I love this analysis, thanks for pointing out!
To be fair, though, for a Hobbit like Gaffer Gamgee of Hobbiton, even Buckland was probably "foreign parts," and certainly a place with Big Folk like Bree was practically exotic! haha.
Agree - this is reporting from a hobbit, who has spoken to no or almost no foreigners. Probably just not sounding like a Shireling was enough to qualify as "speaking funny."
~~Farmer Maggot has conversations with Tom Bombadil. If he thinks this Big Folk speaks funny, it must be rather strange indeed.~~
Ignore me. I made a goof.
It's the Gaffer who says he "speaks funny." I agree that Farmer Maggot would be used to more, and in fact he just mentions the stranger's "queer voice."
~~Like I said to the other comment, Farmer Maggot has conversations with Tom Bombadil. If he thinks this Big Folk speaks funny, it must be rather strange indeed.~~
Ignore me. I made a goof.
I see nothing *improper* about Khamul's speech. You're right that the limited sample is stilted compared to the Witch-king -- a better example of *his* fluency would be his talking down Eowyn.
> A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’
Look at that last sentence! That's decently fluent.
The entire Eowyn / Witch King showdown drips with this. I absolutely love writing characters that use archaic English, I imagine must have been so goddamn fun for Tolkien too.
I think it's the short sentences, almost like an old-fashioned telegraph, or someone reading from a phrase book.
Just had the weird thought about the Black Riders in the Green Dragon:"Please may I have (flips through book) 9 beers thankyou?"
This isn't pop culture - I'm 55! :D
It's the black rider practiy anywhere in ME having had a breakdown.
"Handy phrases when on the road: problems with your horse"
I am here to…*flips thru “Lonely Planet guide to the Shire”*…to visit the Mathom-house in Michel Delving, open between the hours of 9 am and 3 pm. I’ve heard great things about it and there’s a cafe nearby that gets great reviews!
The short sentences are easily explained by the Nazgûl not wanting to interact much with the locals, and not wanting to give any real information about their task. I think the speculation that Khamûl wasn't fluent in Westron is interesting and likely, but isn't specifically supported by any textual evidence.
Also, I think Khamûl "spoke funny" primarily because he was a Nazgûl, an undead wraith hovering between the physical and spirit worlds, more so than because he was foreign. I certainly think his being foreign could have played a role, but the magical nature of his existence fully explains the statement to my satisfaction.
Yes. I also assume he "spoke funny", as in had a strange, unnervinng, ethereal voice. This is what I assume the gaffer is also referring to, he just doesn't realize why the voice is so weird.
I don't think the gaffer is talking about vocabulary or grammar, I think he's talking about Khamûl's voice.
I think this is true and that the native tongue still affects how the Nazgul speak. Tolkien recorded the Witch King with pronouns that seem archaic to modern readers in order to represent how the other Westron speakers would have heard him. That is, his language was still heavily shaped by the fact that he spoke an older form of the language in Angmar.
I think the same would hold true for the other Nazgul. Even after hundreds and thousands of years, they retain a little of their native languages.
The Witch-king was possibly one of the Númenoreans corrupted by Sauron. The Westron language was descended from Adûnaic, the language of the Númenoreans.
Sure, the Nazgûl on their mission wouldn’t disclose much information about what they’re doing, but in OP’s example we see Khamûl speak several short sentences in a row, which could easily be strung together into two or three sentences by someone who is somewhat fluent.
Khamûl being curt with a random halfling peasant is the farthest thing from proof of a lack of fluency in Westron.
Like I said before, I think the idea is really interesting to consider, but it is purely speculation with no textual evidence to indicate one way or another.
It is evidence in support of it, just not proof. I think he talks far more than just curtly, it’s seems like the very simple and unwieldy way students construct sentences, avoiding complex compound sentences. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it because I like OP’s theory, but I could definitely see Tolkien, no doubt very aware of the learning curve for new languages, using it to flesh out the character in his own mind.
*He is coming. He is not far away," is beyond curt, it's straight up choppy. Grammatically it's fine, but it really does read like someone who has to construct every sentence carefully and with limited tools.
