Author's note: Please skip this note if you are uninterested in a somewhat under-informed rambling on Professor Tolkien's constructed languages, that you may very well already know all about. But, it is the reasoning behind this little one-shot; the story is below the line!

This is a bit of a… linguistic-AU. Westron—the Common Tongue in the Third Age—is not English; Westron, as it appears in LotR, is "translated" into English for Tolkien's purposes. It goes without saying that I do not speak Westron, and it is not well-fleshed out by Tolkien, besides. I also do not speak Sindarin or Woodland dialects of Elvish—some of which are wholly undeveloped and entirely ignored—and have not studied Quenya or Sindarin at all thoroughly. (As a rule—in all my stories—I do not write in the languages of Middle-earth, as my perfectionist tendencies could not bare the errors, nor could I begin to tackle the cases, though I deeply admire people who are willing to do so!) This story, therefore, is told entirely in English, despite the multilingual subject matter.

Languages in Tolkien's Middle-Earth appear to be based on quite different European branches (though "translated" into distinctly recognizable Germanic flavors for LotR): English to Welsh to Old Norse, Finnish to Hebrew, and more. It is my understanding, therefore, (based on this knowledge and Tolkien's comments on his languages and their complicated history and diffusion) that, apart from their Elvish influences, most of Middle-earth's languages were not connected by a shared root-it is not then, I imagine, simple for an Elf who is a native speaker of a Sindarin dialect to learn Westron and then Rohirric with ease, as it might be easy for, for example, one who spoke Spanish natively to learn quickly thereafter Portuguese and French; furthermore, it is said, Quenya-speakers were able to quickly pick up Sindarin in Beleriand, but not Sindarin-speakers Quenya. Therefore, I infer languages in Middle-earth were just a wee bit complicated.

This little exploration is a snapshot into the confusion speaking multiple languages may-to some people-present, and the cultural and dialectical difficulties a shared tongue can cause. It was interesting to check out the Fellowship-hobbits' syntax (and the rest of the hobbits we meet in the books) and see, even, how their speech differed from one another based on their region in the Shire, or their social class. Furthermore, hobbits speak a fairly informal dialect of Westron-Hobbitish-which shares some distinct linguistic similarities with Rohirric (a language which Legolas notes in The Two Towers he does not understand), and also with other Northmen (which makes sense, since at least some hobbits lived originally near Mirkwood and the vales of Anduin, prior to migrating West of the Misty Mountains). Tolkien was nothing if not fastidious!

In conclusion, whether or not there are these kinds of contractions in Westron or Hobbitish grammar is absolutely beyond me, though there is certainly something—as in every language—that might cause this sort of confusion to a primarily book-learned and non-native speaker, especially one who has perhaps conversed primarily in the tongue with others for whom it is also an intermediary/vehicular language, as I have chosen to write Legolas here (he was the easiest target of the Fellowship for this piece). I ask you suspend disbelief in these linguistic assumptions to enjoy the story (though if you know better and more, please let me know).

Anyway, this is just a bit of silly fun with negative contractions and the struggles of the first few weeks of immersion, no matter how familiar one is, theoretically, with the language.

Wood-dent: The Trouble with Contractions

'Mussing?' Legolas thought; he stared at Pippin pensively.

He watched the hobbit's golden-brown curls flap wildly at his ears as a wind rushed through the pass, and then Pippin repeated more loudly his earlier panicked command.

'Muss-int,' Legolas mused to himself, a second time. Then, 'Musty?' What in all the world is he saying to me?

Legolas placed his hands on his hips and waited for Pippin to move on from this recent preoccupation to begin, again, volleying questions. But Pippin stood, still, in the middle of their narrow path, a wall of tall rock to his right, and, when Legolas failed to respond to his second emphatic and youthful exclamation, Pippin gestured nervously toward the crevice at Legolas' left.

Legolas considered it covertly but waited quietly, with hope, for the hobbit to continue.

Now, what Pippin had really said to the elf was "You mustn't do that!" for he was concerned with how Legolas lightly sprang along the edge of the gully, while keeping an eye on he and Merry and playing the rearguard, and yet simultaneously engaging Pippin in an entertaining game of riddles.

