One of
Tolkien's languages, produced for his
middle-earth stories and spoken by the
Rohirrim. Little is known of this language of Men, except that it was probably descended from
Adûnaic and may be related to
Hobbitish. Tolkien transcribed the sounds of Rohirric by using letters and formations from
Old English, including the
ð and other accented characters. His apparent intent was to indicate that Rohirric is to
Common Speech as Old English is to Modern English, although the former is simply a historic, archaic change while the latter is a development of the language.
Only a few actual Rohirric words are known.
Trahan is the word for "burrow," and is related to the Hobbitish word
trân, itself meaning
smial (the
Hobbits' term for their burrows). The Rohirric word
kastu is related to the Hobbitish word
kast, meaning
mathom. The word "hobbit" is itself an indirect translation of the Hobbitish word
kuduk, which is tied to the Rohirric word
kûd-dûkan ("hole-dweller"). The latter was rendered by Tolkien as
holbytla, but Appendix F of
Lord of the Rings, from which these words have come, does tell the original Rohirric phrase of kûd-dûkan.
To hear what Rohirric sounds like according to
Peter Jackson (including
Éowyn's Dirge), visit:
http://www.theargonath.cc/sounds/rohirric/rohirric.html
There is also an online name generator styled after Rohirric:
http://www.meduseld.btinternet.co.uk/rohannamegen.htm
Sources
http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/m2.htm
http://quettar.vanimar.net/l-rohirric.html
http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie.htm