How are Uruk-Hai made and how are they different from 🧌Orc and Goblins?

[elf_queen]

I'm a bit confused about a few of these dark species. I always thought that Uruk-Hai were formed by crossing Orcs and Men, but then I heard that it was goblin men, and then I heard that it was just goblins. So I have a few questions:

1.) Which two species are crossed to form Uruk-Hai?
2.) What are goblin men?
3.) What are goblins, and how do they differ from orcs?

I hope that someone on the forum will be able to clear up my confusion!

 

[Snaga]

Seemingly innocuous questions, Elf Queen, but actually quite tricky.

Firstly, your confusion arises from a movie line that states that "by foul craft Saruman has cross orcs with goblin-men." This is a Gandalf line, that has been endlessly taken up in interviews by cast members, but the books are somewhat different.

Now, we can easily identify that goblins are just another name for orcs, and that the terms are more or less interchangeable, although goblins is (a) more frequently used in the Hobbit than Lord of the Rings; and (b) seems to be more frequently used with reference to 'northern' ie Misty/Grey Mountain orcs.

Goblin men, therefore, are a cross-breed between orcs and humans, and certainly this is something that the miserable maggot-wizard Saruman did.

The issue, that has often been debated, is what exactly the Uruk-Hai are. The book indicates that they are a tough breed of orcs, possibly an orc-human cross-breed. There are orc-human cross-breeds that are very mannish (e.g. the southerner at Bree, and the ruffians in the Shire), and so most will say that the Uruk-Hai are orc-humans with more orc than human.

Others will tell you that Uruk-Hai is just a plural of uruk, meaning 'great orcs'; and that these were also found in Mordor. In the end this is not clearly answered in the text, and people have debated this at enormous length, with no final conclusion.

 

[Ithrynluin]

The following quote might be of some interest to you, though it doesn't asnwer your questions.

The History of Middle-Earth X: Morgoth's Ring; Myths Transformed
Finally, there is a cogent point, though horrible to relate. It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning. There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile.

 

[aragil]

to add a bit ...

Can't let this one slip by, even if ithrynluin and snaga1 have nicely provided the meat of the matter. It is, after all, my pet topic.

An attempt to clarify in terms of opponent theories:

Theory 1: The Uruk-hai are solely an invention of Saruman.

This is more or less the theory espoused by the films, although they have botched the finer points of the theory by referring to Saruman's hybrids as both 'Uruk-hai' and 'Uruks'.
In this theory all Uruk-hai are hybrids, made when Saruman crossed orcs (or goblins if you like) with men. All Uruk-hai as a result would be bigger than orcs (orcs themselves are considerably smaller than men- generally about the size of dwarf), and all Uruk-hai would also be less affected by the sun than orcs. This theory is hazy on the issue of percentage of human blood. Since I am one of the chief protagonists of this theory on this forum I might as well say that I think Uruk-hai can refer to either orc-men or men-orcs, it just generally refers to the hybrid race produced by Saruman.
Theory 1 also holds that Sauron has a slightly different (but closely related) breed of orcs called Uruks. The chief difference between Saruman's Uruk-hai and Sauron's Uruks stems from the influence of mannish blood. Thus while Sauron's Uruks are stronger and more martial than your run-of-the-mill orc, they will still tend to be somewhat smaller and of course less sun-tolerant than Saruman's Uruk-hai. Tolkien plainly states that Uruks were first seen in Third Age 2475, while Saruman did not start his hybridization experiments earlier than TA 2990 (the War of the Ring takes place in TA 3018-3019). Because the Uruks are a much older breed and represent a 'higher form' of Orc, they would likely be the starting point for Saruman's breeding program.

To answer elf_queen's three questions using aragil's version of Theory 1:
1) Uruk-hai refer to Saruman's hybrid's produced by crossing men and orcs. The terms orc and goblin are synonymous, so you could as easily say Uruk-hai are crosses between men and goblins.
2) Goblin-men refers to a subset of the hybrids produced by Saruman. "Goblin" is the adjective modifying men, so these are the hybrids which are more than half "mannish", and the term "goblin-men" is synonymous with the term "orc-men" in the quote by ithrynluin. "Uruk-hai" refers generically to the hybrids of Saruman, and so all goblin-men/orc-men would be Uruk-hai, but not all Uruk-hai would be goblin-men/orc-men (some Uruk-hai would be men-Orcs).
3) The terms goblin and orc are synonymous. Again "Uruk-hai" refers to hybrids- some of which are mostly men and some of which are mostly orc. Care would then have to be taken in referring to the Uruk-hai as goblins/orcs, as only part of the Uruk-hai would qualify.



Theory 2: The word 'Uruks' is an English approximation of the Black Speech term 'Uruk-hai'

It took me a while to catch on to the subtleties of this theory, but let me attempt to explain. The most direct translation of Uruk-hai (which is a name in Black Speech, an invented language of Tolkien's) is "Orc-folk". "Uruk", we are told in the appendices, is directly translated into English "orc", and is modified by "-hai" to become the "general" or "total" plural Uruk-hai, which would then be used to refer to the entire race of large soldier orcs, both those belonging to Sauron and Saruman. Several of Tolkien's languages follow this mode of changing singular to collective plural, most notably Sindarin. Sindarin uses "rim"=host in a manner similar to how Theory 2 states "hai"=folk. Thus we have "Rohir+rim"=Rohirrim- the host of the horse lords; "Harad+rim"=Haradrim- the host of the southrons; "Onod+rim"=Onodrim- the host of the ents; or even "Orch+hoth"=Orchoth- the orc-host. Again, this is a manner of making a singular term into a plural term- the same thing that the English language generally accomplishes by adding the letter 's'. Theory 2 holds that "Uruks" is simply an anglicized form of Uruk-hai, that is, it is a Black Speech term that has been made plural according to the English-language custom of adding an s, instead of following the Black-speech custom of adding "hai"=folk.
According to Theory 2, Uruk-hai and Uruks are simply synonyms, and both refer to large soldier-orcs used by both Sauron and Saruman. The entire group of Uruk-hai would then not have been created by Saruman, would not be more sun-tolerant, and neither would they be hybrids (although some Uruk-hai would have been all three!).

In other words, to answer elf_queen's three questions according to Theory 2:
1) In general Uruk-hai are 100% orc. However, SOME of the Uruk-hai deployed by Saruman have also been crossed with humans, thusly explaining the increased sun-tolerance, etc of this U]SUBSET[/U] of Uruk-hai.
2) (Goblin-men as mentioned in the movies was addressed by snaga1) Goblin-men refers to part of the offspring from Saruman's hybridization experiments (referred to by quote in ithrynluin's post). "Goblin" is an adjective modifying "men", so this refers to Men with 'goblinish' (or 'orcish') features, and is a synonym to 'orc-men' in the quote by ithrynluin. Since Uruk-hai/Uruks is only appropriately applied to Orcs, Goblin-men can not be Uruk-hai.
3) The term Goblin does not really differ from the term Orcs. Uruk-hai/Uruks are a subset of Orcs, therefore all Uruk-hai can be referred to generically as either Goblins or Orcs.


Does that clear anything up? I didn't think so.

 

[Arvedui]

Hmmm.....
Do I sense another 'Uruks vs. Uruk-hai' emerging?