But Legolas himself had no idea what the hobbit had said—something about doing, he knew, at least. There was something in the way Pippin spoke that he had heard in men of the Wilderland before, but so rarely had they spoken like that around him that he had been able to harmlessly feign understanding, or it was so rarely used to never before affect Legolas' comprehension, as it did now with the hobbits.

Finally, Legolas walked to the hobbits' side, away from the deep crack in the stone, hoping his sudden proximity would prompt Pippin to utter some follow-up to his exclamation, and thus disperse the elf's confusion, or else just forget he had said anything at all.

However, Pippin only sighed in relief as Legolas came even with, and then fell into step, beside Pippin. After a moment, Legolas sighed, too—but in bewilderment—and brusquely restarted their game.

"My turn, then," Legolas said, walking closer now at the hobbit's side. "How far do you think, Pippin, can a hobbit run into the forest?"

Pippin then began again wholeheartedly, rattling off all his supposings, and Legolas took the reprieve to catch the eye of Boromir who walked some distance ahead of them, and had turned around at the previous silence in their babbling to ensure Legolas herded the Small Folk with efficiency; Legolas and Boromir shared an amused smile over Pippin's curly head.

Finally, Pippin looked up at Legolas and gave a straight answer.

"Well, I suppose it really depends on how much food the hobbit has packed, would you agree?"

"Aye, good enough," Legolas chuckled, and he clapped the hobbit lightly on the shoulder, and nodded. "Your turn."

Aragorn had been watching Legolas' stilted interactions with Samwise and Pippin for nigh on three days. When they came to stop that night for rest, he pulled Legolas abruptly aside.

"Come," Aragorn said, taking his forearm gently. Then, once they were far enough away from the Company to avoid being overheard, "What is it that you cannot understand?"

Legolas pulled his arm subconsciously from Aragorn's grip and raised his eyebrows at the question.

"You are not a tracker for nothing," Legolas said. "You are too observant of those around you. But," he continued. "You are right. There are some things that I do not understand—I hear nonsense words from the Woodland tongue in places where there are none. And, sometimes, there are names of things that seem more like lists than a sentence with any action at all; these are often when I am addressed directly and, especially, when the tone of the sentence is a question."

"Is there anything else you do not understand?" Aragorn asked, frowning with concern; for, in the past week that he had spoken with Legolas at length in Rivendell, Aragorn had not even thought on the elf's linguistic competence, so expressive was his communication.

"No," Legolas said. "All else, save for the chance unfamiliar word, is fine. I have never had this problem before."

Aragorn looked thoughtful.

"Who do you not understand, when they speak?" Aragorn asked.

Legolas shrugged and said, "I do not really notice until it happens, when suddenly I cannot recognize the words. Gimli, I always understand him; and you men, mostly; then Mithrandir, and Merry."

"Well," Arargorn laughed, "Mithrandir speaks to you much in Elvish, so I should hope you understand!"

Legolas shrugged.

"It is the hobbits then, that trouble your ears," Aragorn stated.

"They do not 'trouble' my ears!" Legolas argued. He looked offended by the idea.

"Let's review them," said Aragorn.

Legolas frowned and then nodded.

"Merry, you mentioned," said Aragorn. "How is your understanding of his words?"

"He makes sense to me."

"All right. And Frodo?"

"He is barely any more difficult," said Legolas. "It is just a few of his words—always the same, I can tell—that confuse me, just once in a while."

Aragorn nodded at Pippin, who was leaning over Gimli's axe and watching him needlessly whet it.

"With Pippin it is the same things as Frodo that leave me befuddled, but he speaks a great deal faster and a great deal more, so I am more often lost," Legolas confessed.

"That is indeed a pity," Aragorn said slyly, with a laugh. "For Pippin asks many questions, and asks them very quickly."

"Truly!" Legolas agreed.

Aragorn nodded toward Sam, who stood across the camp by Bill the Pony. He unloaded a pack of apples.

"Samwise," said Aragorn. "Do you understand him?"

Legolas narrowed his eyes at Sam's back as the hobbit toiled, and he thought.

