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Uruks vs. Uruk-hai

Re: Re (2): Re: Re: Re: reply (part 2)

The 'experience' only lasted several days some six months before when four Black Riders entered the Shire. Not much time there. But even if Sauron (and the Mouth) did then know it well that hardly suggests everyone in Mordor knew it.
Grishnakh is obviously a special servant not a lowly soldier or tracker. Grishnakh knew about the significance of Gollum and the Ring. Did the tracker and soldier know? By "logical conclusion" shouldn't they? Shagrat and Gorbag did not either, and they were higher placed than the soldier and tracker. Shagrat and Gorbag did not even know what Frodo was.
They were upset with an unclear order from the Higher Ups. They don't seem to think any of the described culprits were particularly likely. Neither do I.
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They were given their orders based on the information available.
None of that information suggests anything whatsoever about Isengarders.
That is not what you wrote: "The implication is that between 1942 and 1948 JRRT had no intention of using the word "Uruk" in any form to refer to soldier Orcs of Mordor."
They both mean Orc. JRRT used the term 'uruk' during the time period you note for other than Isengarders. This suggests that he knew what he wanted to use the term for, Orcs in general. I think JRRT knew exactly what he was doing, and he intended it to be a BS term for Orcs. But even if you are correct and he at first only intended it to be used for the Isengarders then where would they get it from?


There is evidence that earlier Isengard Uruk-hai had attacked servants of Sauron in order to steal away halflings. This is from the text. This is evidence.
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Provide a quote saying they attacked servants of Sauron in order to steal away the halflings.

Grasping at straws.
An Elf was 'seen'. There is nothing suggesting any Isengarders were seen or believed to be in the vicinity. The orders are related only to the events at Cirith Ungol. Nothing was there that could even be mistaken for Isengarders.
The phrase "a sort of small dwarf-man" then accurately depicts Frodo. Short like a dwarf (only smaller) and otherwise resembling a Man. JRRT chose to provide that description. Hence that description is accurate. What would have been "easier" in your opinion is not important.

Ugluk killed Northerners. They were operating under their own orders.
Anything other than what Gandalf says Sauron knows is speculation and without basis.
Grishnakh does not call Saruman's Orcs "fighting Uruk-hai". He calls them Isengarders: "Curse the Isengarders".
In all probability Grishnakh told the Nazgul something to the effect of: 'I ordered the Isengarders to bring the prisoners back to Lugburz with me. They refused, I need troops to get them to obey'. I'm sure he did so with appropriate "orc-talk" (use your imagination).

Grishnakh is obviously a special operative. The Witch King's demise was, well, rather public. On the otherhand "no news of the raid ever came back either to Mordor or Isengard".

1) Shagrat has to go out to report what happened. In LotR it Shagrat is not told that all of Gorbag's men are dead.
2) We get no such statement in LotR. I wonder why not? Did JRRT change his mind? Did he decide that Shagrat would not know? Did he decide that Sam would not know?
3) The information could come from two different sources, Shagrat and the Nazgul.
4) The only real evidence you need to provide is evidence that it was believed that the Isengarders attacked Cirith Ungol.
 
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: reply (part 1)


The fact that Sauron's Orcs run in the sun with out 'flagging' like the Northerners is evidence enough. Sauron's Orcs do not even complain about the Sun. They endure it quite well. JRRT does not note any effect on them (unless it is causing them to lower their heads)

The Uruk-hai of Isengard were all killed so they cannot be in the Shire. JRRT in the narrative voice always refers to the Uruk-hai of Isengard as Orcs and Goblins never as goblin-men or half-orcs. Aragorn does not call the Uruk-hai half-orcs, he does call the goblin-faced men half-orcs. The comparisons drawn between those like the 'Southerner' are to the goblin-faced men not the Uruk-hai.
Really? I thought the way Orcs ran was quite fast.
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Yes, I think I previously mentioned that.
Are the Mordor Orcs mentioned with their backs bowed?
When you bow your back it is natural for the head tilt forward. It would be a given.
He mentioned the sun going down because the sun was going down at that time. He does tend to be quite descriptive.

The hosts of Mordor include all the troops. But lets just say you are correct and the hosts of Mordor include only Orcs. Then we know that the Orc legions of Morgul did not flee the sun. Why not?

