Editing Black Speech (section)

== Tolkien ==

=== Objective ===

The Black Speech is one of the more fragmentary languages in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Unlike his extensive work on the [[Elvish languages (Middle-earth)|Elvish languages]], Tolkien did not write songs or poems in the Black Speech, apart from the One Ring inscription. He stated that:<ref name="Parma Eldalamberon">{{cite journal |last=Tolkien |first=J. R. R. |author-link=J. R. R. Tolkien |title=Words, Phrases and Passages in Various Tongues in The Lord of the Rings |journal=[[Parma Eldalamberon]] |issue=17 |pages=11–12}}</ref>

{{Quote box
 | title  = Agglutination
 | quote  = In [[agglutinative language]]s like [[Turkish language|Turkish]], the meaning of a word can be understood by breaking it down into the base word and its word endings. For example, in the word ''evlerimizde'' ''[[wikt:ev#Turkish|ev]]'' means "house", ''[[wikt:-ler#Turkish|-ler]]'' indicates plurality, ''[[wikt:-imiz#Turkish|-imiz]]'' means "our", and ''[[wikt:-de#Turkish|-de]]'' means "in". Therefore, ''evlerimizde'' means "in our houses".
 | source = ''Turkish Textbook''<ref name="TT">{{cite web |title=What is aggulutination? |url=https://www.turkishtextbook.com/adding-word-endings-agglutination/ |website=Turkish Textbook |date=29 November 2021 |access-date=8 April 2023}}</ref>
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{{blockquote|The Black Speech was not intentionally modelled on any style, but was meant to be self consistent, very different from Elvish, yet organized and expressive, as would be expected of a device of Sauron before his complete corruption. It was evidently an [[agglutinative language]].&nbsp;... I have tried to play fair linguistically, and it is meant to have a meaning not be a mere casual group of nasty noises, though an accurate transcription would even nowadays only be printable in the higher and artistically more advanced form of literature. According to my taste such things are best left to Orcs, ancient and modern.}}

Tolkien's attitude to the Black Speech is revealed in one of his letters. From a fan, Tolkien received a goblet with the Ring inscription on it in Black Speech. Because the Black Speech in general is an accursed language, and the Ring inscription in particular is a vile spell, Tolkien never drank out of the goblet, and used it only as an ashtray.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#343 to Sterling Lanier, 21 November 1972 }}</ref>

=== Fictional history ===

The linguist and Tolkien scholar [[Carl F. Hostetter]] wrote that the Dark Lord [[Sauron]] created the Black Speech "in a perverse antiparallel of Aulë's creation of Khuzdul for the Dwarves".<ref name="Hostetter 2013">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Hostetter |first=Carl F. |author-link=Carl F. Hostetter |chapter=Languages Invented by Tolkien: The Black Speech |editor=Michael D. C. Drout |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=[[The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]] |year=2013 |orig-year=2006 |location=Abingdon |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-1358-8033-0 |page=343 }}</ref> Sauron attempted to impose Black Speech as the official language of the lands he dominated and all his servants, but in this he was only partially successful.<ref name="Hostetter 2013"/>{{sfn|Hammond|Scull|2005|p=239}} Black Speech influenced the [[Orc]]s' vocabulary, but soon developed into many Orkish dialects, which were not mutually intelligible. By the end of the Third Age, Orcs mostly communicated using a debased [[Westron]]. Tolkien described one Orc's utterances as being in "the Common Speech, which he made almost as hideous as his own tongue".{{sfn|Hammond|Scull|2005|p=376}}

The language was used "only in [[Mordor]]", Tolkien stated, and it was "never used willingly by any other people"; for this reason, "even the names of places in Mordor are in English", representing Westron.{{sfn|Hammond|Scull|2005|p=739}}

===The One Ring inscription===
The only [[Text (literary theory)|text]] of "pure" Black Speech is the [[Ring-inscription|inscription]] upon the [[One Ring]]. It is written in the Elvish [[Tengwar]] script, with flourishes:{{sfn|Hammond|Scull|2005|p=83}}

<div style="background-color: white !important; color: black !important;">[[File:One Ring inscription.svg|500px|center|alt=Black Speech inscription written in Elvish script]]</div>

<div class="center">
{{Poem quote|text={{lang|art|
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.}}
({{Audio|The one ring.ogg|help=no|Pronunciation}})}}

{{Poem quote|text=One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.<ref name="Shadow of the Past">A drawing of the inscription and a translation provided by Gandalf appears in {{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=book 1, ch. 2 "[[The Shadow of the Past]]"}}</ref>}}
</div>

The couplet is from the [[Rhyme of the Rings]], a verse describing the [[Rings of Power]]. This corresponds to the following table as explained by Tolkien.<ref name="Parma Eldalamberon"/>