"He is the hardest," Legolas finally admitted after half a minute; his eyebrows dipped and his nostrils flared momentarily, and he felt the stirrings of disappointment within himself. "Almost every time Sam speaks, at least in one sentence, it is missing something. I have been pretending to understand him, because I did not wish to insult, but the fault, I think, is in my own abilities."

"Do not doubt your command of the language, Legolas!" said Aragorn with conviction. "For you speak clearly, and your words are descriptive and precise, your vocabulary well-rounded, as if you learned it all from a fine book of tales, or a bard's song."

"Well," said Legolas laughing, and his countenance was suddenly merry, "it is good it seems that way. For I mostly did!"

"Hm," said Aragorn, thinking.

Legolas shifted his weight from one foot to another as he awaited Aragorn's next statement. Aragorn shrugged.

"Maybe, then," Aragorn said finally, with an impish air, "there is something wrong with your ears!"

"Oh, I sincerely doubt that," the elf replied teasingly, "or I would not be here!"

Legolas patted Aragorn on the shoulder, then wandered from the group and off the trail, singing in his own tongue to the winter stars above them, no more loud or unnatural than the wind.

It was the next evening at dusk, as Sam unpacked his pots and muttered about how their ration of seasonings "Just wouldn't do!" that Legolas finally despaired of his confusion and demanded from Aragorn and Gandalf an explanation.

Gandalf laughed quietly to see the elf so baffled, but he let Aragorn handle the outburst, hoping to strengthen the Fellowship's committment to him as a leader in times of strife, while now, in their relative safety, at the very beginning. He would just have a smoke, he supposed, and watch.

Aragorn crouched on the ground beside the elf, who sat cross-legged on his folded cloak, and the rest of the Fellowship sat round the small fire and observed with open interest. Legolas awaited Aragorn's words expectantly, eyes wide and exasperated, but he could not mask entirely his surprise when Aragorn drew a dagger on him instead. He held the dagger he had pulled from his boot to Legolas, hilt first, before speaking.

"Here," Aragorn said, finally, to the wary elf. "Write the word here, in the dirt, that you think you are hearing."

Legolas took the dagger and gripped it gracefully, but he held it stiff and far away from the ground, considering Aragorn with a mixture of suspicion and apprehension. Legolas narrowed his eyes and inclined his head to their companions reluctantly—questioningly—and Aragorn said to Legolas quite sharply, in the elf's own tongue, "They are your company, and you are a danger to them if you cannot understand them. You will endure this."

And so Legolas dropped his eyes immediately, and shifted forward to reach past the edge of his cloak, and he set the tip of the dagger to the earth.

Legolas wrote out the word for 'wood' and 'dent' in his tongue, using Tengwar characters. Aragorn read the Elvish words aloud and Gandalf grunted approvingly from behind his pipe, as if he alone understood exactly what was happening but did not feel inclined to tell anyone.

"Nay," said Legolas, shaking his head at Aragorn. "It is those words I hear, but not in Elvish, rather the way we would say them in the Common Tongue. 'Wood,' like a forest, and 'dent,' like a mark on something, made from a blow, perhaps."

"Why did you write these other words, then?" Aragorn asked, surprised, his brow furrowed. "Why not just write 'wood' and 'dent' in Westron, if you know them?"

Legolas blushed and flipped the dagger over so he gripped the tip of it and extended its hilt back to Aragorn; he gazed, perhaps abashedly, across the fire, past Frodo's shoulder.

Aragorn took the dagger and Legolas shook his head.

"Because I do not know how to use this script to write the Common Tongue," Legolas said.

"Oh!" Aragorn exclaimed. "That makes sense enough".

"I am not so well-traveled as many," Legolas replied in haste, glancing at Gimli. "And wood-elves," he said vaguely, waving a hand as if to distract a gnat, "the written word… Our tongue does not readily translate."

"Writing is not so important," Gandalf said, cutting in before the dwarf made the innocent mistake of unintentionally implying Legolas woefully uneducated; it would not be the first slip either of them made on their short walk. "Understanding is the most important part, and we ought to get the confusion cleared up before we are too far on our way. It does not do to have you unable to understand one another."

"But Gandalf!" cried Pippin suddenly, from his seat at Gimli's elbow, to Frodo's left side. "We do understand each other! It is only Legolas that doesn't understand us!"

