Talk:Black Speech

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"J. R. R. Tolkien created this language with the intention of making it harsh and ugly, although people who speak the European languages that he emulated may disagree with his methods." Which European languages must we think of? Did Tolkien state anything about that? Or did someone else find this out? This Black Speech sample, along with several Orkish words, particularly reminds me of Dzongkha, but that's not European. Caesarion 11:41, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. If anything, it sounds like Turkish to me. Turks/mongols would fit better anyway, as Orcs are based on the --to Europeans-- least lovable features of the race. (According to the Professor himself.) Jordi·✆ 12:12, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
One could think about French and German, as Black Speech share with them the same sound of "r" ([ʁ] I think). Though in their whole, none of these languages significantly sound like Black Speech, as far as I can tell. Faenglor 22:32, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] The û's: Could they define the entire pronunciation of Black Speech?

Were they used to signal a change in morphemes? Or were they simply used to add accent? I support the former, since 'nazg' is a single morpheme, leaving the 'ûl' alone as a single morpheme in 'Nazgûl', of which the meaning is irrelevant. Also this could support the fact that 'atul' is a single morpheme, since the second syllable is not marked. From this point of view, I think that Black Speech has more words that start with vowels and end with consonants, as opposed to latin and germanic roots which normally begin in cosonants and end with vowels, since, in the word 'durbatulûk', it is separated in meaning (and probably in pronunciation as well) as either 'durb|atul|ûk' or 'durb|at|ul|ûk'. So, 'Nazgûl' might be pronounced as (nazg-ul). But, if I'm right about morphemes defining syllables and about 'atul' being a single morpheme, then 'atul' could be pronounced more liberally as either (a-tul) or (at-ul).


[edit] Link not working

The last of the links, the "Land of Shadows Black Speech" link pointing to http://darktongue.cjb.net/ does not seem to work. -Nemesis1000(at)gmail.com

[edit] Lugburz?

I have added "Lugburz" to the Black Speech vocabulary. (It is a word used by the Orcs for the Black Tower, Barad-Dur.) Is this correct? Is Lugburz Black Speech, or is it Orkish? SpectrumDT 20:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The root 'burz' also appears in 'burzum' = 'darkness' in the Ring inscription. Thus 'Lugburz' definitely has Black Speech connections. It could be an Orcish derivation thereof, but I'd think that the name of Sauron's home would probably remain in pure Black Speech amongst his servants. --CBD 13:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's this mean?

Ash Nazg Gimbatul! Ash Nazg Gimbatul! Ash Nazg Gimbatul!

This is the phrase being repeated at the counsil of Elrond. What does Ash Nazg Gimbatul mean? --66.218.23.154 04:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Ash = one, Nazg = Ring (as in 'Nazgul' = 'Ringwraith'), and Gimb-at-ul = 'find-to-them'... so, 'One Ring to find them'. It is part of the Ring-inscription. --CBD 13:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source of the curse

While the Article ascribes the Ugluk u bagronk curse to Grishnakh, in fact it is uttered by the yellow-fanged guard, who is killed shortly thereafter: Aragorn will identify the dead as "Northern Orcs," presumably from Moria. LR III/2, 3.

[edit] Number of Speakers

Is there any basis for the stated figure or is it just an arbitrary guess?

[edit] Table

Where did the table of the translation of the individual morphemes come from? How do we know, for example, that durbatulûk is durb-at-u-lûk with a gloss of "rule-to-them-all", as opposed to, say, dur-ba-tu-lûk with a gloss of "to-rule-them-all"? This information has to come from somewhere. Where's the source? - furrykef (Talk at me) 06:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)