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto;"
|-
! style="width: 100px;" | Black Speech
! style="width: 330px;" | Tolkien's English glosses<ref name="Parma Eldalamberon"/>
|-
|'''ash'''||one
|-
|'''nazg'''||(finger-)ring
|-
|'''durb-'''||constrain, force, dominate
|-
|'''-at'''||verb ending, like a [[participle]]
|-
|'''-ulûk'''|| verbal ending expressing [[object (grammar)|object]] 3rd [[grammatical person|person]] [[grammatical number|plural]] "them" (''ul'') in completive or total form "them-all".
|-
|'''gimb-'''||seek out, discover
|-
|'''-ul'''||them
|-
|'''thrak-'''||bring by force, hale, drag
|-
|'''agh'''
|and
|-
|'''burzum'''||darkness
|-
|'''ishi'''||in, inside (placed after noun usually in Black Speech).
|-
|'''krimp-'''||bind, tie
|-
|}

=== Sound and meaning ===

{{further|Sound symbolism|Sound and language in Middle-earth}}

The Black Speech was by Tolkien's real intention, and Sauron's fictional one also, a harshly guttural language "with such sounds as sh, gh, zg; indeed," wrote Hostetter, "establishing this effect, as well as the bits of grammar needed to lend the Ring-inscription linguistic verisimilitude, seems to have been about the extent of Tolkien's work on this language."<ref name="Hostetter 2013"/> David Ashford, in the ''[[Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts]]'', observes that uniquely among Tolkien's languages, the Black Speech is explicitly a [[constructed language]] devised as unpleasant by Sauron for his Orcs, and described by Tolkien as<ref name="Ashford 2018">{{cite journal |last=Ashford |first=David |title='Orc Talk': Soviet Linguistics in Middle-Earth |journal=[[Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts]] |volume=29 |issue=1 (101) |date=2018 |pages=26–40 |jstor=26627600 }}</ref>

{{blockquote|so full of harsh and hideous sounds and vile words that other mouths found it difficult to compass, and few indeed were willing to make the attempt{{sfn|Tolkien|1996|p=35}} }}

Linguists including Ashford and [[Helge Fauskanger]] comment that this is Tolkien's subjective view, as it is difficult to identify which sounds might have been experienced as hideous.<ref name="Ashford 2018"/><ref name=Fauskanger/> Fauskanger suggests that the Elves did not like the [[Uvular consonant|uvular]] ''r'' employed by the Orcs.<ref name=Fauskanger/> The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] writes that the word ''durbatulûk'', "to rule them all", embodied Tolkien's view that [[Sound and language in Middle-earth|sound and meaning went together]], commenting that<ref name="Shippey 2013">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |chapter=Poems by Tolkien: ''The Lord of the Rings'' |editor=Michael D. C. Drout |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=[[The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]] |year=2013 |orig-year=2006 |location=Abingdon |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-1358-8033-0 |pages=245–246}}</ref>

{{blockquote|certainly, the harsh vowels and jagged consonants and consonant clusters lend themselves to rough and rasping pronunciation, a fitting evocation of the voices of Orcs.<ref name="Shippey 2013"/>}}

===Other examples===

A few Black Speech words are given in Appendix F of ''[[The Return of the King]]''.  These include ''Lugbúrz'', meaning "Dark Tower" ([[Barad-dûr]]), ''snaga'', "slave", and ''ghâsh'', "fire". The name [[Nazgûl]] is a combination of ''nazg'' meaning "ring" and ''gûl'' meaning "wraith(s)", hence "ringwraith".<ref name=Fauskanger>{{cite web |first=Helge K. |last=Fauskanger |author-link=Helge Fauskanger |url=http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/orkish.htm |title=Orkish and the Black Speech |work=Ardalambion |publisher=[[University of Bergen]] |access-date=2 September 2013}}</ref>

The only known sample of debased Black Speech/Orkish is in ''[[The Two Towers]]'', where a "yellow-fanged" Mordor Orc curses the [[Isengard]] [[Uruk-hai|Uruk]] Uglúk:<ref name="VT 1992"/>

:''Uglúk u bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai!''

In ''[[The Peoples of Middle-earth]]'', Christopher Tolkien gives the translation: "Uglúk to the cesspool, sha! the dungfilth; the great [[Saruman]]-fool, skai!". However, in a note published in the journal ''[[Vinyar Tengwar]]'', it is translated: "Uglúk to the dung-pit with stinking Saruman-filth, pig-guts, gah!"<ref name="VT 1992">Appendix E typescript, ''[[Vinyar Tengwar]]'', 26:16, 1992</ref>