Also:
"Now he looked to the River, and hope died in his heart, and the wind that he had blessed he now called accursed. But the hosts of Mordor were enheartened, and filled with a new lust and fury they came yelling to the onset."
Is this just speaking of Orcs (and just those of Mordor exclusive of the Morgul legions)? But the sun was shining, like it had been all morning. Why were only those Orcs enheartened, and filled with new lust and fury? Did no one else care?
 
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Nóm posted on Sam's hearing the word Uruks:
if you don't mind a little side question from an observer - why wouldn't this be "orcs"?
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From Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, letter 144:
The name has the form orch (pl. yrch) in Sindarin and uruk in the Black Speech.
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This equates them. However see the chapter "The Bridge of Khazad-dûm":
 
jallan,
what is the answer then? Are Uruks and Uruk-hai the same in your opinion or different. You give a lot of information but fail to make a stand on your fellings.
 
Two passages noting the "long arms" of the Isengarders, and one passage likening them to apes:
I don't think the physical differences between Saruman's Uruks and Sauron's Uruks are extremely great, noticable certainly (and surely to other orcs), just not huge. Saruman's seem on average to be larger (though the 'huge orc-chieftain' in Moria seems more physically imposing) and to have straighter legs, the Mordor Uruks could have longer arms (or it could be a factor of them being shorter and bowlegged that makes their arms appear longer and more apelike, or a combination).
jallan wrote:
Tar-Elenion goes too far in my opinion in insisting that all Uruks must be alike, be equally unhindered by the sun.
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That is not intended to be my position (though I do admit it may seem like it, especially when I attempt to counter arguments that they are as fully effected by the sun as, say, the Northerners). I think the Uruks of Sauron were much less effected by the sun than the lesser breeds, though they may be a _little_ more effected than Saruman's Uruks.

Your post was excellent by the way.
 
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jallan- I think that you are under the wrong impression of what I am trying to do here. The whole point of this thread, back when it was started last year, was to see if from the text of Lord of the Rings the term Uruks seemed to describe creatures which were reasonably distinct from Uruk-hai. You could think of it as answering the question "Does the use of Uruks in UT seem inconsistent with it's use in LotR?" Please think of my posts in this light. The particular quatation of Gorbag's seems very similar to one of Ugluk's: This quote to me shows Uruks and Uruk-hai being used in a very similar context. Noticably, the Mordor Orc says "Uruks", the Isengard Orc says "Uruk-hai". We also have Gandalf and the narrator in The Land of Shadow say 'uruks' when referring to Mordor troops, while the Isengarders always refer to themselves as Uruk-hai. However, Tar-Elenion and ShagratU (who used to be very active on this thread) argued that Gorbag's statement was a special case owing to the translation effects of the Ring. I didn't really buy it, but in the interest of having some agreement on this thread (something which doesn't occur very often) I have since been arguing under this assumption. That Tolkien does things perfectly is not my argument!! It is a concilliatory gesture on my part- obviously it has not gotten me very far.


(Grond- I think this pretty explicitly states jallan's feeling on the matter). First off, I am not overly fond of the term "special pleading". Second, I don't think I'm engaging in that activity. I have not ignored any appendix entry or statements by Mordor Orcs. I have largely neglected Unfinished Tales, because that was deliberately left out of the opening question of this thread (600+ posts ago). Again, think of this thread as attempting to answer the question "Does the use of Uruks in UT seem inconsistent with it's use in LotR?"
Having said that, I don't feel that the Appendix F mention equates the terms 'Uruks' and 'Uruk-hai'. The entry stems from the Black Speech word "Uruk", and states that this word is used to describe soldier-Orcs of Mordor and Isengard. This can be read two ways:
1) The soldier-orcs of these two lands can be referred to collectively with any term including 'uruk',
2) The soldier-orcs of these two lands can each be referred to with seperate terms, both of which include the word 'uruk'.