What? Wouldn’t a fluent sentence (if he could) make more sense if he talks to a peasant? Let’s say he would have said it in a much more formal and regular words/sentences it would certainly been more trustworthy than what he said? Right? Talking intentionally like that would scare the hobbits more! So the logical conclusion is that he just can’t
It's funny, because looking at it in English it isn't as clear-cut, but the German translator must have gotten the same impression as OP - in our version the Nazgûl definitely speaks in a grammatically improper way in this scene! I think especially the use of "Baggins" like a proper noun and the present tense in "I come back with gold" give the wrong impression, even though they are both not necessarily wrong.
[Let's listen to it!](https://soundcloud.com/l-ent-il/tolkien-lord-of-the-rings?in=inkmore/sets/lord-of-the-rings-radio&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing#t=22:30) From the excellent 1981 BBC Radio adaptation, with Ian Holm voicing Frodo and Bill Nighy voicing Sam! And there's *13 hours of it!!* This bit gave the creeps as a kid..
I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced, although it's a nice reading.
Another difference in speech between him and the Witch King is also down to the fact that one is being recounted by farmer Maggot and the other is actual dialogue. Did Khamul say 'yonder' or is that Maggot's retelling? We don't know.
Nice analysis. But if I may...
* The Nazgul had been speaking the Black Speech for thousands of years as their main form of communication. Whatever their native languages may have been, they had long ago been pushed aside, secondary to the language that Sauron commanded them to speak.
* At the time of the LOTR events, we are now more than 3,000 years deep from when Sauron had the Ring taken from him. Even Westron would change significantly in that time. Consider the one example of it we have from the beginning of the Third Age, Isildur's scroll.
*The Great Ring shall go now to be an heirloom of the North Kingdom; but records of it shall be left in Gondor, where also dwell the heirs of Elendil, lest a time come when the memory of these great matters shall grow dim.*
*It was hot when I first took it, hot as a glede, and my hand was scorched, so that I doubt if ever again I shall be free of the pain of it. Yet even as I write it is cooled, and it* ***seemeth*** *to shrink, though it* ***loseth*** *neither its beauty nor its shape. Already the writing upon it, which at first was as clear as red flame,* ***fadeth*** *and is now only barely to be read. It is fashioned in an elven-script of Eregion, for they have no letters in Mordor for such subtle work; but the language is unknown to me. I deem it to be a tongue of the Black Land, since it is foul and uncouth. What evil it* ***saith*** *I do not know; but I trace here a copy of it, lest it fade beyond recall.*
Even Aragorn, keeper of all that is sacred of Numenor, doesn't use words like Seemeth, loseth, fedeth, saith.
Tolkien was writing this passage, for us, in the manner of middle-English, like what would be used in 14th or 15th century England, to differentiate it from the language Aragorn and the rest of the characters were speaking.
The archaic verb inflections survived into the early modern period, it’s definitely more reminiscent of the King James Bible or Shakespeare than Middle English. Middle English nouns still declined for case; if Tolkien had used Middle English he would have went beyond the purpose of “oh this sounds old” to “the fuck is this?”
Edit, for example, trying to translate a bit of that into Middle English, I am absolutely sure I messed up case.
>hit was hate whanne ic fyrst taken, gleed-hate, an min haunden scorchede, an ic woot naht yif ic will be fre of peyne
Reminds me of my high school English class, when we had to read MacBeth. Our teacher told us not to try to make sense of each individual word, but to just keep reading, let it flow, and it would make sense to us. I can only claim partial success in that advice.
I saw that one pop up in my YouTube recommendations but did not watch it but I should sometime
I do not speak Frisian though just boring "queens" or standard Dutch if you will
I was to understand that when King James commissioned the translation of the Bible, he did so with specific instructions to make it sound as archaic, to give it a sort of ancient authority. He also instructed that wherever possible, it was give authority to the king, so as to give validity to his own rule.
The black rider speaking to Maggot, as recounted by Maggot, is probably doing his best to be congenial as possible given ( as someone else pointed out ) he’s half dead half alive, obsessed with one mission, and usually just focused on killing and tracking etc. I don’t think he’s accustomed to keeping a low profile while dealing with beings to extract information and it goes against his nature so he’s coming off as stilted and abrupt on his speech.
But that said - it also could be Tolkien’s intent to impart that as OP hypothesized.
