Hobbit language?

[Malchor]

Do your OD&D Hobbits speak Hobbitish or only Common?

1976’s The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth seems to be the first place Hobbitish shows up in D&D.

[jeffb]

I wonder if it shows up in early prints of the LBB?


And yeah, always have used common. But Hobbit slang can be difficult for the big folk to figure out.

[ThrorII]

B/X doesn't give halflings a language in the character creation section, but lists halfling as an extra language in the choices roll.

Being inspired by Tolkien, my halflings (hobbits) speak common.

[hamurai]

A dialect of Common.

[bobjester0e]

By default, Hobbitish is the primary language of hobbits in my games.
The Common tongue in my campaigns are an amalgamation of hobbitish, elvish, dwarvish, and human languages.

In a campaign long ago, I'd had a big-brain idea of abolishing racial languages and just assigned each country and geographical region its own language. Everyone there, humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, all spoke that language.

Some countries that were aligned together by ethos & morality (law, chaos/good, evil) eventually spoke a tongue in common, or, an alignment tongue.

However, elves & dwarves retained their own ancient languages because as long-lived races, their own racial languages were still "living" languages.

Written forms of ancient languages could be in any racial language - or ancient national language, even if that country no longer exists or its borders have shifted, become absorbed by a neighbor or conquering country.

[Malchor]

Sept 8, 2021 9:07:23 GMT -6 bobjester0e said:

By default, Hobbitish is the primary language of hobbits in my games.
The Common tongue in my campaigns are an amalgamation of hobbitish, elvish, dwarvish, and human languages.

In a campaign long ago, I'd had a big-brain idea of abolishing racial languages and just assigned each country and geographical region its own language. Everyone there, humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, all spoke that language.

Some countries that were aligned together by ethos & morality (law, chaos/good, evil) eventually spoke a tongue in common, or, an alignment tongue.

However, elves & dwarves retained their own ancient languages because as long-lived races, their own racial languages were still "living" languages.

Written forms of ancient languages could be in any racial language - or ancient national language, even if that country no longer exists or its borders have shifted, become absorbed by a neighbor or conquering country.

How did that go? Have considered it and stopped short of doing it thinking it might get too complex.

[geoffrey]

I have always assumed that hobbits speak hobbitish, but I had never really thought about it.

[dicebro]

Hobbits spoke the language of men according to Tolkien.

[Deleted]

Since we're dealing with OD&D Hobbits specifically and not the generic "Halfling" of later revisions, I look to Tolkien, where they are implied to be an offshoot of the race of Men and to speak their language and share many of their customs.

[bobjester0e]

Sept 8, 2021 10:12:15 GMT -6 Malchor said:

Sept 8, 2021 9:07:23 GMT -6 bobjester0e said:

By default, Hobbitish is the primary language of hobbits in my games.
The Common tongue in my campaigns are an amalgamation of hobbitish, elvish, dwarvish, and human languages.

In a campaign long ago, I'd had a big-brain idea of abolishing racial languages and just assigned each country and geographical region its own language. Everyone there, humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, all spoke that language.

Some countries that were aligned together by ethos & morality (law, chaos/good, evil) eventually spoke a tongue in common, or, an alignment tongue.

However, elves & dwarves retained their own ancient languages because as long-lived races, their own racial languages were still "living" languages.

Written forms of ancient languages could be in any racial language - or ancient national language, even if that country no longer exists or its borders have shifted, become absorbed by a neighbor or conquering country.

How did that go? Have considered it and stopped short of doing it thinking it might get too complex.

Players new to the game understood it because its a real world imitation.

D&D players needed more info on the structure of how I handled languages, and then were okay with it.

They'd occasionally ask related questions like, "What about Red Dragon language?" and since I had a chart showing the ages of the languages, eras they were in use (or still are) and etymology/origin of their languages, how much other languages inspired, etc.

It was meant to be a tool for roleplaying (in the form of having down-the-rabbit-hole player & character knowledge of the campaign world) more than hard & fast "How to Language in Bob's D&D Game" rule. 

This was pre-internet, so language research for me was limited to Tolkien's language breakdowns in LotR & Silmarilion, etc.

Now, you could do the same thing with real world languages by looking up languages & etymology on wiki and finding a flowchart of them throughout history, or possibly had a course in languages in a course that inspires higher learning & understanding.