I think you might have misunderstood part of my argument here. I certainly don't think the Northerners travelling with Uglúk were uruks(though perhaps the larger, bolder ones which stayed behind were), nor do I think that all of the Orcs in Moria were Uruks. I do think there were Uruks in the Misty Mountains- mainly because Gandalf identifies them in Moria. The huge chieftain seems like an excellent example, not only because of his size but also because he is described as 'swart' which matches the appendix entry for the uruks in the time of Denethor: "black orcs of great strength". There were also likely Uruks described in the Misty Mountains much earlier: Note also the chronology of the Third Age:
TA 2475- first deployment of Uruks in Ithilien and Osgiliath
c.TA 2480- Orcs begin to make strongholds in the Misty Mountains, Sauron populates Moria with his creatures.
The proximity of these two dates makes me believe that Sauron used Uruks to help lead his colonization efforts in the mountains- The Great Goblin was also probably a Uruk.
I think the description from the Hobbit describes Uruks for several reasons. First, there is the mention of the Long Arms: Shagrat we know is a Uruk. I suspect Grishnakh is a Uruk both because of this passage and because it makes sense to me that Sauron would only send his best soldiers to try and recover the Ring. In any case, the continued mention of arms reaching almost to the ground is sufficiently remarkable to me to make me think that we're dealing with the same variety of Orcs in all three cases. There is further collaboration from the earlier draft of the Moria episode:
From HoME VII
'There are goblins: very many of them,' he said. 'Evil they look and large: black Orcs.
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This is making the same distinction as the passage from The Hobbit- goblins being the smaller variety, Orcs being larger. It is worth noting that this and the passage from the Hobbit were written in roughly the same era- before Tolkien used the term 'Uruks'. In a later re-write the 'black Orcs' in Moria became 'Uruks', I think it is reasonable to assume that if Tolkien had again re-written the passage from the Hobbit then they too would have become Uruks.
I think there is even more evidence from the opening of the chapter The Uruk-hai, although unfortunately I can't attest to this because Christopher Tolkien has given us virtually nothing of the original drafting of this chapter in the HoME series. He does say that the original drafting of this chapter in particular is very similar to the final form, so I think it is valid to regard the description of Ugluk, Grishnakh, and the northerners as being similar to the first draft. Worth noting is that here Ugluk and Grishnakh are described as orcs, the northerners are described as goblins. Something to keep in mind, anyway.
However, we even get an explicit statement of Uruks in the Misty Mountains: This seems to be a pretty explicit statement that some of the orcs of the Misty Mountains were in fact Uruks.
 
I think my language was confusing here. By every Mordorian I meant the "higher ups" responsible for giving the order to find the rebel Uruk-hai involved in the Cirith Ungol incident. Uglúk's band was remarkable, not just for their talented leader, but also because it was, to the best of my knowledge, the first time servants of Isengard had outright attacked creatures loyal to Sauron. Also, judging by Grishnkakh's words, it was the first time that Mordor units had encountered the White Badges of Saruman. Up to this point Saruman had been misleading Sauron's agents, etc. but he was probably considered to be nominally subservient to Sauron. Once Uglúk whacks off the heads of those Moria Orcs, Sauron would (IMO) consider Saruman to be an open rebel. I imagine some message would then be sent out to his captains that Saruman's servants were not to be trusted. If you believe that Uruks and Uruk-hai refer to different things, then the message might be that Saruman's Uruk-hai are not to be trusted.


I don't think sun-tolerance is irrelevant. I'm trying to make a case that the term Uruk-hai refers to Isengarders, while the term Uruks refers to Mordor Orcs. If there were no difference between the two varieties of Orcs, there would be no reason for me to claim that they are referred to with different names. It is precisely because of the different characteristics of the Isengarders that this thread even exists. Chief among these characteristics is sun-tolerance. Both the soldier-Orcs of Mordor and Isengard are larger and stronger than the earlier breeds. The Isengarders have been mixed with some amount of men's blood, and have apparently become sun-tolerant. This is the basis for saying that Isengarders are different than Mordorians- any discussion about difference in naming (real or perceived) must stem from this difference in characteristics.
As for which term refers to which variety of hybrid- I absolutely agree with you 100%. I think there are two very broad 'varieties' of hybrid, ones that are more orcish, and ones that are more mannish. Personally I think that both varieties fall under the collective term "Uruk-hai", but that is just me. I said this many times in the deep past of this thread, but I'll admit that it may seem as if I was trying to be more precise in recent posts.