That would be great, cause the original is still one of the best, if not in fact the best thread on TTF.
Those that haven't read it should spare the time needed to do so.

 

[Melko Belcha]

LotR - Appendix F
Orc is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was orch. Related, no doubt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soilder-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard.

Uruk is the Black Speech form of the Rohirrim word Orc (Orc is translated goblin in The Hobbit - Prologue).

LotR - Appendix A
In the last years of Denethor I the race of uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor, and in 2475 they swept across Ithilien and took Osgiliath.

The Uruks first appeared out of Mordor around 300 years before Saruman moved into Orthanc. Many Uruks from the Misty Mountains came into service of Saruman.

LotR - Appendix A
At that time Sauron had arisen again, and the shadow of Mordor reached out to Rohan. Orcs began to raid in the eastern regions and slay or steal horses. Others also came down from the Misty Mountains, many being great uruks in the service of Saruman, though it was long before that was suspected.

But there was still Uruks in Moria that worked for Sauron.

FotR - The Bridge of Khazad-dum
'There are Orcs, very many of them,' he (Gandalf) said. 'And some are large and evil: black Uruks of Mordor.'

Many see that the Uruks and Uruk-hai are not the same, that the Uruk-hai are a special breed made by Saruman, and these quotes people use as proof.

TTT - Treebeard
'For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman's Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!'

TTT - Helm's Deep
'But these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred, they will not quail at the sun,' said Gamling

But they seem to miss these quotes.

FotR - A Knife in the Dark
'So that's were that southerner is hiding!' he (Frodo) thought. 'He looks more than half like a goblin.'

TTT - Flotsam and Jetsam
'But there were others that were horrible: man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed. Do you know, they reminded me at once of that Southerner at Bree, only he was not so obviously orc-like as most of these were.'
'I thought of him too,' said Aragorn. 'We had many of these half-orcs to deal with at Helm's Deep.'

RotK - The Scouring of the Shire
...they were disturbed to see half a dozen large ill-favored Men lounging against the inn-wall; they were squint-eyed and sallow-faced.
'Like that friend of Bill Ferny's at Bree,' said Sam.
'Like many that I saw at Isengard,' muttered Merry

RotK - The Scouring of the Shire
Merry himself slew the leader, a great squint-eyed brute like a huge orc.

We learn in some of Tolkien's later writtings that Saruman bred Men-orcs and Orc-men.

Morgoth's Ring - Myths Transformed
There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile.

And in Unfinished Tales we learn that at The Battle of the Fords of Isen that the Orc-men followed the Uruks into battle.

Unfinished Tales - The Battle of the Fords of Isen
The Garrison of the east bank surprised by the sudden assault of the massed Uruks.......As soon as the enemy had gained possession of the eastern end of the Fords there appeared a company of men or Orc-men....

We also learn about the squint-eyed southerner in Bree.

Unfinished Tales - The Hunt for the Ring
Some while ago one of Saruman's most trusted servants (yet a ruffianly fellow, an outlaw driven from Dunland, where many said that he had Orc-blood) had returned from the borders of the Shire, where he had been negotiating for the purpose of "leaf" and other supplies............This Dunlending was overtaken by seceral of the Black Riders as they approached the Tharbad crossing...........The Witch-king had now a clearer understanding of the matter........Seeing that his Master suspected some move between the Shire and Bree (the position of which he knew) would be an important point, at least for information. He put therefore the Shadow of fear on the Dunlending, and sent him on to Bree as an agent. He was the squint-eyed southerner at the Inn. *C.T. note: See The Fellowship of the Ring. When Strider and the Hobbits left Bree Frodo caught a glimpse of the Dunlending ("a swallow face with sly, slanting eyes") in Bill Ferny's house on the outskirts of Bree, and thought: "He looks more than half like a goblin."*

Uruk-hai many have translated as meaning orc-folk or orc-race. I don't believe it is either. In UT Christopher says that Uruks in the anglicized form of Uruk-hai.

Unfinished Tales - Index
Uruks - Anglicized form of Uruk-hai of the Black Speech; a race of Orcs of great size and strength.

I believe hai means either troop or company, or some military term.

TTT - The Choices of Master Samwise
'Hai! hai! yoi!' A yell broke into the exchanges of the leaders. The Orcs lower down had suddenly seen something.

You can see that the Orc is using Hai to call the other Orcs, as if he was calling his troop or company.

Also the Orcs of Mordor call Saurman's Uruk-hai rebels, why would they be rebels if they are working for the person who created them?

RotK - The Land of Shadow
...then it must be a pack of rebel Uruk-hai

If the Uruk-hai of Saruman are just Uruks, then it makes sense for Orcs of Mordor to call them rebels, because they are not working for their creator Sauron.

I see the Uruks of Saruman taking the name of the Fighting Uruk-hai (Fighting Orc-troop/company) to set themselves apart from the Uruks working for Sauron.

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Something I wrote for a discussion over at Michael Martinez' sf-fandom (so slightly out of context here):
Uruk-hai and Uruks.