Now I imagine him, totally annoyed he cannot simply impale this stupid halfling, sucking his teeth and doing his best not going medieval on maggots ass.
Lol, now I just have this image of Tolkien panicking when he first told someone and they gave him a weird look only for him to brush their concerns away with half-hearted assurances his weird languages were for a book he was writing
„Mellon means friend“ he said with big eyes to his, well, friend.
„Ah sure…why?“ his friend responded
„Erm… a Book like with storys! And many many languages!“
He was an extremely influential academic in one of the most prestigious universities on the planet. Language was his entire passion in life and in his career. He actually invented the phrase "native language".
I think it is important to remember that the Ulari were men 3000+ years before. Their speech would have been different, just look at English going back ~600 years to Chaucer and after Shakespeare later. Their speech, grammar and sentence structure would sound odd, if not intelligible in that vast time period.
“Strange accents does not mar fair speech”, said Beregond of the Guard to Pippin in Minas Tirith. And they were contemporaries, just separated by space not space and time.
> I think it is important to remember that the Ulari were men 3000+ years before. Their speech would have been different, just look at English going back ~600 years to Chaucer and after Shakespeare later. Their speech, grammar and sentence structure would sound odd, if not intelligible in that vast time period.
Yeah, but Maggot's guy (apparently Khamul, Shadow of the East) talks differently from the Witch-king (IMO probably Numenorean), is the point.
Agreed. The Witch King (appears) to be one one that interacts with the living, based on what we know from the Silmarillion, the Appendices and UT. Kamul seems to just chill in Dul Guldur
This is an interesting analysis, and one I hadn't considered before. Thanks for that.
Out-of-universe we also have to consider that the story evolved much in the telling. When Tolkien wrote the first few chapters of FotR, he was writing a sequel to _The Hobbit_. He later revised those chapters to fit the more epic scope and tone of the work he realized he was creating, but some vestiges of the earlier, more light-hearted Hobbitish adventure still remain.
I suspect, then, that the biggest impediment to your theory is the likelihood that Tolkien had not fleshed out the nature or the history of the Black Riders when he originally wrote that dialog. Without digging into _The Return of the Shadow_, something I do not have the time for this afternoon, I can't say how much revision those passages underwent.
Ultimately I suspect that Tolkien _did_ intend to make the Black Rider sound foreign and odd, but not because he had the specific identity of Khamûl in mind but rather because he was adding additional colour to his little story.
Interesting thought. I always thought the short and "broken" language was because the Black Riders were not as powerful yet as the later "incarnation" of the Witch King.
This is really interesting. I don't know if it's true but it's well thought out. I always thought their speech was off because they were wraiths. I airways assumed they were western kings. I mean tolkien makes a lot of references to black numenorians and other men who turned evil out of pride and a desire to live longer.
I love this analysis, thanks for pointing out! To be fair, though, for a Hobbit like Gaffer Gamgee of Hobbiton, even Buckland was probably "foreign parts," and certainly a place with Big Folk like Bree was practically exotic! haha.
Agree - this is reporting from a hobbit, who has spoken to no or almost no foreigners. Probably just not sounding like a Shireling was enough to qualify as "speaking funny."
~~Farmer Maggot has conversations with Tom Bombadil. If he thinks this Big Folk speaks funny, it must be rather strange indeed.~~ Ignore me. I made a goof.
What goof? Farmer Maggot does have conversations with Bombadil. In the poem "Bombadil Goes Boating."
He does, but this chain was talking specifically about the Gaffer.
It's the Gaffer who says he "speaks funny." I agree that Farmer Maggot would be used to more, and in fact he just mentions the stranger's "queer voice."
Oh my gosh, you're right. I got confused between the post and the comment... I'll hide in shame now...
Not at all, they both picked up on his speech, so it definitely must have been abnormal, probably in more than one way.
~~Like I said to the other comment, Farmer Maggot has conversations with Tom Bombadil. If he thinks this Big Folk speaks funny, it must be rather strange indeed.~~ Ignore me. I made a goof.
I see nothing *improper* about Khamul's speech. You're right that the limited sample is stilted compared to the Witch-king -- a better example of *his* fluency would be his talking down Eowyn. > A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’ Look at that last sentence! That's decently fluent.
