How thoroughly realized was Tolkien's fiction that he was the "translator" of The Lord of the Rings?

Very thoroughly indeed. The scenario was that "of course" hobbits couldn't have spoken English (the story took place far in the past -- see FAQ, Tolkien, 6); rather, they spoke their own language, called Westron (but often referred to as the Common Speech). Tolkien "translated" this language into English, which included "rendering" all the Common Speech place-names into the equivalent English place-names.

The object of the exercise was to produce the following effect: names in the Common Speech (which were familiar to the hobbits) were "rendered" into English (in which form they would be familiar to us, the English-speaking readers); names in other languages (usually Sindarin) were "left alone", and thus were equally unfamiliar to the hobbits and to us. Since the story was told largely from the hobbits' point of view, that we should share their linguistic experience is a desirable result (especially for Tolkien, who was unusually sensitive to such matters). In portraying the ... more.

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