To Tar-Elenions description of long-armed Isengarders, I'll add the fact that Grishnakh calls Uglúk an Ape after Uglúk disparages the Nazgul.
In any case I don't think I deny identity between Saruman's soldier Orcs and those of Sauron. The vast majority of my posts are going to point out the differences- that's the nature of my position on this thread. However, I am happy to point out that there are very strong similarities. First off, Uglúk's troop is described as swarthy, just like the Uruk in Moria and just like the Uruks in the time of Denethor. This relationship actually runs even deeper than in the published text. The orc-chieftain who spears Frodo was extant (and clad in black) in the first full account of the chamber of Marzubul. The first conception of the capture of Merry and Pippin was that they were captured by "Black orcs of Misty Mountains" (HoME VII, p 346-347, note 18) who later bear them to Isengard. These of course later became a band of native Isengarders, but it is apparent to me that they were first thought of as being related to the earlier Chieftain. Remember, his band wasn't originally described as "black Uruks of Mordor", but as "Black Orcs" (unaffiliated). Also, there is my earlier quote about the "great uruks in the service of Saruman" who came down from the Misty Mountains in TA 2991-2995. From UT The Palantiri note 7 we learn that Saruman's 'possible' special breeding program could have started no earlier than TA 2990. To me this suggests that Saruman began with Uruks out of the Misty Mountains, and then crossed them with men in order to get his hybrid army. If this is the case then I would expect Saruman's troops to share more than a passing resemblance to Sauron's Uruks- I certainly wouldn't deny similarities between the two.


Originally posted by jallan
Tar-Elenion goes too far in my opinion in insisting that all Uruks must be alike, be equally unhindered by the sun.
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I have never before agreed so heartily with a statement on this thread. He has said before that Saruman's troops might be more sun tolerant than Sauron's, however the way he has vehemently denied any quote which suggests this does seem a bit extreme.


I agree that this is a possible reading. However, given the earlier strong identification from Helm's Deep that the Uruk-hai don't mind the sun, I prefer to think that these two are related. I agree that there are other readings, but I think mine is equally valid.


This is why Gorbag's quote becomes so important. It was added in revision, after Tolkien had decided to include uruks in the forces of Sauron. It is used in virtually an identical context to an earlier quote by Uglúk, as I suggested earlier. Nobody is arguing that Uruks and Uruk-hai are absolutely equivalent- Uruk-hai is pure Black Speech (pure bs!), while Uruks is an an anglicized Black Speech term. It is then puzzling that Gorbag would use the term "Uruks" while speaking in Black Speech/Orcish, while Ugluk and the Isengarders would continually use the term "Uruk-hai". For me the preferred solution to this is that "uruks" and "Uruk-hai" really are different terms which distinguish the soldier-orcs of Mordor from those of Isengard. I think that invoking the "translation" powers of the Ring is "special pleading", but I'm not going to insist that my interpretation is the only one out there.
 
In other words are you asking does Fords of Isen seem inconsistant with LotR because Fords of Isen says...:

"Behind them came two battalions of the fierce Uruks, heavily armed but trained to move at great speed for many miles."

...instead of saying:

"Behind them came two battalions of the fierce Uruk-hai, heavily armed but trained to move at great speed for many miles."
??
 
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Clarify please.
By saying: "I think that both varieties [of hybrid] fall under the collective term "Uruk-hai...", do you mean that the 'goblin-faced men' spoken of by Merry, the Southerner from Bree, the Orc-men in Fords of Isen and the 'fighting Uruk-hai of Isengard' are all "Uruk-hai" ??
 
Grond posted:
jallan,
what is the answer then? Are Uruks and Uruk-hai the same in your opinion or different. You give a lot of information but fail to make a stand on your fellings.
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I think from The Lord of the RIngs alone you cannot even prove that Uruk-hai is a plural form. It might be both singular and plural, just as Nazgûl is, and similarly for Olog-hai.

As Aragil documents, Tolkien used Uruk-hai long before he used Uruks or uruks or uruk.

It is often thought that the -hai element in Juruk-hai is a plural marker literally meaning smething like '-folk'.

If this is true, then Tolkien would hardly be aware of coining the workd Uruks. It would likely exist as the obvious Anglicized form, ready to use, as soon as the word Uruk-hai was created.

That the form Uruks exists, though Nazgûls does not, might suggest that Uruk in Black Speech was a singular form and there was a differing plural form.

Even that is not proved. The suffix -hai might be a race marker used in both singular and plural. There might be another optional way of indicating plural alone in Black Speech, without the -hai ending.

The main text of The Lord of the Rings provides no answers.

The "rebel Uruk-hai" mentioned by the soldier-Orc seems to refer to Gorbag and his crew. Can you prove it? Of course not.

The mention of a "great Elf" seems to echo the speculations of the Orcs when they find Frodo lying comatose. But can you prove it comes from those speculations through either Shagrat or one of the rebels who has been captured? No, for someone else may have theorized a "great Elf" independently.

