Rhûnnic
Rhûnic, also called Rhûnnic, was a language spoken by the Easterling mercenaries known as the Gaudrim in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
History
Tolkien never refers to any "Rhûnic" language or people, but uses the broader category of "Easterlings", and the existence of Easterling languages is confirmed even though such languages were not fleshed out by Tolkien (outside of some names like Khamûl). Rhûnic, while allegedly based on one of Tolkien’s languages, was developed for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In the words of the series composer Bear McCreary:
Inspiration
It is possible that Rhûnic is based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s Hungarian-based language called Mágol, for which most of existent material remains unpublished.
Vocabulary
The following table contains all known Rhûnic words and their possible meanings.
| Rhûnic word | Possible meaning(s) |
| aibesjar | our sister (? or carried, or far; if “our sister”, then possibly jar means “our”) |
| aišäd | shrine (sacred shrine?) |
| anže | forth (? or bring) |
| arkäd | throne |
| balan | far (? or carried, or our sister) |
| bil | in |
| bauvailun | unseen (? or threat) |
| bódi | sacred (? or beat) |
| če | and |
| dunšig | magic (? or dark magic) |
| dyúl | her (? or you, or some word indicating a command) |
| feč | thou |
| feg | thy/thine/your (genitive case of feč) |
| fú | under |
| gileg | bring (? or forth) |
| go | from |
| gorul | rise |
| hez | command (?) |
| i | the |
| j' | ? (a prefix, possibly from je “to” or i “the”) |
| jai | with |
| je | to |
| ligrám | wings (? or white, or white wings, or beat) |
| lihiš | white (? or wings, or white wings, or beat) |
| lún | dark |
| lurg | threat (? or unseen) |
| naþa | servant |
| nädo | flesh (? or grant) |
| ní | command (?) |
| niganvil | ? (likely a noun or noun phrase, possibly including a prepositional suffix) |
| root word relating to moon (? or light) |
| nimžil | moonlight |
| pängul | ? (probably a verb in imperative form) |
| raib | border (either normal form or shortened form for use in a compound) |
| raibo | border (either normal form, or a marked noun declension, or perhaps containing a prepositional suffix -o, meaning “at”) |
| root word relating to magic |
| šigór | Istar, wizard, seemingly coined in relation to the adûnaic noun zigûr “wizard” |
| taugun | carried (? or far, or our sister) |
| þabul | grant (? or flesh) |
| þur | power, might |
| root word relating to light (? or moon) |
| žilid | splendor, maybe distantly related with noldorin silith ? |
Phonology
There are no official sources to document the phonology of the language, the below data is an approximation
| Letter(s) | IPA | English equivalent (if there is any) |
| A | a | The O in south. |
| Á, Â | aː | The A in far. |
| Ä | a, æ | The O in south or the A in map. |
| E | ɛ | The E in bell. |
| I | ɪ | The I in thin. |
| Í | iː | The IE in field. |
| O | o | The A in talk but shorter. |
| Ó | oː | The O in shore. |
| U | u | The OO in took. |
| Ú, Û | uː | The OO in tool. |
| AI | aj, aɪ̯ | The I in mice. |
| AU | aw, au̯ | The OU in mouse. |
| P | p | The P in pie. |
| B | b | The B in bait. |
| F | f | The F in friend. |
| V | v | The V in vine. |
| M | m | The M in mace. |
| N | n | The N in never. |
| D | d | The D in day. |
| Þ | θ | The TH in with. |
| K | k | The C in cape. |
| G | ɡ | The G in grace. |
| H | h, x | The H in how or the CH in loch. |
| L | l | The L in light. |
| R | r | The thrilled R. |
| S | s | The S in steep. |
| Z | z | The Z in wizard. |
| Š | ʃ | The SH in sheen. |
| Ž | ʒ | The S in vision. |
| Č | t͡ʃ | The CH in check. |
| J | j, ʒ, d͡ʒ | The Y in yes, the S in vision or the J in jeans. |
| Y | j | The Y in yes. |
| DY | dj, ɟ | The Czech and Slovak Ď or the Hungarian GY. |
| NG | ŋ | The NG in thing. |
| KH | x | The CH in loch. |
Note that  only appears in Brânk while Û and KH only appear in Khamûl, the latter of which may not be included in Rhûnic.
Y only appears in the word DYÚL, so It might not represent a separate phoneme, but rather change the D sound into one that’s similar to the Czech and Slovak Ď or the Hungarian GY.
It is also possible that the N in the words NÍ and *NIM is pronounced as /ɲ/, the same way the N in the word new is in some dialects of English.
Referencias
1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 29/05/2026.