"Pip!" Merry admonished softly, and Pippin thereafter sighed a soft 'Oh.'

Legolas flushed slightly again, and he felt his ears burn. He intensified his focus on the patterns he drew now with his fingers in the dirt just past his cloak. Legolas had not understood part of Pippin's last sentence, and that made him now not only embarrassed, but also irritated, which, for him—over so simple a thing—was rare.

Boromir sat whittling a stick with his own short blade as he listened to the conversation unwinding at his right. But at Pippin's last words, he looked up with sudden interest, as if he suddenly understood Legolas' problem.

"Legolas," Boromir commanded unexpectedly, "repeat back to me what Pippin just said."

Legolas frowned at the man and rocked his hips unconsciously so his splayed knees dipped like a bird caught in an upward draft; his cloak rustled slightly underneath in his moment of silence.

"Do you test my memory?" Legolas finally asked, cocking his head to one side in true consideration. "Or do you mock my incomprehension, Boromir?"

"What? No, Legolas!" said Boromir, letting his knife dangle from his fingers between his knees as he spoke to the changeable elf. "I am serious."

"But there is nothing wrong with my memory," Legolas continued earnestly. "My memory stretches farther than even your ancestral remembrance. Why do you want me to tell you what Pippin just said, when we all heard? I am only challenged in my second tongue; I am not altogether dull."

"Legolas," Gandalf said reproachfully.

"Please," said Aragorn. "No one thinks you dull—"

"Just slow," Legolas said, though now perhaps in jest, for he winked at Boromir, who chuckled unbelievingly, and resumed his whittling. Aragorn looked almost exasperated.

"Go ahead, Legolas. Tell me what Pippin said just now, that you remember," finished Aragorn. "It may help me to help you in understanding what is missing."

"All right," Legolas said, and he looked toward where Pippin sat close to Gimli's side, as if to remind himself.

Pippin looked for a moment uncomfortable at the focused attention.

"Pippin said, I think, 'We do—'" Legolas paused for a moment. "Hold, Aragorn; in my tongue or the Common Tongue?"

"Exactly as you heard it, Legolas," Aragorn replied. "Even if the words are not real or seem like nonsense."

Legolas nodded, and said, "Pippin said: 'We do understand each other. It is only Legolas who duhzhent understand us.'"

Legolas frowned and dropped his gaze to the ground as he thought.

Aragorn smiled when he realized wherein lay the elf's mistake.

"Or 'does-int?' Or 'docent?' Or maybe even an Elvish word for nighttime, some strange combination of languages? A compound of 'nighttime' and 'rest,' perhaps," Legolas mused. "So, to rest after dark—to rest in the dark—'dark-rest?' 'Gloom-rest?'"

His fair face was now creased in concentration, and he flicked absentmindedly at the cuff of his trousers with one long finger; his eyes fixed at a stone just past his right knee, from which he had drawn a series of radiating lines in his earlier agitation.

"But that does not make sense—" Legolas continued in a whisper to himself, "Besides, Pippin does not speak my tongue!"

There was silence around the camp as all the hobbits listened to Legolas think aloud, and Gandalf tapped his pipe on his knee, and then blew an impressive smoke-ring.

Legolas continued muttering, much to his companions' amusement.

"'It is only Legolas that does-int understand us,'" he said again. "'Legolas that does-int understand.

"Oh!" Legolas exclaimed, finally, in realization and distress. "It is the action in comparative statements and questions, or commands, that is always missing—I never know what I am being told not to do!"

Suddenly Boromir and Aragorn began to laugh, and Gandalf grinned beneath his hat. Gimli patted Pippin on the back and said "Well done!" and someone—that sounded suspiciously like Gandalf—muttered "Now that is convenient."

"Well done?" Legolas cried, ignoring the second witty comment. "I am still in the dark, yet I can tell you all understand now the fault! Pray, tell."

Aragorn clapped Legolas on the shoulder. He picked up again his dagger, and wiped his hand hastily over the lines and swirls Legolas had drawn earlier to make room for a clear writing surface, directly in front of the elf. He crouched right behind Legolas' shoulder and reached across his body to write before him.

