bad Scottish

When I run TOR starting next month, I expect that my Beorning NPCs will have gravelly voices and be abrupt. My NPC elves will talk slowly, using flowery language in proper English. Common Hobbits will sound like poor Southern farmers from Kentucky.

That is not including personal traits I put on each NPC.

[Stormcrow]

For example does your dwarves talk with a Scottish accent?

Oh god, no. If you make your dwarf talk with a Scottish accent, you lose the game.

What kind of English accents Tolkien had in mind for the races of Middle Earth? It is hard to say since none of them actually talk English.

But he did have accents in mind as analogues of their real speech. Hobbits of the Shire speak in a rustic, Midlands accent. Gondorians use a nobler, archaic speech. The Rohirrim speak Old English, and undoubtedly speak the common tongue with a Germanic accent.

Of course, they don't actually speak any of these languages; these are just how Tolkien translates them.

And no, I don't put on phony accents when playing. If I can pretend to be an immortal elf in an imaginary fantasy world, I can imagine my speech to be different without changing my North American Atlantic accent.

[poosticks7]

Pitch and timbre are more important than using accents, in my opinion.

Although I do do a mean orcsie.

'listen up you maggots!'


Had a blast with the hermit from don't leave the path as well, put my own spin on it. lots of strange turns of phrase and the like, plus the use of near whispers and head cocking, eye darting etc. (Was a great success, I think my players want him to return at a later date).

[Osric]

Yes, all my dwarves are done in bad Scottish
[...] I expect that my Beorning NPCs will have gravelly voices and be abrupt. My NPC elves will talk slowly, using flowery language in proper English. Common Hobbits will sound like poor Southern farmers from Kentucky.

I have been interested for a long time to know where the dwarves=Scots thing came from. It's got too much momentum (especially on the Internet/in the States) to be prevented now, but I'm sure there was a time when no one made any such connection. Here in the UK I thought the dwarf Auchter in Imagine magazine's cartoon strip 'The Sword of Alabron' was absolutely visionary in combining dwarvishness with Scottishness -- including full tartan...

And in a bizarre twist, I (almost) can't criticise the use of a Scots accent for dwarves in Middle-earth. I think Scots accents/dialects have stronger Scandinavian influences than Celtic ones.

Depending on which of Tolkien's originally unpublished writings you prefer to use as a source, the dwarves were either great linguists who readily adopted the languages of their neighbours, or rubbish ones who never lost their dwarven accent, whatever language they spoke. I prefer the latter, and presume their accent to share the characteristics of Khuzdul, in being guttural and unlovely. (Map this to Scots at your peril! But there's more than one Scots accent too...)

As for hobbits, I'm staggered to find anyone who can think of them as sounding like anything other than English 'West Country' -- Somerset, Bristol and thereabouts. But that just makes me need to acknowledge my own parochialism. If anyone doesn't know that accent, and can't do (a probably excruciating parody of) one, don't PJ's films set a precedent it's hard to escape?
The Midlands accent is another matter altogether. It would be a brave gamer who claimed that hobbits sound like the people of Birmingham!

Cheers,
--Os.

[Stormcrow]

Sorry, I may have gotten my accents confused. Another reason I don't mess with them!

[Valarian]

As for hobbits, I'm staggered to find anyone who can think of them as sounding like anything other than English 'West Country' -- Somerset, Bristol and thereabouts. But that just makes me need to acknowledge my own parochialism. If anyone doesn't know that accent, and can't do (a probably excruciating parody of) one, don't PJ's films set a precedent it's hard to escape?
The Midlands accent is another matter altogether. It would be a brave gamer who claimed that hobbits sound like the people of Birmingham!

Seeing as The Shire is basically Warwickshire and (at the time) rural South Birmingham, the Midlands accent of Shakespeare is quite appropriate. The strong West Country accent is a terrible idea. The Birmingham and Midlands accent is not the strong Black Country accent of Dudley and Wolverhampton.

Tolkien based his Shire on the regions of his childhood around Sarehole.

[Beleg]

I don't know that the real areas of Britain that Tolkien based locales in his books on really has any bearing on the accent of the people who lived there. Supposedly the canyon in which Helm's Deep is situated was based on Cheddar Gorge, yet the Rohirrim don't talk like the Wurzels

[farinal]

Well I think of it as adaptation. Like the translations of LOTR, the "accents" of the peoples of Middle Earth have been adaptated into the accents of English etc.

How similar or different should the Dwarves, Elves of Mirkwood and the Men of the Wilderland speak? For example how easy or hard would it be to listen blind folded a Barding, a Dwarf, an Elf and a Beorning and understand which is which?