– Boromir and Legolas couldn’t understand anything Sam said for about a week. (Sam: *finishes what he’s saying and leaves* Legolas: did you understand that Boromir: it had the tone of being friendly)
(Gimli does better w Shiretalk bcos dwarves historically have had a lot of contact with the Shire)
– Frodo picked up a Buckland accent while he was living there after his parents died. He mostly lost it again after moving back to Hobbiton but sometimes it comes out when he’s talking to Merry. Sometimes they slip into broad Buckland dialect & no-one can understand them except Gandalf & Pippin
– Pippin occasionally slips into broad Tookland dialect when he’s stressed out or angry and half the Fellowship straight up thinks he’s speaking a different language
– Westron is not Legolas’s first language and his vocabulary is both a) patchy and b) based on several thousand years of contact with Westron speakers so not all of what he knows is, up to date
– Merry & Pippin did best of the non-elvish speakers in Lorien through a combination of mime and just not giving a damn
– If Aragorn ever had a consistent accent he lost it a long time ago
– Gandalf is the only person who can consistently understand everyone else
FORGOT ONE
– by the time he gets to Minas Tirith Sam has figured out how to speak ‘standard’ Westron and could make himself understood if he wanted to, he just doesn’t care to.
‘I spent all those weeks making sense of their talk, they can make sense of mine’ ‘sam you’re making things so unnecessarily difficult for yourself’ ‘it’s the principle of the thing mr frodo’
Rebellions are built on hope 