"Doesn't," Aragorn said simply, scratching the word Legolas had missed on the ground in Westron, and leaning back for a moment to settle onto his haunches to check the elf's comprehension.

Legolas twisted his body to look slightly behind him at Aragorn and his braid fell to his chest with a muffled swish.

"You know I cannot really read that, Aragorn," he said stiffly.

Aragorn ignored him and then leaned forward to continue writing. He wrote out then, too, 'does not' to the right of it, with an arrow drawn between the phrases, connecting them.

"Here," said Aragorn. "These words are Westron, and they mean the same thing. Let me show you how it is written in your tongue."

Aragorn wrote the word on the ground below the Westron words, and Legolas' brow creased. Aragorn sat back up and looked again at the elf, who glanced at Aragorn long enough to see the encouraging glint in his grey eyes, and then set back to considering the word before him.

Legolas said the Elvish word aloud several times, and then repeated to himself Pippin's sentence with the Elvish negative verb form settled among the Westron, and then he said it again, this time substituting the words he knew in Westron, for the Elvish word, into the whole sentence.

"It is only Legolas who does not understand me," Legolas said finally, twisting again to look at Aragorn. "'Does not.' A negative action word. But that does not sound like this 'does-int.' How then are they the same?"

"It is a combination of words," said Aragorn. "Two words run together."

"Similar to Elvish, if you squint," Gandalf said. "When you put together a thing and its descriptor into one, or add a word to the front of an action to negate it, or take away a sound in one word to allow it to flow more freely into the next."

Legolas looked utterly confused. "We drop sounds?"

Aragorn laughed now. "Yes, and wood-elves better than anybody."

"It is true," said Frodo, "when you spoke to Gandalf earlier I could understand but half of what you said."

Legolas frowned and was frozen by a startling comprehension.

"Wait, then; so am I ever understood? Mithrandir, can you even understand me when we speak in Elvish, or is this all some farce?" Legolas demanded eventually.

He looked more confused than before.

"What in Arda is happening?" Legolas asked.

Mithrandir laughed, and rose from his seat. He walked around the camp to sit beside Legolas, pushing Aragorn gently from his side so he could settle close to the elf. Legolas heard Aragorn fall off his heels with an affronted puff.

"I understand you in all your tongues, Legolas Greenleaf," Gandalf said, "and everyone else understands you when you speak to them, too. The last thing for you to work out are these combinations of words, that together express action. I should have thought to make you practice it many years ago."

Legolas flushed.

"Why would you think to do that?" he asked.

Mithrandir alone had known Legolas since he was small, and Legolas felt for a moment reprimanded like a child. He touched the knife at his belt to remind himself of how much braver he had grown since the wizard first knew him.

Gandalf noticed the elf's unconscious reassurance, and almost laughed in his face.

"Be more confident, Legolas," Gandalf said, seriously.

Legolas opened his mouth as if to argue, but the wizard held up his hand and continued.

"I will teach you now while Aragorn and Boromir go out to check the perimeter—"

"I have already done that," Legolas protested, but Gandalf continued.

"—and the hobbits can find something to do besides confuse you. It is not unnatural if you do not routinely speak Westron, to be initially flustered by these things in the first weeks of immersion.

"Gimli," said Gandalf then, abruptly, before Legolas could interrupt or insist on wandering out of camp with the other Big Folk instead. "Come over here and help."

Legolas sighed and frowned again, conceding. He felt unmoored.

"Aye," said Gimli, and he left Pippin's side to crouch on the earth at the other side of Legolas' cloak, large hands clasped in front of him and eyes trained studiously on the wizard.

"So then," Gandalf began. "You told Aragorn you heard the word 'wood-dent.' Now, what I think you really heard was 'wouldn't,' which is a combination of words—a contraction, some call it—for would not."

"'Would not,'" Legolas said blankly.

"Yes," said Gandalf. "Say 'would not,' several times, very fast."

And so Legolas did.

"Faster still," said Gandalf.

And so Legolas repeated the words faster and faster until he finally tripped over his own tongue and huffed in frustration. Gimli laughed at him, but not at all unkindly.

"I cannot say it so fast. I have messed up the words!" Legolas said.

"Ah, but you haven't," said Gandalf.

"'Have-int'?" Legolas asked.