In this essay I will offer evidence that the terms Uruks and Uruk-hai are interchangeable and both terms refer to the 'great-soldier orcs' that issued from both Mordor and Isengard.
That Saruman had Uruk-hai in his service is undoubted. There are numerous direct references to the Uruk-hai of Saruman in the main narrative text of LotR. These primarily occur in the chapters The Uruk-hai and Helm's Deep. Within these chapters the Isengarders refer to themselves as "fighting Uruk-hai" or the "Uruk-hai of Isengard", and once simply as "the Uruk-hai" when addressing Aragorn before the walls of Helm's Deep. There are two other occurances of the term Uruk-hai within the main narrative, once in narrative format when reporting Pippin's feelings in the chapter Minas Tirith ("No hours so dark had Pippin known, not even in the clutches of the Uruk-hai"), and once in the chapter Land of Shadow when Sam and Frodo overhear a conversation between a soldier-orc and a tracker in Mordor in a passage which reads: " 'Whose blame's that?' said the soldier. 'Not mine. That comes from Higher Up. First they say it's a great Elf in bright armour, then it's a sort of small dwarf-man, then it must be a pack of rebel Uruk-hai; or maybe it's all the lot together.'" Up until this last use all references in LotR to Uruk-hai have been to the Isengarders.
There are four uses of the term 'Uruks' in the main narrative, once in Khazad-dum when Gandalf refers to: "black Uruks of Mordor" (Bridge of Khazad-dum), once when Sam overhears Gorbag say: "Always the poor Uruks to put slips right, and small thanks" (The Choices of Master Samwise) while in Shelob's Lair, and twice in narrative format in The Land of Shadow ("large fierce uruks" and "heavy-armed uruks"). All these references are to the Orcs of Mordor.
In App. A we have two uses of the term 'uruks' once in reference to Mordor ("In the last years of Denethor I the race of uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor"), and once in reference to Saruman ("Others [Orcs] also came down from the Misty Mountains, many being great uruks in the service of Saruman, though it was long before that was suspected"). With this second we have the first use of the term 'Uruks' for Saruman's Uruk-hai.
In App. F there is also the following passage: "Orcs and the Black Speech. Orc is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was orch. Related, no doubt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai, snaga 'slave'." In the essay Battles of the Fords of Isen, published in Unfinished Tales there are nine (if my count is correct) uses of the term 'uruks' for the Isengarders. There are a few other uses of the term 'Uruks' and 'Urukhai' in the available corpus, including App. B, Letter 66 and the essay Quendi and Eldar in War of the Jewels (and the LotR Index).
From the Fords of Isen narrative and the App. A statement as well as App. F, it is undoubted that the great soldier-orcs of Isengard can be called 'Uruks' or 'Uruk-hai'.
But what of the great soldier-orcs of Mordor? We have one instance of an Uruk using the term 'Uruks'; as cited above Gorbag refers to 'poor Uruks' in a converstion with Shagrat, but that is not necessarily what he said, but rather what Sam 'heard'. Both Shagrat and Gorbag are captains in Mordor's armies and they do not seem to have been speaking Westron. It is possible that they were speaking the Black Speech (App. F notes: "When Sauron arose again, it [BS] became once more the language of Barad-dûr and of the captains of Mordor") or perhaps some debased form there of. That Sam was able to understand the two seems to be an effect of the Ring, which he was wearing at the time: "He heard them both clearly, and he understood what they said. Perhaps the Ring gave understanding of tongues, or simply understanding, especially of the servants of Sauron its maker, so that if he gave heed, he understood and translated the thought to himself. Certainly the Ring had grown greatly in power as it approached the places of its forging; but one thing it did not confer, and that was courage. At present Sam still thought only of hiding, of lying low till all was quiet again; and he listened anxiously. He could not tell how near the voices were, the words seemed almost in his ears."
It is _possible_ that Gorbag actually used the term 'Uruk-hai' and Sam, through the Ring, heard the word 'Uruks' (which he would have been familiar with from Gandalf's use of it in Moria). This is, of course, not provable, but possible within the context of the story.
We also have one instance of a Mordor Orc explicitly using the term 'Uruk-hai'. Frodo and Sam overhear a soldier stating his orders to his tracker companion "First they say it's a great Elf in bright armour, then it's a sort of small dwarf-man, then it must be a pack of rebel Uruk-hai; or maybe it's all the lot together" which a "Higher Up" has sent them out to look for. These relate back to the events at Cirith Ungol. The "dwarf-man" is a reference to Frodo, the Orcs did not know what a Hobbit was ("'Lugbúrz wants it, eh? What is it, d'you think? Elvish it looked to me, but undersized. What's the danger in a thing like that?'") Gorbag believed that an Elf-warrior was about: "`By all the signs, Captain Shagrat, I'd say there's a large warrior loose, Elf most likely, with an elf-sword anyway, and an axe as well maybe: and he's loose in your bounds, too, and you've never spotted him. Very funny indeed! ' Gorbag spat. Sam smiled grimly at this description of himself.". When Sam enters the Tower of Cirith Ungol he does so crying out: " 'That's done it!' said Sam. `Now I've rung the front-door bell! Well, come on somebody!' he cried. `Tell Captain Shagrat that the great Elf-warrior has called, with his elf-sword too!'". When Snaga and Sam encounter each other: "[Snaga] stopped short aghast. For what it saw was not a small frightened hobbit trying to hold a steady sword: it saw a great silent shape, cloaked in a grey shadow, looming against the wavering light behind; in one hand it held a sword, the very light of which was a bitter pain, the other was clutched at its breast, but held concealed some nameless menace of power and doom.
For a moment the orc crouched, and then with a hideous yelp of fear it turned and fled back as it had come. Never was any dog more heartened when its enemy turned tail than Sam at this unexpected flight. With a shout he gave chase.
`Yes! The Elf-warrior is loose!' he cried. 'I'm coming. Just you show me the way up, or I'll skin you!'"
After this encounter Snaga says to Shagrat: "There's a great fighter about, one of those bloody-handed Elves, or one of the filthy tarks. He's coming here, I tell you. You heard the bell. He's got past the Watchers, and that's tark's work. He's on the stairs. And until he's off them, I'm not going down. Not if you were a Nazgûl, I wouldn't.'"
Shagrat later fled the Tower and would have reported this to the 'Higher Up', which is why the Orcs would be sent out looking for an Elf and a dwarf-man. This leaves the "rebel Uruk-hai".
The other major event at the Tower was the battle between Gorbag and Shagrat and their respective companies.Gorbag (who had earlier suggested that he and Shagrat take some 'trusty lads' and go off and det themselves up somewhere away from the 'big bosses') wanted to "pinch" Frodo's mithril mail. Shagrat, it seems, objected and this caused a battle between the two opposing forces. Of this Sam notes: "The courtyard lay in deep shadow, but he could see that the pavement was strewn with bodies. Right at his feet were two orc-archers with knives sticking in their backs. Beyond lay many more shapes; some singly as they had been hewn down or shot; others in pairs, still grappling one another, dead in the very throes of stabbing, throttling, biting. The stones were slippery with dark blood.
Two liveries Sam noticed, one marked by the Red Eye, the other by a Moon disfigured with a ghastly face of death; but he did not stop to look more closely."
Of the aftermath of the battle Snaga says: "'...I've told you twice that Gorbag's swine got to the gate first, and none of ours got out. Lagduf and Muzgash ran through, but they were shot. I saw it from a window, I tell you. And they were the last.'"

(con't due to length)

 

[Tar-Elenion]

(con't from above)

It seems rather obvious that Shagrat, along with reporting the 'Elf' and the 'dwarf-man' would have reported the battle between Gorbag and himself. We also know that as Sam and Frodo were fleeing from Cirith Ungol a Nazgul arrived and soon after many soldiers came in responce to his cries. They could easily observe what happened (and Sam after collecting Orc gear for he and Frodo to disguise themselves in says: " `The Morgul-stuff, Gorbag's gear, was a better fit and better made,' said Sam; `but it wouldn't do, I guess, to go carrying his tokens into Mordor, not after this business here." Sam recognizes that what occured in the Tower will become known). It thus becomes clear that what the 'Higher Up' sent the Orcs out to look for were those involved with the events at Cirith Ungol. That is the 'dwarf-man' who escaped, the 'Elf' that was believed to be present, and any Orcs who might have fled the Tower (the "rebel Uruk-hai"). As no Isengarders were present and there was nothing to suggest any Isengarders were present this leaves only those Orcs who were actually involved and may have fled to account for the "rebel Uruk-hai", and those were great soldier-orcs of Mordor, hence Sauron had Uruk-hai in his service, and thus the terms 'Uruks' and 'Uruk-hai' are fully interchangeable and refer to both Isengarders and Mordoreans.

There are two other passages I find relevant to this. One is from Letter 78 where in JRRT writes to his son Chritopher, in part:
"Urukhai is only a figure of speech. There are no genuine Uruks, that is folk made bad by the intention of their maker; and not many who are so corrupted as to be irredeemable (though I fear it must be admitted that there are human creatures that seem irredeemable short of a special miracle, and that there are probably abnormally many of such creatures in Deutschland and Nippon - but certainly these unhappy countries have no monopoly: I have met them, or thought so, in England's green and pleasant land)." Here JRRT uses the terms 'Urukhai' and 'Uruks' interchangeably and is using them to refer, in particular, to (some) of the Germans and Japanese during WWII (and also to some of his own countrymen). This also shows that the term 'Uruk-hai' was not exclusive to Isengarders.