Can you prove from The Lord of the Rings, including the Appendices, that the Elves, the "People of the Stars" are not aliens from another word?

The only use of the word Eldar in the main text of The Lord of the Rings is Gandalf's statement to Frodo:
And here in Rivendell there live still some of his chief foes: the Elven-wise, lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas.
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Does Eldar apply specifically and only to a particular kind of Elf that comes from beyond the furthest seas.

"Furthest seas" cannot mean the sea which is so close to the west of the Shire, reputedly visible from the top of any of the three Elf towers just beyond the western border. It must mean the Pacific Ocean, which would contain the "furthest" seas from Rivendell.

So one would argue from this text alone.

Phrases and sentences may sometimes mean more or less than is apparent on the surface, or be interpreted differently than they would be with fuller knowledge.

Even in The Appendices, written a few years after completion of the text of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had made changes in some underlying features of his world.

The language which Tolkien had formerly represented as descended from the language originally spoken by the exiled Noldor when they returned to Middle-earth now becomes Sindarin, awhich had begun to differ from the language spoken by the Noldor before the Noldor ever crossed into the West.

Almost certainly many of the details of the realms of Gondor and Arnor and Rohan were invented when he wrote the Appendices.

Did Tolkien only invent Elrond laying a task on Aragorn when he wrote it in Appendix A?

You can prove nothing one way or the other.

This is when Tolkien penned: Well, the only "great soldier-orcs' that issue from Isengard at this time, so far as we are told in the main text, are those who call themselves Uruk-hai.

That suggests that the Uruk-hai are Uruks, but does not prove it. Tolkien might be writing awkardly here.

This text does not indicate whether Uruk-hai is a normal Black Speech plural for Uruks or whether Uruk-hai identifies a particular kind of Uruk.

But this text suggests strongly to me that Tolkien thought the Isengard Uruk-hai were a kind of Uruk.

It says nothing about whether he thought at this time that Uruk-hai meant exactly the same as Uruks.

One of the scouting Orcs had been called {i]Snaga[/i] by Uglúk, and later an Orc named Snaga is promient in the story, being berated by Shagrat in the Tower of Cirith Ungol and eventually dying in a fall when frightened by Sam.

Now Tolkien explains that this duplicated name is not really a proper name at all, but a somewhat derogatory class title applied to the smaller Orcs?

Was this always Tolkien's thought? Or did Tolkien notice that he had used the same name twice, and, as he often did, come up with an explanation for something puzzling in the text?

A duplicated name is not the kind of error that needs explanation, but Tolkien might have enjoyed providing one in any case. Or snaga might indeed have meant 'slave' to Tolkien from its first use.

At least when he wrote this note, Tolkien thought that snaga was used in the speech of both Isengard and Mordor. If Tolkien had written "especially by the Uruks" we would probably understand him to mean both the Uruks of Mordor and the Uruk-hai of Saurman, for he has spoken of Uruks issuing from both Mordor and Isengard.

But he writes "Uruk-hai". Do we then understand that snaga was more used as a name for lesser Orcs by Saruman's Uruk-hai, perhaps because the Saruman's Uruk-hai were indeed more different from other Orcs, for example in their resistance to light? Or is Tolkien simply using a native term, Uruk-hai[/i,] instead of the English Uruks?

You can't prove either.

But it seems to me likely from the Appendix note that Tolkien recognized all Uruk-hai as being Uruks.

Certainly it appears in letter 78 and in "The Battles of the Ford of Isen" that Uruks is used to cover Uruk-hai.

That "The Battles of the Ford of Isen" was not published in Tolkien's lifetime and was not completed is irrelevant. It, like many other such iincomplete writings, shows us what he was thinking at one time, and his thoughts, even late thoughts, should not be ignored.

The text, though not complete, is obviously very carefully composed and written as shown by the complexity of its subject matter. It is exactly the kind of text where any author would be trying to be extremely precise.

Why disparage it, when it agrees with what Tolkien wrote in Appendix F? Here also we see Uruks coming out of Isengard.

So Uruk-hai are Uruks.

But are all Uruks also Uruk-hai?

I feel that the Appendix F sentence reads better if we take Uruk-ha to mean simply Uruks.

I don't find it convincing that Tolkien wants us to imagine the Orcs so confused about what had happened in the Tower of Cirith Ungol that they blamed it on Saruman's Orcs.

