It sounds like we're really talking past each other. You're looking for some pretty deep details to be in the outlines that would honestly be more the realm of a dialect coach. Also, I think you are seeing our original version as too simple, while I'm seeing yours as too complicated, when in fact they aren't really all that different.
I, of course, understand that Portuguese and Spanish are not different dialects of the same language. But I do know native speakers of both who have been able to converse with each other without the same level of difficulty as say, a French speaker and a Spanish speaker. The tricky thing is that our actors are speaking English, which has no such analogue. The Scotsman and the Cajun are pretty much the closest approximation I can think of, except our elves are speaking a relatively normal dialect. I'm ok with having Norn speak a heavily accented English, possibly with some Old or Middle English pronunciations (still recognizable to the audience, at least through context). Throwing in Sindarin words would be weird, because than we have our dwarf speaking more elvish than the elves. This is just something that would have to be done very, very carefully, or it is going to seem odd or foolish. I would likely leave specific choices of how to handle the matter up to dialect coaches and the director, rather than trying to figure it out completely here.
I only wrote the details of how it would sound on-screen, because I though that was what you were asking me for. I'm also trying to use extra detail to avoid any misunderstanding. I agree that the outline itself will contain a less detailed description.
I have tried to base everything I wrote on what has been discussed on the Season 0 and 1 podcasts and discussions, and on the compromise that you, Haerangil, and Brian Dimmick suggested here on this thread. I have strived to write only things that were discussed and suggested by other people about language and
not to go against those compromises in any way. I am really trying as hard as I can to compromise. I have reduced Nandorin to a mere dialect almost identical to Sindarin, represented on screen by an only slightly archaic dialect of English which will present almost no difficulty to the audience. I wasn't thinking they'd use Sindarin words, I suggested using the very same type of archaic English dialogue which Tolkien himself used in several of his writings. When Tolkien uses archaic English, it does not make him (the narrator or poet), nor the characters who speak that way, look stupid or ignorant. It makes them look archaic.
I am trying as hard as I can to compromise, and answer all of your requests and questions. But it seems like no compromise I suggest is acceptable,
even when I comply with your requests. I am getting frustrated.
I still do not think that asking (and offering) to compromise is unreasonable. I do not understand your responses.
one of the dark-haired dwarven guards answers back in accented Sindarin.
Mablung is curious how Norn learned his language.
These are the phrases that give me such very great difficulty and extreme discomfort. They go too far for me. These particular phrases, these strong statements that
explicitly say that the Nandor speak
Sindarin itself, instead of Nandorin. I am willing to compromise with scripting Nandorin as a dialect barely different from Doriathrin Sindarin, that Mablung can learn in just a couple of days at most, despite my significant discomfort with that. That is the compromise, suggested by you and Haerangil on page 1, which I have accepted and consistently tried very hard to respect and adhere to. But the above explicit statements, posted first by MithLuin and then restated by you, are not a compromise from my point of view. The way it looks to me,
explicitly stating that the Nandor and Sindar speak
identical languages simply ignores my concerns, and is not "similar" to anything I have suggested. I do think my concerns are legitimate and valid, especially on a matter so important to Tolkien himself.
We spent several hours working this out, and there have been other discussions related to the language problem over the past couple of years.
I do know this because I watched those Season 0 and 1 podcasts and read those discussions some time ago. Perhaps I missed something (I often do!) but as far as I could tell, I didn't hear or read a Final Decision from the Hosts that all Elves have to speak Sindarin as their native language, that Nandorin (and/or Quenya) do not exist and are banned from SilmFilm. On the contrary, several Noldorin and Vanyarin and Ainu characters have been given Quenya names in the script outlines for Seasons 1 and 2. Olwe and Elwe are basically Quenya in form as well, not Sindarin. To me, that meant that it is acceptable to the Hosts to acknowledge the existence of Quenya. I also know that in Season 2, the Nandor were shown leaving the Great March before the Sindar came to Doriath, before the Sindar and Teleri separated from one another, and that the Nandor did not come from Doriath and are not a group of Sindar in SilmFilm. Denethor is a Nandorin name, not a Sindarin name. So it does not appear to me that it violates Professor Olson's Final Decisions to acknowledge the mere
existence of Nandorin and the Nandor people, in some form.
Nick, I
do care what you say and think, and respect your opinion, and care what the Hosts say and think. When I try to guess what you are thinking and ask, "am I interpreting correctly?" that is because I want to understand you and avoid misunderstanding. Asking you what you think is never intended as bullying. I did get frustrated that my attempts to politely request clarification were not answered, but I was not and am not trying to bully you when I ask for clarification or point out and ask about a post in which you seemed to express a willingness to compromise. My request to compromise is not intended as bullying. I think requesting a compromise is reasonable.
My way to take it would be: Magic!
I appreciate the suggestion. Telepathy is what Finrod uses, and even for him it is not instantaneous in Star Trek style. Finrod was absolutely unique in his ability to use telepathy that well. I am also concerned that explaining the existence of telepathy in this episode seems likely to "hijack" the episode in the way Nick is opposed to.
That is how it will read on screen in the absence of explanation, and so explaining it would take some time and be a bit awkward as we have not seen the Nandor since they were part of the Sindar. Meaning, even if he establishes that he learned the language from the Nandor, we (and the Sindar) won't realize that the Nandor are speaking a different language.
I suggested a solution to this problem, but I have not seen any response to my suggestion, except rejection without an explanation of why it's so bad.
I suggested that instead of asking "How do you speak
Sindarin, my own language?", Mablung would ask "How do you speak
an Elvish language, so similar to my own?" and Norn would not reply "I met
the Sindar east of the Mountains", he would instead say "I met
some Elves east of the Mountains". This would not take up any more space or time than the conversation which MithLuin originally put in the outline.
It is the same number of sentences.
I believe that there is plenty of time after this episode, before the Menegroth episode -- which are separated by a large, undescribed, and unmeasured space of time -- for Norn to learn Sindarin itself in the court of Thingol, off-screen. Furthermore, allowing Thingol to learn Nandorin now will make it
easier for him to talk to Denethor when they meet. I think that is a plus which is worth considering.
I beg that somebody would please reply to my suggestions. I beg for somebody to please tell me why replacing the word "Sindarin" with "an Elvish language similar to Sindarin" and letting Norn learn Sindarin later off-screen would ruin the episode and/or the season. If all of my suggested compromises are so awful, even though they are based directly on a compromise that Nick suggested, I request that somebody please tell me
why all my suggestions are all so bad. I think that it would be courteous.
I am just unable to believe, if the Nandor are literally 100% identical to the Sindar, that they are not already Thingol's subjects and in regular communication with him. I cannot imagine how, despite having a close relationship with the Ents and not with Melian or Osse or the sea, they somehow have a 100% identical culture and language with no differences at all from Doriathrin Sindar.
Not even the Falathrim are 100% identical to the Doriathrim in SilmFilm, yet in this outline the Nandor, who separated from the Sindar millennia ago and have never again spoken to them, developed a 100% identical language and culture despite living in different circumstances in isolation. This goes against what I learned as an anthropologist. Also, when separate cultures who separated millennia ago reunite, if they all speak the same language, adult viewers will ask why. "Everyone in the world speaks the same language" does work in children's media like Narnia and Digimon. But I thought SilmFilm was intended for adult viewers.
This makes me concerned for what you all would want to do when the Noldor and Sindar meet, and later when the Noldor meet the Edain and later the Easterlings.