There is also an entry in the Index to UT:
"Uruks Anglicized form of Uruk-hai of the Black Speech; a race of Orcs of great size and strength."
It is possible that this entry was drawn from JRRT. CT writes: "In the event there was no index to The Lord of the Rings until the second edition of 1966, but my father's original rough draft has been preserved. From it I derived the plan of my index to The Silmarillion, with translation of names and brief explanatory statements, and also, both there and in the index to this book, some of the translations and the wording of some of the "definitions"."
UT, Introduction, The Istari
CT also writes of this Index: "The brief defining statements are not restricted to matters actually mentioned in the book; and occassionally I have added notes on the meaning of hitherto untranslated names."
UT, Index
According to what CT has written, this Index entry could have been drawn from JRRT's own draft of an Index for LotR, making it relevant to the use of 'Uruks' and 'Uruk-hai' in LotR, if it was drawn from that draft Index then it stands to reason that all the uses of 'Uruks' and 'Uruk-hai' in LotR are interchangeable and refer to the same race of creature, "great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard." This would again mean that the "rebel Uruk-hai" refers to those Orcs involved in the events at Cirith Ungol who may have fled in or after the fighting there, as suggested by the evidence presented above. This seems particularly likely since CT noted that the "defining statements are not restricted to matters actually mentioned in the book" and the entry in question is just that, a "defining statement" (as opposed to a translation) and the term 'Uruk-hai' does not actually appear in the narrative.

If, as I think the evidence suggests, 'Uruks' is simply an anglicization for Uruk-hai and the two terms are interchangeable and can be (and are) applied to both the the Isengarders and the Mordorean soldier-orcs we are left with no plot holes and fully consistant uses of the terms throughout the texts.

A brief post script, Letter 78 and the essay Quendi and Eldar in WotJ provide the possiblity of an attested to translation for 'Uruk-hai'. Letter 78 says "Urukhai is only a figure of speech. There are no genuine Uruks, that is folk made bad by the intention of their maker". The pertinent portion of this is "folk made bad". In Q&E we learn that 'uruk' was borrowed by Sauron from the Elvish tongues when he was devising the Black Speech in the Second Age,
and was related to words meaning 'horrible'.
If Uruks are "folk made bad" and 'uruk' is related to horrible, and 'horrible' and 'bad' are synonmous, then it could very well be that a reasonable translation of Uruk-hai (which is used interchangeably with its anglicization 'uruks') is:
Uruk-hai: *bad-folk, *horrible-folk.

 

[Melko Belcha]

I applaud you Tar-Elenion for that! I have always believed they were the same, but you make a much more convensing argument then I do.

 

[elf_queen]

How could Uruk-Hai and Uruks possibly be the same? According to Theory 2 in aragil's post, that would mean that Saruman didn't create anything new, and I know that it says somewhere that he did.

Also the Orcs of Mordor call Saurman's Uruk-hai rebels, why would they be rebels if they are working for the person who created them?

I think that the Orcs might be grouping the Uruk-hai with their creator. We know that Saruman wasn't completely serving Sauron, that he was after the Ring for himself, so therefore, he could be characterized as a rebel. So the Orcs might consider servers of a rebel also rebels.

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Originally posted by elf_queen
How could Uruk-Hai and Uruks possibly be the same?

As is shown in my above post, JRRT uses the terms interchangeably, and the index to UT notes: "Uruks Anglicized form of Uruk-hai of the Black Speech; a race of Orcs of great size and strength."

According to Theory 2 in aragil's post, that would mean that Saruman didn't create anything new, and I know that it says somewhere that he did.

Please provide a quote and citation of what new thing Saruman created.

Also the Orcs of Mordor call Saurman's Uruk-hai rebels, why would they be rebels if they are working for the person who created them?

I think that the Orcs might be grouping the Uruk-hai with their creator. We know that Saruman wasn't completely serving Sauron, that he was after the Ring for himself, so therefore, he could be characterized as a rebel. So the Orcs might consider servers of a rebel also rebels.

If this is referring to the "rebel Uruk-hai" passage from the 'Land of Shadow' chapter in RotK, then, as my post above shows, this is referring to events at Cirith Ungol, and the only Orcs that were present were those in the service of Sauron.

 

[Snaga]

Elf-queen, if there was something new it would have been the interbreeding of men and orcs to create orc-men and men-orcs. These were new to the Third Age, but debate rages too about the amount of human genes in the blend of your common or garden orc.

The debate Aragil and Tar-Elenion like to get into is really the question of what the term "uruk-hai" means - ie it is primarily a linguistic debate. But it does also go to the heart of why the captors of Merry and Pippin ran so well in daylight. Were they "different" and in that respect superior? I myself reject the alleged superiority of the Isengarders, noting that Grishnakh, an Uruk of Mordor, runs further than the Isengarders in the same time. Nevertheless it is evident, both from Ithrynluin's quote, and those given by Melko Belcha, that Saruman was involved in some unpleasant experiments.

But I must take issue with MB over the definition of "hai". I find the notion that this refers to a troop or military formation to be highly unlikely. As well as 'uruk-hai' the terms 'olog-hai' and oghor-hai' also appear (in LotR Appendix F and Unfinished Tales respectively). These refer to a sun-resistant breed of trolls (which has an interesting, but possibily coincidental parallel to the sun-resistance of the uruk-hai) and to the Druedain. Whilst a case might be made for the trolls being organised in companies (cf The Black Gate Opens - for a rare example of this) the Druedain are not. "Folk" is a more likely translation, but in the case of the cry 'Hai! hai! yoi!' this seems no more than: "Lads!" or any other collective noun to get their attention, suggesting it could be used somewhat flexibly.

 

[Gil-Galad]

hai -"folk", in Uruk-hai "Uruk-folk" and Olog-hai "Troll-folk"; cf. also Oghor-hai.

I found this link which may provide you some interesting information about "hai" and the Black speech as a whole:

http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/orkish.htm

 

[aragil]

Originally posted by snaga1
The debate Aragil and Tar-Elenion like to get into is really the question of what the term "uruk-hai" means - ie it is primarily a linguistic debate. But it does also go to the heart of why the captors of Merry and Pippin ran so well in daylight. Were they "different" and in that respect superior? I myself reject the alleged superiority of the Isengarders, noting that Grishnakh, an Uruk of Mordor, runs further than the Isengarders in the same time. Nevertheless it is evident, both from Ithrynluin's quote, and those given by Melko Belcha, that Saruman was involved in some unpleasant experiments.

LOL! And who would expect that a lowly snaga do anything other than champion the purebred orcs?
Are Saruman's Uruk-hai in some way inovative compared to the Orcs deployed in Ithilien in TA 2475? I would say that quotes by Aragorn, Legolas, Eomer, Treebeard, and Gamling attesting to the Isengarders' different equipment, great power and tolerance to sunlight would confirm that they were in some way different and new. Certainly Aragorn, Legolas, and Eomer have had experiences with the Uruks of Mordor, and it is almost certain that Gamling and Treebeard have likewise done so.

Are Uruks and Uruk-hai the same thing? I have provided (I believe) the theories for both sides in a fair manner, and shown how they would both answer elf_queen's questions. However, I would ask that any further debate about these two theories be posted in the Uruks vs. Uruk-hai thread which has been conveniently bumped by T-E. That would of course prevent the hijacking of this thread. U vs U-h is a fine thread (probably my favorite on these boards!), but what it had in depth of posts it was somewhat lacking in number of involved participants ...