I do not find it at all odd that, that Tolkien would use Uruk-hai and Uruks somewhat interchangeably if they were interchangeable.

The main evidence seems to me to be the outright statement in the index to Unfinished Tales under Uruks:
Anglicized form of Uruk-hai of the Black Speech; a race of Orcs of great size and strength.
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Neither "Uruk-hai" nor "Black Speech" are mentioned anywhere in Unfinished Tales, so this part of this entry is a very odd one for Chritopher Tolkien to invent.

CT claims that some of the material in the Index comes from his father's draft index to The Lord of the Rings, and this is exactly what would have fitted well there, and does not fit well in the index to UT.

Where else does Christopher Tolkien invent such things that he should not be trusted?

The worst he has been blamed for in linguistic matters is probable transcription errors in "The Etymologies" (part of which he makes clear were not very legible).

Certain non-linguistic inventions in the published Silmarillion were admitted in CT's own introduction, but have been mostly, perhaps completely, covered in the HoME series, and concern almost entirely the Fall of Doriath and minor corrections in the material.

What in the index to Unfinished Tales that can be shown to be in error from other writings or that CT would have any reason to want to change?

Because of ambiguity in the main text, Aragil can produce explanations mostly opposing what is found in other documents, but in fact no more likely to be true than what we find in the other documents.

What reason to distrust these other documents?

I see no problem with Tolkien inventing Uruk-hai, then deciding Sauron would have large Orcs of similar kind, but not, it seems, arising from breeding of Orcs and Men and not so easily able to bear sunlight.

Tolkien also began to use more often Common Speech Uruks instead of the Black Speech Uruk-hai.

Some of the tension between the accounts of Saruman's Uruk-hai Tolkien's later usage of Uruks would arise because Tolkien was not thinking of Sauron's Orcs much when first writing about the Uruk-hai.

A reader is a little suprised when the Mordor soldier Orc uses the phrase Uruk-hai, because the reader is only familiar with the term in respect to Saruman's Uruk-hai. Tolkien might not perceive this difficulty. Would he remember when and where exactly he had used Uruks and when and where he had used Uruk-hai, if to him they meant the same thing?

This is just as possible as Aragil's hypothesis.

It is equally unproveable.
 
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Great response!!

There's an old saying, "Ask and it shall be answered!" I asked and you have provided me with one of the best responses I've seen (as we say here in the South) "in a coon's age!"

Thanks for your insightful, inciteful and well thought out response jallan.
 
Excellent choice for a bump T-E, the only difficulty is where to join the fray, as it is far advanced and well-argued!?
 
I 'bumped' as there are some things in it I wish to use elsewhere and did not wish to have keep 'diving' for it. You are welcome to join in wherever you wish, though there is likely little new to add.
 
I'm sorry, I did not read the whole thread. But in Unfinished Tales - The Battle of the Fords of Isen, the Uruk-hai are always called Uruks or black Uruks. And in that it is clear that the Uruks and the Orc-men are not the same.

UT - The Battle of the Fords of Isen
Behind them came two battalions of the fierce 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
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And in The Hunt for the Ring it is said that the Dunlending that told the Nazgul where the Shire was had Orc blood in him, and he was the squit-eyed southerner in Bree, the one Frodo thought "looks more than half like a goblin".
 
Originally posted by Melko Belcha
I'm sorry, I did not read the whole thread.
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I know it is epic, but you would do great service to the contributors of this thread if you read it fully. Threads such as this one serve as an excellent resource for learning about the intricacy of Tolkiens work, hence the reason those who have contributed to this thread have taken so much time and effort to fully research their answers before posting. Rather a shame there are not more like this available on the forum, as everyone would be much the wiser for reading them.
 
flogging a long dead horse ...

... or am I trying to prod it back to life?

Never did respond to this. Thread-fatigue, I guess. The only (last?!!) thing I'll add is that Tolkien probably was aware of the different uses of Uruk-hai/Uruks when he wrote the soldier-tracker scene. Again, when he first wrote the scene, he had never used the term 'Uruks'. Also, when he first wrote the scene, the whole bit was different, and there was neither a mention of 'Uruk-hai'. A few pages later (when the Hobbits, disguised as Orcs, are found by a group of Orcs headed towards the Black Gate), Tolkien uses 'uruks' for the first time. I have no idea when he did his revisionist bit for 'Uruks'- placing the term in the Chamber of Marzubul and in Gorbag's speech. The first draft for the appendices still has them as 'black orcs' attacking in Denethor's time. However, it is entirely possible (IMO probable) that he added 'rebel Uruk-hai' in the soldier/tracker scene when he was adding 'uruks' elsewhere. That's all I got- hopefully not too controversial- I don't really think it matters one way or another.
 