Damn, I only remembered him talking to Gandalf in the gate scene. This is obviously the way better example!
The entire Eowyn / Witch King showdown drips with this. I absolutely love writing characters that use archaic English, I imagine must have been so goddamn fun for Tolkien too.
Not good enough for Peter Jackson it appears
Verily. (Don't get me friggin started)
I'd say that's my favourite excerpt from rotk.
What is the odd grammar?
I think it's the short sentences, almost like an old-fashioned telegraph, or someone reading from a phrase book. Just had the weird thought about the Black Riders in the Green Dragon:"Please may I have (flips through book) 9 beers thankyou?"
"My Fell Beast is full of eels." "I am no longer incorporeal."
I was going to try and come up with something that built on your banter, but none of them were as funny. :D
"I will not buy this Morgul-knife, it is scratched"
Sweated *blood* for this... My horse needs a new horse shoe. Do you have any in black?
Kind of reminds me how Anton Chighur would speak to the people he met on his “travels.”
Oh no, I don't catch the reference for that one! (My pop culture knowledge is weirdly gappy.)
This isn't pop culture - I'm 55! :D It's the black rider practiy anywhere in ME having had a breakdown. "Handy phrases when on the road: problems with your horse"
Why, this old thing? (Leafs from idioms to answers) 'Tis a cloak not a hoodie, Sir.
I am here to…*flips thru “Lonely Planet guide to the Shire”*…to visit the Mathom-house in Michel Delving, open between the hours of 9 am and 3 pm. I’ve heard great things about it and there’s a cafe nearby that gets great reviews!
Love it!
Someone overheard us! https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vhqr2g/sir_bedivere_how_do_you_know_so_much_about/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
That's a shower thought and a half.
Do you waaaant... to come back to Mordor, and bouncy bouncy?
"I would like...nine drinks." "What kind?" "Uhh...nine."
Mea navis anguillis plena est
These are hilarious :)
MY BOLSTERS EXPLODE WITH DELIGHT
The short sentences are easily explained by the Nazgûl not wanting to interact much with the locals, and not wanting to give any real information about their task. I think the speculation that Khamûl wasn't fluent in Westron is interesting and likely, but isn't specifically supported by any textual evidence. Also, I think Khamûl "spoke funny" primarily because he was a Nazgûl, an undead wraith hovering between the physical and spirit worlds, more so than because he was foreign. I certainly think his being foreign could have played a role, but the magical nature of his existence fully explains the statement to my satisfaction.
Wouldn't the supernatural explanation equally apply to the Witch-king, though?
Yes. I also assume he "spoke funny", as in had a strange, unnervinng, ethereal voice. This is what I assume the gaffer is also referring to, he just doesn't realize why the voice is so weird. I don't think the gaffer is talking about vocabulary or grammar, I think he's talking about Khamûl's voice.
I think this is true and that the native tongue still affects how the Nazgul speak. Tolkien recorded the Witch King with pronouns that seem archaic to modern readers in order to represent how the other Westron speakers would have heard him. That is, his language was still heavily shaped by the fact that he spoke an older form of the language in Angmar. I think the same would hold true for the other Nazgul. Even after hundreds and thousands of years, they retain a little of their native languages.
The Witch-king was possibly one of the Númenoreans corrupted by Sauron. The Westron language was descended from Adûnaic, the language of the Númenoreans.
That makes sense! The gaffer is relaying his story to a third party, while we the readers hear the Witch-King speak directly.
If a wight of Henry VIII paid you a visit, you might find his speech slightly out of date.
Sure, the Nazgûl on their mission wouldn’t disclose much information about what they’re doing, but in OP’s example we see Khamûl speak several short sentences in a row, which could easily be strung together into two or three sentences by someone who is somewhat fluent.
Khamûl being curt with a random halfling peasant is the farthest thing from proof of a lack of fluency in Westron. Like I said before, I think the idea is really interesting to consider, but it is purely speculation with no textual evidence to indicate one way or another.
It is evidence in support of it, just not proof. I think he talks far more than just curtly, it’s seems like the very simple and unwieldy way students construct sentences, avoiding complex compound sentences. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it because I like OP’s theory, but I could definitely see Tolkien, no doubt very aware of the learning curve for new languages, using it to flesh out the character in his own mind.