 

[MichaelMartinez]

Here is my reply to Tar-Elenion's essay at SF-FANDOM, which I had to post-pone writing for several months because of work and illness.

Originally posted by Tar-Elenion There are two other occurances of the term Uruk-hai within the main narrative, once in narrative format when reporting Pippin's feelings in the chapter Minas Tirith ("No hours so dark had Pippin known, not even in the clutches of the Uruk-hai"), and once in the chapter Land of Shadow when Sam and Frodo overhear a conversation between a soldier-orc and a tracker in Mordor in a passage which reads: " 'Whose blame's that?' said the soldier. 'Not mine. That comes from Higher Up. First they say it's a great Elf in bright armour, then it's a sort of small dwarf-man, then it must be a pack of rebel Uruk-hai; or maybe it's all the lot together.'" Up until this last use all references in LotR to Uruk-hai have been to the Isengarders.

Before the last statement can be made in a logical argument, it must first be shown that it is supportable. You cannot just say, "Up until this last use all references in LoTR to Uruk-hai have been to the Isengarders."

It is precisely because all previous uses have been applied to the Isengarders that the average reader must be given explicit clarification if the new use has a different application.

That is, it is incumbent upon the author himself to provide the reader with a clear context which says, "THIS use of 'uruk-hai' is different from all previous uses."

The citation you offer does not provide such a context.

...snip cites of four uses of "uruks" with reference to Mordorian Orcs...

In App. A we have two uses of the term 'uruks' once in reference to Mordor ("In the last years of Denethor I the race of uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor"), and once in reference to Saruman ("Others [Orcs] also came down from the Misty Mountains, many being great uruks in the service of Saruman, though it was long before that was suspected"). With this second we have the first use of the term 'Uruks' for Saruman's Uruk-hai.

Going no further than this, your citations so far only establish that Uruk-hai are Uruks (but not that all Uruks are Uruk-hai).

In App. F there is also the following passage: "Orcs and the Black Speech. Orc is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was orch. Related, no doubt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai, snaga 'slave'."

Here, you have skipped over the fact that Tolkien singles out the Uruk-hai (so far identified in the previous citations as being ONLY Uruks from Isengard) for a special mention. His usage in this passage in no way implies that uruk and uruk-hai are used interchangeably.

In fact, this passage indicates quite the opposite because Tolkien DOES single out the Uruk-hai for special comment.

In the essay Battles of the Fords of Isen, published in Unfinished Tales there are nine (if my count is correct) uses of the term 'uruks' for the Isengarders. There are a few other uses of the term 'Uruks' and 'Urukhai' in the available corpus,

Which is irrelevant to the use of uruks and uruk-hai in "The Battles of the Fords of Isen". After all, since all Uruk-hai are Uruks, it is perfectly acceptable to refer to them as either Uruks or Uruk-hai within a story which is concerned ONLY with Uruk-hai.

What must be shown, in order to prove that Uruks is interchangeable with Uruk-hai, is one or more occasions where Tolkien makes such reference with with respect to non-Isengarders.

...including App. B, Letter 66 and the essay Quendi and Eldar in War of the Jewels (and the LotR Index).

From the Fords of Isen narrative and the App. A statement as well as App. F, it is undoubted that the great soldier-orcs of Isengard can be called 'Uruks' or 'Uruk-hai'.

But what of the great soldier-orcs of Mordor? We have one instance of an Uruk using the term 'Uruks'; as cited above Gorbag refers to 'poor Uruks' in a converstion with Shagrat, but that is not necessarily what he said, but rather what Sam 'heard'. Both Shagrat and Gorbag are captains in Mordor's armies and they do not seem to have been speaking Westron. It is possible that they were speaking the Black Speech...

Your citation shows that it was highly probable the two Uruks were speaking in a language other than Westron.

It is _possible_ that Gorbag actually used the term 'Uruk-hai'...

No.

This is equivalent to saying, "It is possible both orcs were carrying hand grenades."

Why?

Because the strengh of this so-called "possibilty" is the absence of denial, which never, ever proves anything. Tolkien never said the Orcs were NOT carrying hand grenades (and we have evidence of Orc use of gun-powder and other blasting technology in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). Hence, it is "possible" they were carrying hand grenades.
However, they were NOT carrying hand grenades in Tolkien's story.
Tolkien was not under any obligation as an author to anticipate that someone would suggest it is possible for something not mentioned in the text -- something contrary to all textual references -- to be his intention. Hence, we are not under any obligation to find a citation from Tolkien which denies the so-called "possibility".

If Tolkien doesn't put something into the story, it is NOT in the story. Period.
What is required to prove that Uruks = Uruk-hai is a very simple citation of any text written by Tolkien where he uses the term Uruk-hai so indisputably in reference to a non-Isengarder that it simply shuts down all contrary arguments.

If such a passage existed in the published corpus, I feel certain it would have been found and cited long before now.

So, this so-called "possibility" is just fluff. It adds nothing to the discussion and is therefore discardable.

...We also have one instance of a Mordor Orc explicitly using the term 'Uruk-hai'. Frodo and Sam overhear a soldier stating his orders to his tracker companion:"First they say it's a great Elf in bright armour, then it's a sort of small dwarf-man, then it must be a pack of rebel Uruk-hai; or maybe it's all the lot together" which a "Higher Up" has sent them out to look for. These relate back to the events at Cirith Ungol.

What relates back to the events at Cirith Ungol (both the fortress and the pass) is what is being searched for. The Orc's statement does not associate the name rebel Uruk-hai with any of the Morgul Orcs who fought with Shagrat's company for possession of the mithril coat.

Are those Orcs called "rebels"? Yes. Are they called Uruk-hai? No.
Now, what we do know is that Sauron's enemies included Elves, Tarks (Numenoreans), Dwarves, and "dwarf-men" (apparently, the Orcs of Mordor had no proper name for "hobbit").

The reader is not told how well informed the Orcs are about Saruman's status, but the reader has already been told that the Uruk-hai (that is, the Uruks of Isengard) have clashed with Orcs from Mordor. Grishnakh reported back to his superiors along the Anduin when he was driven off from the raiding party by Ugluk. He returned with about 40 Orcs from Mordor.

The reader is free to infer -- but cannot know -- that everyone in Mordor was told not to trust Saruman's followers. That is because the connection has been made. That is, the reader knows that Grishnakh went back for help and got it. The reader also knows that Grishnakh was caught off guard when Ugluk insisted on taking the prisoners back to Isengard, rather than to Mordor.
Hence, Isengarders do not have to be present in Cirith Ungol in order for Orcs who are searching for an unknown assailant to guess that "rebel Uruk-hai" (from Isengard) may be what they are looking for.

There were no Elves, Numenoreans, or Dwarves at Cirith Ungol. So, unless Gorbag's company is supposed to include members of those races as well as "rebel Uruk-hai", there is no textual connection between "rebel Uruk-hai" and Gorbag's company.

The Uruk-hai of Isengard have already been shown to be acting against Sauron's wishes -- and therefore "rebels".

Continued in next message.

 

[MichaelMartinez]

...There are two other passages I find relevant to this. One is from Letter 78 where in JRRT writes to his son, Christopher, in part:

"Urukhai is only a figure of speech. There are no genuine Uruks, that is folk made bad by the intention of their maker; and not many who are so corrupted as to be irredeemable (though I fear it must be admitted that there are human creatures that seem irredeemable short of a special miracle, and that there are probably abnormally many of such creatures in Deutschland and Nippon - but certainly these unhappy countries have no monopoly: I have met them, or thought so, in England's green and pleasant land)."

