Throughout The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien represents the true language of the Rohirrim with words derived from ancient English. An example of this is 'wose', a word for a wild man that derives from British myth, an anglicisation of the name used by the Rohirrim for the Drúedain who lived in the Drúadan Forest. The actual name for the Drúedain used in Rohan was Rógin, and a single Wose would have been known there as a Róg.
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Rógin represents the actual word used by the Rohirrim that is usually translated into archaic English as 'woses'. That word in turn derives from Old English wása via Middle English wous, and though its original derivation is open to question, in context the term clearly means 'wild man'. While we cannot be absolutely sure that Tolkien meant rógin and 'woses' to share their literal meaning, this does seem to be a fair assumption. |
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- Updated 1 August 2018
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