Dunedain- Sindarin= Edain of the West
In Tolkien’s world of The Lord of The Rings, the Dunedain are men of the Edain, who at the beginning of the second age sailed to Numenor. In SA3319 Numenor fell and the Dunedain fell into two groups, the Faithful, who remained good and true, and the Black Numenoreans of Umbar, who became corrupted and fell into evil. The faithful founded two kingdoms, Gondor, and the lost kingdom of Anor. When Elendil was slain in SA3441, the Dunedain were split into two groups, those of the North and those of Gondor.
The Dunedain of the North were repeatedly attacked by the forces of evil and slowly lost ground and their numbers dwindled, they survived only with the help of Elrond. Most of the Dunedain then became rangers, roaming the country and protecting good from evil. The Dunedain of the North were ruled by the line of Isildur, which never failed, Aragorn was of Isildur’s line. Theblood of the Dunedain was noble and proud, but this was spoilt by such things as marriage with lesser men, or slothfulness or love of luxury, their life span became shortened because of the same things. However there were those, such as the House of Hurin and the house of the Princes of Dol Amroth (which was enriched further by elvish blood), that remained strong and their blood remained pure.
The Dunedain were superior to other men in body, mind and spirit. They were tall, dark haired and grey eyed. The life span of the Royal family was three times that of lesser men, around 210 years, but by the time of The War of the Ring, it had shortened to about 150 years or more. Whereas the lesser Dunedain lived slightly shorter lives. Their age of adulthood seems to have been around 20- 30 years old, but the princes took over from their fathers at a much later age. All of the Dunedain possessed great wisdom, and occasional foresight. The faithful loved all elves and the good peoples, but there was great hatred between them and Sauron.
The Dunedain spoke Westron, which they enriched with elven words, many of them also spoke Quenya and Sindarin. The Dunedain of Numenor and those of Umbar also spoke Adunaic.
They were also called The men of Westernesse, The Men of The West , the Numenoreans, the High, the Kings of Men and the Men of the Sea. The singular of Dunedain is Dunadan.