Here JRRT uses the terms 'Urukhai' and 'Uruks' interchangeably and is using them to refer, in particular, to (some) of the Germans and Japanese during WWII (and also to some of his own countrymen).

No, he is using "Urukhai" (sic) as a metaphor for certain kinds of soldiers (in both the British and enemy armies). He is using "Uruks" to refer to the literal Uruk-hai of the story -- that is, he is using the terms to refer to the Isengarders, who are the only creatures so-named in any context Christopher would have been familiar with (to the best of our knowledge -- it is well documented that Tolkien sent chapters for The Lord of the Rings to Christopher to critique).

However, Tolkien had used the term "Urukhai" figuratively in a previous letter, No. 66:

"...Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them."

So, we have a clear precedent where Tolkien is using the term figuratively (metaphorically) and the reference is clearly to the chapter where the Uruk-hai have captured Merry and Pippin and are taking them to Isengard.
So, returned to Letter 78, since Tolkien provdes no further context for his usage, we can only refer back to the previous letter.

Therefore, all that can be shown by using these letters is that Tolkien used the terms Uruks and Uruk-hai interchangeably only with respect to the Isengarders -- and such use is perfectly natural and acceptable, since all Uruk-hai are Uruks, even though not all Uruks are Uruk-hai.

There is also an entry in the Index to UT:

"Uruks Anglicized form of Uruk-hai of the Black Speech; a race of Orcs of great size and strength."

It doesn't matter who wrote this passage, although all indications are that it comes from Christopher rather than his father, since the story is ONLY concerned with Isengarders.

We have already established that Uruks may be used to refer to the Uruk-hai when the context (in this case, the entire story "The Battles of the Fords of Isen") provides for no confusing regarding which Uruks are being referred to. No Mordor Orcs are mentioned in the story, only Isengarders.

A brief post script, Letter 78 and the essay Quendi and Eldar in WotJ provide the possiblity of an attested to translation for 'Uruk-hai'. Letter 78 says "Urukhai is only a figure of speech. There are no genuine Uruks, that is folk made bad by the intention of their maker". The pertinent portion of this is "folk made bad". In Q&E we learn that 'uruk' was borrowed by Sauron from the Elvish tongues when he was devising the Black Speech in the Second Age, and was related to words meaning 'horrible'.

If Uruks are "folk made bad" and 'uruk' is related to horrible, and 'horrible' and 'bad' are synonmous, then it could very well be that a reasonable translation of Uruk-hai (which is used interchangeably with its anglicization 'uruks') is:
Uruk-hai: *bad-folk, *horrible-folk.

However, Tolkien frequently utilized tribal names which -- when translated literally -- meant "the people", "the folk", etc. The various Elven group names have similar meanings, especially the words which various Avari groups used to refer to themselves:

"This resentment on the part of the Avari is illustrated by the history PQ *kwendi. This word, as has been shown, did not survive in the Telerin languages of Middle-earth, and was almost forgotten even in the Telerin of Aman. But the Loremasters of later days, when more friendly relations had been established with the Avari of various kinds in Eriador and the Vale of Anduin, record that it was frequently to be found in Avarin dialects. These were numerous, and often as widely sundered from one another as they were from the Eldarin forms of Elvish speech; but wherever the descendants of *kwendi were found, they meant not 'Elves in general', but were the names that the Avari gave to themselves. They had evidently continued to call themselves *kwendi, 'the People', regarding those who went away as deserters -- though according to Eldarin tradition the numbers of the Eldar at the time of the Separation were in the approximate proportion of 3:2, as compared with the Avari (see p. 381). The Avarin forms cited by the Loremasters were: kindi, cuind, hwenti, windan, kinn-lai, penni...." (Source: Author Note 9 for "Quendi and Eldar" in The War of the Jewels).

Clearly, Tolkien did not hesitate to use a racial name for a tribal name, and there are other examples. The word Edain, the Sindarin form of Atani, originally referred to all Men, but after the First Age became associated only with those three tribes of Men who specifically allied themselves with the Eldar of Beleriand against Morgoth.

Also, the name Eldalie originally applied to all the Elves, but became associated only with those who undertood the Great Journey.

Thus, the fact that Saruman's Uruks referred to themselves as Uruk-hai, which probably meant "Orc-folk", in no way suggests that all Uruks were called (or called themselves) Uruk-hai.

In the final analysis, there is still absolutely no evidence to support the contention that Uruk-hai -- when used by Tolkien -- referred to any Uruks other than those of Isengard.

 

[MichaelMartinez]

It would be inappropriate for me to repost what someone else wrote, but other people did respond on SF-FANDOM to my followup to Tar-Elenion's essay. I repost here my own reply to another followup:

Originally posted by Unregistered
Demoralization often results in premature wearying; it is a psychosomatic thing.

Your points are valid, Michael, but the reference to rebel Uruk-hai in ROTK could refer to either Isengarders or Cirith Ungolians.

No one has been able to show how so far, but I am still open to suggestion.

There were no elves or Dunedain, but the Hobbits wore Elf cloaks and carried Elf and Dunadan weapons.

Where again does the book say that the Orcs saw Sam with an Elven-cloak, Dunadan weapon, and standing about yay-tall?

Frodo was the only hobbit the Orcs saw as a hobbit. They took his clothing and gear, so they did indeed know what he had with him.

However, what the tracker Orc says is: "‘Whose blame’s that?’ said the soldier. ‘Not mine. That comes from Higher Up. First they say it’s a great Elf in bright armour, then it’s a sort of small dwarf-man, then it must be a pack of rebel Uruk-hai; or maybe it’s all the lot together.’"

If we're going to infer things from this, let's infer that there was some confusion. The tracker was probably first told to look for a great Elf warrior. That is, after all, what the snaga thought he saw when he met Sam.
Afterward, they must have discovered that Frodo was missing. So, now the tracker has to look for "a sort of small dwarf-man".

OR, maybe since they had already seen Gollum earlier, they want to get hold of him to find out what was going on. But Sam could not have been the "small dwarf-man" because no one had seen him in his normal appearance.
Which leads us back to "rebel uruk-hai". Since no one has referred to Gorbag's company as Uruk-hai, there is no basis for associating the phrase "rebel Uruk-hai" with them. The snaga Orc calls them "stinking Morgul-rats". Gorbag only refers to himself, Shagrat, and their soldiers as Uruks. Shagrat calls Gorbag a "filty rebel" and a lot of unprinted named, but he never refers to Gorbag or Gorbag's soldiers as "Uruk-hai" or "rebel Uruk-hai".
On the other hand, we can see where the notion of Elves and Tarks comes from. That is provided in the text. First, Gorbag theorizes there is an Elf on the loose:

'Who cut the cords she'd put round him, Shagrat? Same one as cut the web. Didn't you see that? And who stuck a pin into Her Ladyship? Same one, I reckon. And where is he? Where is he, Shagrat? '
Shagrat made no reply.

`You may well put your thinking cap on, if you've got one. It's no laughing matter. No one, no one has ever stuck a pin in Shelob before, as you should know well enough. There's no grief in that; but think-there's someone loose hereabouts as is more dangerous than any other * * * *ed rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the Great Siege. Something has slipped.'
`And what is it then? ' growled Shagrat.

