Editing Dwarves in Middle-earth (section)

=== Language and names ===

{{Main|Khuzdul|Cirth}}

[[File:Linguistic Map of Middle-Earth.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|Tolkien invented parts of [[Middle-earth]] to resolve the linguistic puzzle he had accidentally created by using different European languages for those of peoples in his legendarium.<ref name="Shippey">{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Shippey |title=[[The Road to Middle-Earth]] |date=1982 |publisher=[[Grafton (publisher)|Grafton]] (HarperCollins) |location=New York City |isbn=0261102753 |pages=131–133}}</ref><ref name="Letters Languages" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#144, to [[Naomi Mitchison]], 25 April 1954 }}</ref>]]

In [[Sindarin]] (Grey-elvish) the Dwarves are called ''Naugrim'' ("Stunted People"), ''Gonnhirrim'' ("Stone-lords"), and ''Dornhoth'' ("Thrawn Folk"), and ''Hadhodrim''. In [[Quenya]] they are the ''Casári''. The Dwarves call themselves ''Khazâd'' in their own language, [[Khuzdul]].<ref name="On Translation" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=''Appendix F'', "On Translation"}}</ref> [[Khuzdul]] is created for them by Aulë, rather than being descended from an Elvish language, as most of the languages of [[Man (Middle-earth)|Men]] are. They write it using [[Cirth]] [[rune]]s, a writing system originally created by Elves in Beleriand to write Sindarin, and later more fully developed by Daeron, an Elf of Doriath. The Cirth runes are adapted by Dwarves for writing Khuzdul.<ref>{{cite book |last=Noel |first=Ruth S. |title=The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|Houghton Mifflin]] |location=Boston, Massachusetts |year=1980 |isbn=978-0395291306 |at=Part 1, ch. 5, "The Languages of Rhovanion", pp. 30–34}}</ref> The Dwarves keep their language secret and do not normally teach it to others, so they learn both [[Quenya]] and [[Sindarin]] to communicate with the Elves, especially the [[Noldor]] and [[Sindar]]. By the [[Third Age]] the Dwarves are estranged from the Elves and no longer routinely learn their language. Instead, they mostly use the [[Westron]] (Common Speech), a Mannish tongue, in communicating with other races.<ref name="Of the Sindar" group=T/><ref name="Of Other Races" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=''Appendix F'', "Of Other Races"}}</ref>

Each Dwarf has two personal names, a secret, "inner" name in Khuzdul, which is used only among other Dwarves and is never revealed to outsiders, and a public, "outer" name for use with other races, taken from the language of the people amongst whom the Dwarf lives. For example, the Dwarves of Moria and the Lonely Mountain use outer names taken from the language of the Men of the north where they lived.<ref name="On Translation" group=T/>

In reality, Tolkien took the names of 12 of the 13 dwarves – excluding [[Balin (Middle-earth)|Balin]] – that he used in ''The Hobbit'' from the Old Norse ''Völuspá'', long before the idea of Khuzdul arose.<ref name="Evans 2013 (Drout)"/><ref>{{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|loc=Volume 2 ''Return to Bag-End'', Appendix 3}}</ref> When he came to write ''The Lord of the Rings'', in order to explain why the Dwarves had Norse names, he created an elaborate fiction that many of the languages used in the book were "translated" into real-life languages for the benefit of the reader, roughly retaining the relationships of the languages among themselves. Thus, Westron was translated into English, the related but more archaic language of the Rohirrim was translated into Anglo-Saxon ([[Old English]]), and the even more distantly related language of Dale was translated into Norse. It is possible that the problem of explaining the Dwarves' Norse names was the origin of the entire structure of the Mannish languages in Middle-earth along with the fiction of "translation".<ref>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1996|loc=p.71}}</ref>