"'Have not,'" Gimli clarified.

"What is the last set of sounds you just said, when trying to say 'would not,'" Gandalf redirected.

"Wood-dent," said Legolas.

"No," said Gandalf, "that is not quite what you said. You said 'wouldn't'."

"'Wouldn't?' And that sounds different from 'wood-dent?'" Legolas challenged.

"Yes, Legolas—'wouldn't.' Short for 'would not,' just as 'doesn't' is short for 'does not,' and 'haven't' for have not," Gandalf confirmed.

"I do not understand why," Legolas said, "but I will learn it soon enough."

"You don't understand?" Gimli asked, roguishly.

"'Don't?'" Legolas queried.

Gimli and Gandalf sat quietly, waiting for the elf to realize it himself.

"Don't," Legolas said again. Then, "'Don't' means 'do not!' I have heard that used and used it myself, but I did not realize what words made it. I have always heard it in my head as 'dolt.'"

Gimli guffawed and looked upon the elf fondly for a moment before Gandalf continued.

"Ah-ha," said Gandalf. "Good. But now use 'wouldn't' in a sentence, as if you were speaking to the hobbits."

Legolas bit his bottom lip and glanced to the sky for a moment before speaking.

"I wouldn't need to know these made-up words if you did not—" he paused. "Wait. If you did-int insist on pruning your own language," Legolas finished, with poorly masked triumph.

Gandalf laughed heartily and patted Legolas on the back; his grey robes swished around them. Even Gimli thumped the elf approvingly on the thigh, and Legolas turned to him sharply, curious.

"Surely you did not grow up speaking Westron primarily?" he asked Gimli. "In Erebor, Master Gimli? How came you to escape my confusion?"

Gandalf raised his eyebrows and hid his smile behind his pipe as Gimli replied.

"The tongue is peculiar, Master Elf, I will grant you that," Gimli said, grinning. "But not all of us are so secluded as your Elvenking, and we speak to humans more than once a year, and even invite them sometimes into our halls."

"Yes, well," said Legolas quietly, now looking away. "You are perhaps lucky in that. We wood-elves are still getting used to that sort of trust."

Gandalf intervened, distracting them both from what might have otherwise become unintentional antagonism.

"There you go, Legolas:" Gandalf said, "'you are.' Tell me the word for it."

Legolas muttered the words quickly under his breath for a few seconds before he looked up at the wizard and tilted his head to the side quizzically, querulously offering, "'You're?'"

"Indeed!" said Gandalf. "I think you are beginning to understand contractions."

And Gimli laughed, his jab at the Elvenking forgotten, and the hobbits, too, cheered the elf's success good-naturedly.

Aragorn and Boromir walked back into camp. Aragorn's hands were cupped full of winter berries.

"Have you figured it out, then?" Boromir asked kindly, as Aragorn dumped the fruit into Merry's outstretched hands.

"I have!" said Legolas, and he smiled, but then his smile faltered and his fair face was again twisted in concentration. "Wait, no—"

There was silence as the elf dropped his eyes again to his shoes, and his mouth formed the words soundlessly for several seconds.

"I have—I've," Legolas finally clarified, looking up now at Aragorn, in absolute seriousness.

Aragorn shook his head, and the Fellowship laughed companionably.

"No, Legolas," Aragorn said. "In this instance, it is just 'I have.'"

"Are there no rules to this?" Legolas cried in mock terror, throwing his hands into the air. "Perhaps I will just become mute!"

"No, Legolas, no!" said Pippin, and he bumbled around the fire to settle at the elf's feet dramatically.

Legolas winked at him, and Pippin's back straightened in recognition of a mood, and they silently appreciated, for a moment, one another's hidden mischievousness.

And that is how Legolas learned to better understand Samwise and Pippin, and over the next few days, Legolas' increased comprehension made him and Pippin—to Gandalf's chagrin—very fast friends indeed.

I hope you enjoyed this little linguistic wandering. It was highly entertaining for me to write, though in the end a little uncomfortable, since it unusually—for me—focuses more on dry concepts than character development (and a markedly different characterization of Legolas than I am used to writing). Please drop a review on your way out to let me know what you enjoyed, what I can improve for my future writing, or something else! Happy March.