`By all the signs, Captain Shagrat, I'd say there's a large warrior loose, Elf most likely, with an elf-sword anyway, and an axe as well maybe: and he's loose in your bounds, too, and you've never spotted him. Very funny indeed! ' Gorbag spat. Sam smiled grimly at this description of himself.

Note, too, that Gorbag says "more dangerous than any other * * * *ed rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the Great Siege."
Now, while Tolkien never explains what the Great Siege is, many people speculate Gorbag is referring to the siege of Barad-dur, which occurred at the end of the Second Age (about 2400 years before the Uruks first appeared in Ithilien).

If that is so, then either Gorbag is suggesting there were Uruks around at the end of the Second Age, or else he is referring to all outsiders as "rebels".
And since the Uruk-hai serve Saruman in Isengard, they are clearly outsiders. "Rebels" apparently refers to anyone who doesn't follow Sauron's orders (and that in itself implies something interesting about how the Orcs see the world and Sauron's place in it).

But Shagrat's snaga repeats the idea that Gorbag has put forth:

`Well, you put his back up, being so high and mighty. And he had more sense than you anyway. He told you more than once that the most dangerous of these spies was still loose, and you wouldn’t listen. And you won’t listen now. Gorbag was right, I tell you. There’s a great fighter about, one of those bloody-handed Elves, or one of the filthy tarks. He’s coming here, I tell you. You heard the bell. He’s got past the Watchers, and that’s tark’s work. He’s on the stairs. And until he’s off them, I’m not going down. Not if you were a Nazgыl, I wouldn’t.’

So, we've got an explanation for where the Orcs got the idea of an Elf or Tark (Dunadan) being on the loose; it had nothing to do with Frodo's clothing (or Sam's). While we don't know exactly what the "dwarf-man" reference is to, we do know that "rebel Uruk-hai" can ONLY refer to the Uruks of Isengard because ONLY those Uruks have ever been called Uruk-hai.

 

[MichaelMartinez]

Nor was that the last word, either. Bacchus, one of the forum moderators, joined the discussion at this point, and here are my replies to his comments. Again, I am only reposting here my own messages.

Originally posted by Bacchus

However, my gut feel at this point is that the main thrust of MM's argument is slightly flawed. I will stipulate that Tolkien never used the precise term "Uruk-hai" in a way that unequivocally referred to non-Isengarders. I will further stipulate that all usages of the term "Uruk-hai" save one unequivocally referred to Isengarders in the specific usage. Where the logic fails for me is in the inference that the one disputed usage must unequivocally refer to Isengarders because all other recorded usages did so. One may certainly conclude that this is possibly (or even probably) the case, but it is merely suggestive, not dispositive.

I am going to address this one point here, because it is an objection to my qualification which others have expressed.

It would go a long way to supporting the view that the tracker Orc's comment is ambiguous if anyone could show that some other word or expression is used by Tolkien in the same way.

Let me illustrate with a hypothetical example. Suppose that, for 90 per cent of the story, Tolkien used the word hobbit strictly to refer only to Bilbo Baggins. Then we are introduced to Frodo and, in a yet later scene, while speaking about Frodo without actually naming him, some character refers to that hobbit.

We would have to know from the context of the scene that that hobbit referred to Frodo, and not to Bilbo (who -- up to this time -- would be the only character referred to as a hobbit).

Tolkien clearly uses the word Uruks to refer to Orcs in various parts of Middle-earth. So, Saruman's Isengarders have no monopoly on the use of that name. But Tolkien ALWAYS, and I mean he is completely consistent, uses the word Uruk in the narrative form to refer to a character who is acting in the story at that time.

That is, the narrative does not refer to Uruks in the past tense (whereas it DOES refer to the Uruk-hai in the past tense). I point to the consistent distinctions between Tolkien's past tense use of Uruk-hai and the present tense use of Uruks or Uruk.

Tolkien has restricted himself by determining that there are many different Uruks out there. So, he cannot use the term ambivalently. That is, he cannot refer to "the Uruks" because the reader would have no idea of who "the Uruks" were.

But he CAN refer to The Uruk-hai because the reader IMMEDIATELY knows who they are.

Here is an example:

No hours so dark had Pippin known, not even in the clutches of the Uruk-hai. It was his duty to wait upon the Lord, and wait he did, forgotten it seemed, standing by the door of the unlit chamber, mastering his own fears as best he could. And as he watched, it seemed to him that Denethor grew old before his eyes, as if something had snapped in his proud will, and his stern mind was overthrown. Grief maybe had wrought it, and remorse. He saw tears on that once tearless face, more unbearable than wrath.

This paragraph comes from "The Siege of Gondor" in The Return of the King. We have already seen Gorbag and Shagrat. We have not yet seen the tracker Orc. At this point in the story, we know who the Uruk-hai are: they are the Isengarders who captured Merry and Pippin, and they are the Isengarders who led the assault on the Hornburg.

There is no other usage of the Uruk-hai in the past tense in the narrative. The only occurence of this phrase in the past tense comes in the paragraph from Appendix F, where Tolkien uses it to distinguish them from the other Uruks:

Orcs and the Black Speech. Orc is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was orch. Related, no doubt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai, snaga 'slave'.

It cannot be stressed enough that this paragraph shows conclusively that Tolkien distinguished between the Uruk-hai and all other Uruks. He identifies uruk as a word "applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard". The word uruk itself is a name, in fact it is the Black Speech name for ALL Orcs -- not just the ones we refer to as Uruks.

No one seems to have a problem identifying all greater Orcs (as distinct from all lesser Orcs) as Uruks, even though all Orcs are, technically, Uruks.
But some of you stop short of allowing Tolkien to use Uruk-hai to refer only to the Isengarders. So, you are trying to have it both ways, saying that Uruk-hai cannot be a tribal name while allowing Uruk to be exactly that (or a super-tribal name, within the context of a larger race).

There is no difference between Tolkien's use of Uruk to refer only to the greater soldier-Orcs in the story and his use of Uruk-hai to refer only to the Isengarder (greater) soldier-Orcs in the story.

Continued in next message.

 

[MichaelMartinez]

Originally posted by Bacchus
Now MM is fond of using the reducio ad adsurdium in refuting this line of thought. Since Tolkien never specifically stated that Orcs did not carry Uzis (or hand grenades), maybe they did. It's an effective debate technique, because it's difficult to answer. But again, the argument is only suggestive. Tolkien never explicitly discussed a number of things. Are we to assume that none of these things occurred? Sex is the most obvious example. We should be fairly safe in assuming that it occurred in ME, despite the fact that T never goes into gory details.

Let's use some of my speculative essays to discuss this point a little further. For example, in a couple of them, I argue that Elvish regret is somehow bound up with the Rings of Power. I even go so far as to speak of Elvish shame.

Tolkien never, in any published text I have read, refers to this shame. He does refer to their sense of regret, and he ties it to their lengthening years.

Is it enough to say that getting older should cause regret? I don't think anyone would conclude that. The accumulated experience of all those years leads to the regret. The nature of Elvish regret, being nowhere explained, is ambivalent. So, I have proposed one cause for that regret which is arguable based on the texts.

