ForthDauntless3
Member
Upon re-listening to the iTunes podcast from Session 3-09, I noticed Prof. Olsen's reminder that Khuzdul is a semitic language and his suggestion that dwarves should have a middle-eastern accent. I'm worried that doing this would risk running afoul of anti-Semitic stereotypes.
The dwarves are already sharp traders "with a keen idea of the value of money." If we add to this depiction an accent that sounds Israeli, whether it is specifically Israeli or not, we'd risk putting the viewers in mind of the medieval stereotypes about Jews. While I would never want to accuse Tolkien of anti-Semitism, I think our adaptation would definitely draw those critiques if we gave the dwarves a semitic accent.
I don't have a specific suggestion for the real-world accent we should import to designate the dwarves as non-native Sindarin speakers, but I think a middle-eastern accent is problematic.
The dwarves are already sharp traders "with a keen idea of the value of money." If we add to this depiction an accent that sounds Israeli, whether it is specifically Israeli or not, we'd risk putting the viewers in mind of the medieval stereotypes about Jews. While I would never want to accuse Tolkien of anti-Semitism, I think our adaptation would definitely draw those critiques if we gave the dwarves a semitic accent.
I don't have a specific suggestion for the real-world accent we should import to designate the dwarves as non-native Sindarin speakers, but I think a middle-eastern accent is problematic.