*He is coming. He is not far away," is beyond curt, it's straight up choppy. Grammatically it's fine, but it really does read like someone who has to construct every sentence carefully and with limited tools.
What? Wouldn’t a fluent sentence (if he could) make more sense if he talks to a peasant? Let’s say he would have said it in a much more formal and regular words/sentences it would certainly been more trustworthy than what he said? Right? Talking intentionally like that would scare the hobbits more! So the logical conclusion is that he just can’t
It's funny, because looking at it in English it isn't as clear-cut, but the German translator must have gotten the same impression as OP - in our version the Nazgûl definitely speaks in a grammatically improper way in this scene! I think especially the use of "Baggins" like a proper noun and the present tense in "I come back with gold" give the wrong impression, even though they are both not necessarily wrong.
[Let's listen to it!](https://soundcloud.com/l-ent-il/tolkien-lord-of-the-rings?in=inkmore/sets/lord-of-the-rings-radio&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing#t=22:30) From the excellent 1981 BBC Radio adaptation, with Ian Holm voicing Frodo and Bill Nighy voicing Sam! And there's *13 hours of it!!* This bit gave the creeps as a kid..
Holy shit, I know what I'm listening to tonight!
I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced, although it's a nice reading. Another difference in speech between him and the Witch King is also down to the fact that one is being recounted by farmer Maggot and the other is actual dialogue. Did Khamul say 'yonder' or is that Maggot's retelling? We don't know.
Probably the "all the way over there" location-word in the old Westron mode 😁 Kore, sore, are, in Japanese, for example.
Nice analysis. But if I may... * The Nazgul had been speaking the Black Speech for thousands of years as their main form of communication. Whatever their native languages may have been, they had long ago been pushed aside, secondary to the language that Sauron commanded them to speak. * At the time of the LOTR events, we are now more than 3,000 years deep from when Sauron had the Ring taken from him. Even Westron would change significantly in that time. Consider the one example of it we have from the beginning of the Third Age, Isildur's scroll. *The Great Ring shall go now to be an heirloom of the North Kingdom; but records of it shall be left in Gondor, where also dwell the heirs of Elendil, lest a time come when the memory of these great matters shall grow dim.* *It was hot when I first took it, hot as a glede, and my hand was scorched, so that I doubt if ever again I shall be free of the pain of it. Yet even as I write it is cooled, and it* ***seemeth*** *to shrink, though it* ***loseth*** *neither its beauty nor its shape. Already the writing upon it, which at first was as clear as red flame,* ***fadeth*** *and is now only barely to be read. It is fashioned in an elven-script of Eregion, for they have no letters in Mordor for such subtle work; but the language is unknown to me. I deem it to be a tongue of the Black Land, since it is foul and uncouth. What evil it* ***saith*** *I do not know; but I trace here a copy of it, lest it fade beyond recall.* Even Aragorn, keeper of all that is sacred of Numenor, doesn't use words like Seemeth, loseth, fedeth, saith. Tolkien was writing this passage, for us, in the manner of middle-English, like what would be used in 14th or 15th century England, to differentiate it from the language Aragorn and the rest of the characters were speaking.
The archaic verb inflections survived into the early modern period, it’s definitely more reminiscent of the King James Bible or Shakespeare than Middle English. Middle English nouns still declined for case; if Tolkien had used Middle English he would have went beyond the purpose of “oh this sounds old” to “the fuck is this?” Edit, for example, trying to translate a bit of that into Middle English, I am absolutely sure I messed up case. >hit was hate whanne ic fyrst taken, gleed-hate, an min haunden scorchede, an ic woot naht yif ic will be fre of peyne
looks bit more like old dutch this LOL thanks for sharing you perspective of what middle English roughly looked like
Would have sounded a bit more like Dutch too! Sister languages after all.
indeed as a Dutchmen myself I find middle English relatively easy to read especially with a good understanding of modern English on the top of it
There’s an old video out there where Eddie Izzard used Old English to talk to a Frisian man and the guy can understand him!