Elrond says the Elves are willing to suffer a great loss -- virtually the loss of their delight in Middle-earth -- in order to bring about the defeat of Sauron. His words imply a sense of burden or obligation which Tolkien doesn't explore. So, even if my deductions are wrong, we know from this and other passages (such as Gildor's exchange with Frodo) that the Elves have their own concerns.

Therefore, it is reasonable to infer what those concerns might be. We don't have to fall back on the "Tolkien never said they didn't have concerns" argument, because (in fact) he DID say it, just not in that way.

Where Orcish Uzis and hand grenades come in, Tolkien did NOT say they had them indirectly. The argument that "Tolkien didn't say they did NOT have them" still fails because all it does is rewrite Tolkien.

It's not what Tolkien fails to deny, it is what Tolkien fails to imply, that determines whether an inference is genuinely acceptable.

If he fails to imply that the Elves did something wrong, that they might be atoning for something in their past, then we have no basis for inferring what that wrong thing might have been. (Of course, my essays do have the advantage of including passages from Tolkien's Letters, where he indicates that creating the Rings of Power was wrong.)

So, we cannot say, "Tolkien didn't deny that rebel Uruk-hai applies to Gorbag's company". There is nothing to that argument.

The real question is, can we say, "Tolkien implies there is something more to rebel Uruk-hai than the Isengarders?"

There is nothing in the tracker Orcs' speech which suggests such an implication is intended. It is just one passing comment, and there are no others like it.

As to the instant case, MM claims that there is no basis to infer that "rebel Uruk-hai" could refer to Gorbag's band of Uruks. I disagree. As he points out, Gorbag has been called a rebel, and a uruk. The only basis for inferring that the rebel Uruk-hai comment must refer to Isengarders is a painstaskingly precise parsing of language, coupled with the (IMO) flawed logic discussed above.

No, the only basis for inferring that the comment refers to the Isengarders is the fact that all previous uses of Uruk-hai refers only to the Isengarders.

To suggest that, suddenly, the phrase now applies to a different group of Orcs without any supporting evidence, is equivalent to suggesting that "Ent" applies to a nearby tree in Gondor -- a tree incapable of self-animation, speech, or thought, but which sort of looks like Treebeard.

There is no need for Tolkien to be painstakingly careful in his use of either Uruk-hai or Ent. He is quite liberally spreading these terms throughout the story, but they always consistently refer only to specific creatures. He doesn't use these words interchangeably to refer to other creatures.

Now, a good word which Tolkien uses more generally is "man"; and another example is "elf". He refers to "the Elves" and "the Elves", and he refers to "men" and he refers to "men".

In some cases, "the Elves" are High Elves, in some cases they are all Elves, and in some cases they are Elves of Lothlorien.

In some cases, "men" are men of Rohan, in some cases they are all men, and in some cases they are men of Gondor (or of Bree, or wherever).

How is it that we are not confused by Tolkien's casual uses of these words to refer to various sub-groups as well as their entire races?

We are provided with enough information in each usage to know whom Tolkien is identifying.

He offers absolutely nothing in the text to sugest that "rebel Uruk-hai" shoudl refer to any group other than the Isengarders. No one else is ever explicitly identified as a member of the Uruk-hai: not Gorbag, nor any of his company.

So, no special considerations or parsings are required to determine that the rebel Uruk-hai are, indeed, the only Uruk-hai who have ever been named: the Uruk-hai of Isengard.

On the other hand, a great deal of Tolkien's writing must be ignored in order to justify the use of Uruk-hai to refer to Gorbag's company, who are never identified as Uruk-hai.

It is the same as if we suddenly apply the word "men" to Elrond's people. There is no textual support for making such an identification. Neither is there any textual support for identifying "rebel Uruk-hai" with Gorbag's company.

 

[MichaelMartinez]

Finally, another person joined the discussion, and here is my reply to that person's points. I should point out that I added a comment by editing the message some time after posting the original reply. I indicated so at the beginning of the addition. I don't recall why I didn't add it as a later message in the thread.

Originally posted by Giles
I would like to bring up a couple of points:
1) as I stated in the discussion last summer, by the time Sam and Frodo overhear this conversation, Isengard has been conquered for almost two weeks. According to Appendix B, the parley with Saruman took place on March 5. The Battle of Pelennor Fields is March 15. Frodo and Sam have only a couple pages previously witnessed the results of Alf's demise and looked on the plain and decided to go north, which is also March 15. A night has passed, making the day of the overheard conversation the 16th of March.

And how well-informed of events outside of Mordor are we to assume that the tracker Orcs is supposed to be? What are his sources of information?

Shagrat and Gorbag are our only sources of information on what the Orcs of that particular region have heard concerning events outside:

'I'd like to try somewhere where there's none of 'em. But the war's on now, and when that's over things may be easier.'

'It's going well, they say.'

'They would,' grunted Gorbag. 'We'll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room....'[/b]

Now, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was just about to break open with the arrival of the Rohirrim, so all that the Orcs would have heard by this point could have been that Saruman had been defeated and that Minas Tirith was under siege.

But why would Sauron (who alone, besides the Nazgul) tell his Orcs that Saruman had been defeated?

So that leaves a question: if Uruk-hai refers ONLY to orcs from Isengard why would the Higher Ups be on the look out for a band of orcs from Isengard, even supposing that some have escaped the ents and the Rohirrim?

If we suppose that some of the Uruk-hai have escaped, why would they not choose to go to Mordor? It's a haven for Orc-kind, is it not? On the other hand, Aragorn points out that Orcs will travel far to avenge a captain.
We have no reason to suppose that the inference of a possible incursion of Uruk-hai by the Nazgul is not to be taken seriously.

2) Second question is why would Sauron suppose that WITHOUT the RING Saruman would send his Uruk hai against Mordor, and do so BEFORE March 5?

Your question implies many assumptions about the thinking of off-stage characters -- assumptions which are no more reasonable than any contrary chain of assumptions.

So, all you are proposing here is a straw-man argument. Tolkien is under no obligation to explain why a Nazgul or Orc-captain such as Shagrat (who had left Cirith Ungol) might tell underlings to keep an eye out for rebel Uruk-hai (from Isengard or anywhere else, assuming they could or did live anywhere else).

3) Supposing for a moment that the "Higher Ups" didn't say anything about Uruk hai and this is just the soldier talking. How would a soldier in the low ranks and a tracker know about Uruk hai a good week or more journey on foot away if they've never seen them?

The Uruk-hai had been in Isengard for quite some time by this point.

4) It seems to me that the clue here is in the use of "rebel Uruk-hai." If all Uruk hai were Isengarders (and why not refer to them then as Isengarders?) then if Saruman was considered a rebel as Gandalf says that he probably would be by Sauron, then all Uruk-hai are rebels too, and there is no need to call them "rebel Uruk-hai" as if to distinguish them from non-rebel uruk-hai.

You are equating the Uruk-hai with Saruman. The Uruk-hai were not obeying Sauron. That, provided with the context I cited above, follows with the Mordor Orcs' conception that anyone who didn't follow Sauron was a rebel.

[INSERTING A COMMENT MUCH LATER THAN THE ORIGINAL POST: I meant to write, "follows with the conception that the Mordor Orcs regarded anyone who didn't follow Sauron as a rebel" -- I was rushing out the door and didn't realize I had written something different.]

Hence, all Uruk-hai are rebels.