Letter 144

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Letter 144 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary

This letter, dated April 25, 1954, was addressed to Naomi Mitchison of Headington, Oxford. She had a number of questions about the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien begins the letter by thanking her for all her letters and appologizes for not answering them. He states that some of the questions are answered in The Silmarillion, but since the publisher won't publish the book he needs to write an appendix to the third volume to address some of the issues.

Tolkien explains that Westron is the Common Speech of the Third Age of Middle-earth and these words have been translated into English. Forms of speech related to Westron he has turned into forms of speech releated to English. He states that for the language of the Rohirrim he used a modified verision of Old English. While the language of Dale he used a modified Scandinavian.