Re: "Aryans" (was Re: query: distorted languages?)

On Thu, 31 Aug 2000, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> As a side note, it may be pointed out that the only "Aryans" of whom
> there was ever a reasonable number living in Germany are - the Gypsies
> (as has been neatly pointed out by JRRT in a letter addressed to the
> Nazi Reichsschrifttumkammer
> (which requested an "Ariernachweis" from him in connection with
> negotiations on a German translation of _The Hobbit_ in 1938) which must
> have stuck in those buggers' throat), now more politely called Roma.
In all probability that letter was never sent.  Tolkien wrote
two of them, and the one which was sent is now lost, but apparently
it was a bland refusal to make any declaration of "Aryan" origin.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
"[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]"
        --Eric Raymond