Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?
Then about a week into their journey like
Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying
Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst
Legolas:
~*~earlier~*~
Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits
Merry: Frodo what’d he say
Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish
i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.
english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.
they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max.
frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.
so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.
plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.
so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.
to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather
was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a
somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.
so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his
upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his
Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice
from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really
obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!
considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.
…it’s
also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though
with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.
which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.
this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!
Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.
Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*
Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now
Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?
Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?
Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.
Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.
Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y’all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.
Pippin, entering Gondor and speaking to the castle steward: hey yo my man
True story – There are historical accounts (well, there’s at least one historical account) in which English people whine about how the Norse men bathe so often they’re able to seduce the local women away from their husbands.
^^^ Yep. Turns out the women were way more into the hot well groomed muscular dudes who liked to smell nice.
*Hot, well groomed men who liked to smell nice and knew their way around sharp objects.
“I just don’t know why you couldn’t marry a local boy sweetie.”
“What can I say dad, Hjalmar bathes regularly, smells nice, has shoulders, can wield a sword and can wield his sword ifyaknowwhatImean, and when he comes back from raids likes to shower me in rare gifts from overseas. Look at this necklace! The amber beads came from the lands of the Rus! Also, he’s teaching me how to shoot a bow and use a spear because he thinks it might be nice if I could go on raids too someday.”
I mean, frankly, if I wasn’t already married, I would marry Hjalmar, too.
Someone: “I want a cat/rabbit/other animal that will be super openly affectionate, go for walks, play fetch, not mind being handled rough, never be shy, and also I don’t want it to claw me or the furniture(so I’ll probably get it declawed) and I don’t want to ever clean a litter box or cage.”
Me: “Hey there’s this great new type of animal you might be interested in:”
Someone: “I want a dog but I don’t ever want to take it for walks or exercise it very much or let it outside and I want it to be fine with being left alone for longer periods of time and also never bark.”
Me:
Someone: “I want a cat or dog but I want to only feed it a vegan diet.”
Me:
Someone: “I want to have a pet but I basically never want to interact with it.”
Me:
Someone: “I want to get my kid a cute pet for Easter/Christmas!”
Me:
Get a pet that fits your needs. Don’t get a pet then try to force it to fit your lifestyle. Just because you saw a person walking a rabbit once doesn’t mean you can expect a rabbit to just be a dog. Just get a dog!
Nice try but the first 3 are not gay. You Tumblr degenerate send your wishful thinking. seriously do you people have to ruin everything…
Deadpool is pansexual. Loki is bisexual and gender fluid. Wonder Woman is bisexual like all the Amazons. Educate yourself about comic canon before saying something ridiculous.
Do you have any reliable sources that can back this up?
You mean… besides the fucking comics?!
Wonder Woman was shown as canonically bisexual in the main DCU continuity in Wonder Woman: Year One (She was heavily implied to be numerous times before then but it was stated canonically in that comic that she had romantic and sexual relationships with multiple Amazons and left her girlfriend behind to journey to our world to stop the threat of Ares sons bringing chaos and war to the world)
She’s also canonically bisexual in Wonder Woman: Earth One where she straight up tells Steve Trevor that another Amazon is her lover and also in DC Comics Bombshells where she and Mera were girlfriends
Loki is canonically bisexual and generfluid…they have shifted from male to female multiple times stating that both are their real form and Odin, Loki’s father, referred to Loki as “Their child who is both male and female” in a published Marvel comics
And anyone who thinks Deadpool is straight has not only never read the comics but also apparently never been to see either movie either because I’m not sure what part of Deadpool grabbing Colossus’s chrome plated ass and dry humping him made them think “Yeah this is a Totally Straight Hetero Just Bros Being Bros”
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