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.
Y’know, I think the biggest drawback to the whole ‘ageless elf’ archetype is that our elf warriors and adventuresses all end up being young-looking. So this image of a middle-aged, grey-haired, veteran elvish knight in slightly battered—but distinctly elvish—armor delights me to no end.
So, we know elves fear (souls basically) and hroa (body) are linked. Ex, if the elf is upset as hell their body just…degrades. That part is canon.
So, I think it would make sense that a sad, their body would require more sleeping, food, etc to sustain itself.
This takes stress-eating and breakup-icecream to the max. We know elves typically aren’t the biggest eaters in the world. But if an elf was very upset, they would just eat and eat and eat, sleep all the time, etc. Which leads to a few things.
1. To a smaller degree, emotion snacking is basically mandatory. “Fuck, I just failed a test. Aaaand I could go for like five hamburgers right now.”
2. This could also go for larger things. Just like human’s depression-nap system, a sad elf will just. Sleep. For weeks.
3. Perhaps it’s an elvish custom to hold huge feasts after times of sadness. Beloved town member just died? Thier funeral will have a shitload of food. Everyone will need it. Post-battle? Better start a huge potluck, shit, these elves need a lot to eat to keep up their souls now.
4. FOOD GIFT BASKETS ARE A MUST. Flowers? No one needs them. The real thing to do to cheer up your elf friend is send them several crates of protein bars.
5. Maedhros probably ate an absurdly huge amount, all the time. Even on top of how much he would eat being so tall. Invite this guy over for a buisness dinner? Better have an extra four portions for him.
6. “Elrond dude there’s like hundreds of chip bags scattered in your office” “I KNOW but i am WORRIED”
-“Perhaps it’s an elvish custom to hold huge feasts after times of sadness. “
Well, that would explain why Thranduil holds so many feasts in Mirkwood
so elves don’t get sick, right? you know what this means for early elf/human relations right
elven healers who are fantastic with injuries, but have no fucking clue what to do about even the most basic human illnesses
elven healers at the border forts in the north requesting human healers as partners so they can better care for the mixed human and elven forces stationed there
elven healers going to study with the most well-known human healers to learn about this huge new field of medicine, and sharing their knowledge with the humans in return
human healers and elven healers working together to find new treatments for diseases
Human: Oh come on, no one dies of a broken heart. Elf: (dies of sadness)
Elf: Oh come on, no one dies of the bacteria that live on their skin! Human: (dies of septicemia)
just moving along like everyone else 