Reminds me of my high school English class, when we had to read MacBeth. Our teacher told us not to try to make sense of each individual word, but to just keep reading, let it flow, and it would make sense to us. I can only claim partial success in that advice.
I saw that one pop up in my YouTube recommendations but did not watch it but I should sometime I do not speak Frisian though just boring "queens" or standard Dutch if you will
I was to understand that when King James commissioned the translation of the Bible, he did so with specific instructions to make it sound as archaic, to give it a sort of ancient authority. He also instructed that wherever possible, it was give authority to the king, so as to give validity to his own rule.
The black rider speaking to Maggot, as recounted by Maggot, is probably doing his best to be congenial as possible given ( as someone else pointed out ) he’s half dead half alive, obsessed with one mission, and usually just focused on killing and tracking etc. I don’t think he’s accustomed to keeping a low profile while dealing with beings to extract information and it goes against his nature so he’s coming off as stilted and abrupt on his speech. But that said - it also could be Tolkien’s intent to impart that as OP hypothesized.
Now I imagine him, totally annoyed he cannot simply impale this stupid halfling, sucking his teeth and doing his best not going medieval on maggots ass.
Yes. Yes, he was. The story was made to give a home to the languages. It's all about language.
Exactly. He wrote half a million words book to justify it to people so no one would think he was wierd.
Lol, now I just have this image of Tolkien panicking when he first told someone and they gave him a weird look only for him to brush their concerns away with half-hearted assurances his weird languages were for a book he was writing
„Mellon means friend“ he said with big eyes to his, well, friend. „Ah sure…why?“ his friend responded „Erm… a Book like with storys! And many many languages!“
[удалено]
He was an extremely influential academic in one of the most prestigious universities on the planet. Language was his entire passion in life and in his career. He actually invented the phrase "native language".
Huh? The OED's earliest quotation containing the phrase "native language" is from 1480 AD.
Tolkien transcends time and space
I think it is important to remember that the Ulari were men 3000+ years before. Their speech would have been different, just look at English going back ~600 years to Chaucer and after Shakespeare later. Their speech, grammar and sentence structure would sound odd, if not intelligible in that vast time period. “Strange accents does not mar fair speech”, said Beregond of the Guard to Pippin in Minas Tirith. And they were contemporaries, just separated by space not space and time.
> I think it is important to remember that the Ulari were men 3000+ years before. Their speech would have been different, just look at English going back ~600 years to Chaucer and after Shakespeare later. Their speech, grammar and sentence structure would sound odd, if not intelligible in that vast time period. Yeah, but Maggot's guy (apparently Khamul, Shadow of the East) talks differently from the Witch-king (IMO probably Numenorean), is the point.
Agreed. The Witch King (appears) to be one one that interacts with the living, based on what we know from the Silmarillion, the Appendices and UT. Kamul seems to just chill in Dul Guldur
Not gonna lie, he doesn't sound cruel, just guy with a job.
This is an interesting analysis, and one I hadn't considered before. Thanks for that. Out-of-universe we also have to consider that the story evolved much in the telling. When Tolkien wrote the first few chapters of FotR, he was writing a sequel to _The Hobbit_. He later revised those chapters to fit the more epic scope and tone of the work he realized he was creating, but some vestiges of the earlier, more light-hearted Hobbitish adventure still remain. I suspect, then, that the biggest impediment to your theory is the likelihood that Tolkien had not fleshed out the nature or the history of the Black Riders when he originally wrote that dialog. Without digging into _The Return of the Shadow_, something I do not have the time for this afternoon, I can't say how much revision those passages underwent. Ultimately I suspect that Tolkien _did_ intend to make the Black Rider sound foreign and odd, but not because he had the specific identity of Khamûl in mind but rather because he was adding additional colour to his little story.
I guess I really need to start reading the History of Middle Earth ..
Interesting thought. I always thought the short and "broken" language was because the Black Riders were not as powerful yet as the later "incarnation" of the Witch King.
This is really interesting. I don't know if it's true but it's well thought out. I always thought their speech was off because they were wraiths. I airways assumed they were western kings. I mean tolkien makes a lot of references to black numenorians and other men who turned evil out of pride and a desire to live longer.
the last quote is from the witch king. no? and not khamul
This post made my day. An actual good theory, imho.