This was originally written for a discussion at Michael Martinez' SF-Fandom site:
http://www.sf-fandom.com/vbulletin/

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.'"
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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.
 
I’ve been looking carefully at what we know about the Black Speech, and the language of the orcs more generally. I am probably foolish to post my conclusions on this thread, but here goes anyway!

The curious thing is, there is precious little that can be definitely said to be “pure” Black Speech; namely the inscription on the Ring. This not only dates from the early years of Sauron’s rule, but it is as authoritative a source we could hope for: ie the words of Sauron himself.

Apart from this, we have only the names of various orcs, the names used by orcs for various people or things, and the curse of the Mordor orc, directed at the Isengarders in TTT I Ch3 ‘The Uruk-Hai’, and a few other terms identified in the Appendices, and in other Tolkien writings.

But it is curious that most if not all of these can be rejected as not “pure” Black Speech. This form was forgotten by the orcs after Sauron’s defeat at the hands of the Last Alliance.

The orcs spoke many dialects, related, but sufficiently diverse that the three groups of orcs crossing Rohan had to resort to the common speech in order to be understood. Although Sauron reintroduced the Black Speech on his return to Mordor at the end of the Third Age, this was only used by the captains of Mordor. We are told that the soldiers of the Dark Tower spoke a ‘debased form’; and this is form used by the cursing Mordor orc.

Pluralisation is a particularly interesting issue. Firstly the word Nazgul is a B.S. word, which can be both singular or plural (similar to the English ‘sheep’). On the other hand it appears that pluralisation can take other forms. Uruk-Hai appears to be a collective noun, capable only meaning a plural. Others have argued that this is actually a plural of ‘uruk’. The suffix –hai in fact predates Sauron’s form of B.S., since it is attested to in relation to the oghor-hai, referring to the pukel-men in the first age. It is doubtful therefore, if when it is being used, it is actually a form in ‘pure’ B.S. The Isengarders’ use it about themselves, but they would presumably not use pure B.S. The only other ‘verbal’ use of it is between the small tracker orc and the larger solder orc. These are not ‘Captains of Mordor’ so we can assume their discussions would typically be held in a debased form. Yet, Frodo and Sam can understand their speech, and thus we must assume that their dialogue is also in the Common tongue; and that the tribal dialect problem still existed in Mordor and that ‘debased forms’ were not universally understood.

This is then give us two different uses of ‘Uruk-hai’. The Isengarders are apt to announce: “We are the Uruk-Hai”; a collective noun. In the other it is a plural, in the phrase “pack of Uruk-Hai”. This suggests a parallel with Nazgul: which can be singular, plural or collective. We have no case to prove that the phrase “I am an Uruk-Hai” is correct, but it seems possible.

Is this rule always observed? No. We have the counter-example of ‘tark’, which is pluralized in the orkish version of the Common tongue in the form ‘tarks’.

So what can we make of Gorbag’s use of the term “uruks”? Clearly he is using a plural case. Is this an ‘incorrect’ (or anglicised) plural of uruk, that would be more correctly written as “uruk-hai”? This seems unlikely, as I will show.

Other uses of “Uruks” include Gandalf inserting a non-standard term into the Common Tongue; and two italised cases of use by the narrator in ROTK II 2 “The Land of Mordor”. It seems highly unlikely that in any of these cases an “incorrect” form would be adopted.

What then could the terms refer too? Uruk is clear:
This is a clue: it refers to the elite Mordor orcs ‘specially’ but not exclusively. So what of the use of Uruks in “The Battle of the Fords of Isen” to refer to some of Saruman’s forces? It appears to be used to very definitely distinguish the great orcs (who are would be “men-orcs”) of Saruman’s armies from his “orc-men”. From the taunts of the Isengarders at Helms Deep we can see that there is no distinction between these in the term “Uruk-Hai” between these two groups, but Uruks are still definitely orcish.

Thus Uruks can refer to some Isengarders, and the elite Mordor orcs. Whereas Uruk-Hai appears not refer to Mordor orcs, only soldiers of Isengard, both orc-men and men-orcs.
 
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