Take all that & change the names to your mythical game languages, like elvish, regional areas/countries/geographical/political divisions, dwarfish, hobbitish, etc. and you got yourself a language system that imitates real life. 

[scottenkainen]

Hobbits or halflings speak Hobbit (I've long called the language Hobbit, even when using the term halflings for the race).

[blackwyvern]

Though I no longer use Hobbits/Halflings or Elves or Dwarves for that matter, Hobbits/Halflings never had a racial language, besides Common, when I did use them.

[thegreyelf]

I always thought it strange that Hobbits didn't have their own language in Tolkien's works. As much of a linguist and philologist as he was, creating detailed languages for Elves and Dwarves, I often wondered if he just ran out of steam before he got around to a Hobbitish language and just went, "Eh, screw it. They speak human."

[tkdco2]

IIRC, Hobbits did have an ancestral language, Kuduk, but they had abandoned it in favor of the neighboring human tongues. In LOTR, Modern Hobbitish is a dialect of Common, which is mainly derived from the Adunaic of the Numenoreans.

[Falconer]

Ancient Hobbits (thousands of years before LotR, but still in Third Age), living in the Anduin Vale, apparently spoke the language of the local Northmen. These Northmen were akin to the Marachians and therefore their tongue was akin to Adûnaic. By the time of the LotR, the Hobbits of the Shire and Bree spoke Westron, which is derived from Adûnaic, but they had just a bit of a unique dialect which had words descended from the Northron tongue which they spoke of old. Hence they found they had words in common with the Rohirrim. But we’re talking proper nouns, flavor words. In terms of comprehensibility, they spoke whatever Mannish languages were around them.

[thegreyelf]

Interestingly, in D&D specifically, separating them from Tolkien, hobbits/halflings have always had their own language. They are heavily implied to have their own language in OD&D: "All other creatures and monsters which can speak have their own language, though some (20%) also know the common one." (Men and Magic, p. 12). "Halfling" is expressly listed on page 17 of the AD&D PHB as one of the languages they speak. So as written, Hobbits/Hafliings should have their own tongue.

[Mushgnome]

In my campaigns, Hobbets speak a dialect of Common, consisting of slang, puns, and innuendo. Similar to real world carnies or Polari. Hobbets could have an entire secret conversation right in front of a Human, and the Human would just think they were discussing their next meal.

"I could really go for some second breakfast right about now, wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?"

[Deleted]

Sept 15, 2021 22:37:52 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Ancient Hobbits (thousands of years before LotR, but still in Third Age), living in the Anduin Vale, apparently spoke the language of the local Northmen. These Northmen were akin to the Marachians and therefore their tongue was akin to Adûnaic. By the time of the LotR, the Hobbits of the Shire and Bree spoke Westron, which is derived from Adûnaic, but they had just a bit of a unique dialect which had words descended from the Northron tongue which they spoke of old. Hence they found they had words in common with the Rohirrim. But we’re talking proper nouns, flavor words. In terms of comprehensibility, they spoke whatever Mannish languages were around them.

I always liked the Stoor dialect Smeagol and Deagol spoke, especially in the PJ Trilogy. "What does it have, love?" Normal Westron words but peculiar wording and sentence structure.

[Falconer]

Never thought about it that way. Of course it was intentional!

[Deleted]

IMC, hobbits couldn't speak because all their tongues were cut out prior to them being tossed into a portal to the elemental plane of hobbit-destruction.

[howandwhy99]

Clearly. No doubt manhandled by those gleefully superior coneheaded gnomes which abound in your campaign world.

[retrorob]

No hobbit language. But it could be a nice theme for a campaign - discovering lost hobbit cultural heritage

[mgtremaine]

64 different words for biscuit.

-Mike

[Deleted]

Jan 27, 2022 7:00:10 GMT -6 mgtremaine said:

64 different words for biscuit.

-Mike

What about Second Biscuit? 

[tetramorph]

Like most folks who have already posted, I follow the Tolkien precedent and say that Hobbits speak common, and although they may have a funny accent, they do not have their own unique language.

That said, IMC, although they are technically human, I count Hobbits as "fay," with Elves and Dwarves. So I grant them an additional language, regardless of whether they have an intelligence bonus or not. Just one of the race-based perks.

[retrorob]

I've just found an interesting passage in BTPBD:

The common tongue is spoken throughout most of the known world and is known by most humans and all hobbits. All other creatures and monsters which can speak (excluding hobbits) have their own language (...)

I wonder if it comes directly from the GD&D draft?