This is patently false logic, I'm afraid. Ugluk also says, "we are the fighters." This doesn't mean that all the fighters in Middle Earth are servants of Saruman and came out of Isengard!
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This is patently false logic, I'm afraid. Ugluk also says, "we are the fighters." This doesn't mean that all the fighters in Middle Earth are servants of Saruman and came out of Isengard!
Well, I don't know. 'The fighters' does not seem to be used as a proper noun. 'The Uruk-hai' is a proper noun, and hence carries more connotation with it. 'The fighters' is a common noun, and so it is understood that Ugluk is saying that he and his lads are the fighters within the group he is addressing. Since the Uruk-hai is a specific race, it means something different when Ugluk attaches that ol' pesky definite article, though admittedly I did not make a very good point of this in my previous post.
The argument would be that Gandalf uses the Anglicization because he is talking in Westron, which is represented as English in LotR.
Which is just as well, otherwise neither we as readers, nor Sam, would be able to understand what they say. Tolkien evidently spent some time considering how this understanding was to be effected, and settled on the ring-as-transaltor. What's your point?
Yes (although it's the soldier that speaks). Neither is wearing the ring, and so they have no "translation device" working.
The report is of course accurate when compared to the information that Shagrat had to report. You seem to require omniscience on the part of all characters in the tale; that would not have made for a very good story!
"A sort of small dwarf-man" is a perfectly good description of a hobbit. There can be no complaint about the accuracy of this one.
i.e. highly consistent with the information Shagrat had to report!
It's clearly both. Again, what is your objection?
Obviously. The hobbit "authors" didn't speak Black Speech. You omit to mention that they also treat the "Snaga" in Rohan as a name.
Rather, the phrase very much leaves open the possibility that there are Uruk-hai from elsewhere.
To put it another way, it's important to examine the use of words in their proper literary and linguistic context.
Re: Re: Origin of the Terms Uruk and Uruk-hai
I would say that the use of the word 'possible' by JRR Tolkien was with a wink. In the published version we have the Orc-men in the Shire, the constant reference to hybrids by Aragorn, Merry, and Gamling, and the speculation by Treebeard that Saruman has crossed men with Orcs. Nothing in any further publication refutes this, so I would say that the special breeding was beyond possible and as certain as we can ever hope to be on this thread. Further, the letter was written in 1944. JRRT attributed human-length bows to the Uruk-hai in 1942. Another interesting note is that in the draft of 1942 Ugluk used the term old Uthwit in reference to Saruman. Uthwit is an old English term, the language Tolkien chose to use for the language of the Rohirrim. I would say that this is an indication Tolkien thought that at least Ugluk came from Rohirric stock, and proves ironic given the ultimate fate of Ugluk.
But again here we are running into folk/people being human or otherwise. Tolkien is writing to his son in the real world, where the terms folk and people are only applied to humans. From what I can glean from Morgoth's Ring at the time of writing the letter in question, Tolkien was still leaning towards the Elves as the origin of the Orcs. These were indeed made bad, but by Morgoth, not by Sauron. Sauron (or the Ringwraiths, if we are to believe HoME 12) were the makers of the Uruks, and the Uruks were made to be no more 'bad' than the stock they came from. The Isengarders were made to be more 'bad' than their original stock (the mannish bit anyway), and they were 'made bad' with the 'intent' of Saruman, which exactly matches the sentiment of the letter. This makes the uruks and uruk-hai equivalence in the letter trivial, as at the time uruks was not intended to include orcs from Mordor. Once Tolkien started applying the term uruks to Mordor Orcs, we stop seeing the two terms used interchangeably in LotR (see below).
Well, the evidence from these appendices is not all that clear cut. From my calculations on when Saruman began his breeding program 'great uruks from the Mountains in the service of Saruman' are just that. TA 3002 (or whenever it was) is too early for the great uruks to be offshoots of Saruman's breeding program. We are claiming that the offshoots of the breeding program have sole rights to being called Uruk-hai, the older variety from the mountains do not. As I have said before, Appendix F does not say that the name 'uruks' was applied to the Isengarders, but that the word uruk was. I have been reminded several times on this thread that uruk and uruks are not the same thing. I have no problem with uruk being applied to Isengarders as in 'Uruk-hai', my problem arises with the Uruk-hai being equated with the Uruks of Mordor. This leaves us with the gratuitous use of 'Uruks' in UT, but unfortunately I'm going to leave that to my next 'big post', as I promised last night.
My recollection of the reference to the Isengarders is that they have long arms as they are groping for Eomer (or perhaps Aragorn) at Helm's Deep (I do not recall the long-arms reference in 'The Uruk-hai', but unfortunately I don't have my books right now). This is not as striking to me as the matching descriptions for Grishnakh & co. and Shagrat in that the arms reach almos to the ground, as do those of the 'orcs' of the mountains. Grishnakh and co. are being described as Pippin is first seeing them, after being alone with the Isengarders for the better part of the afternoon. In this sense (the Hobbit POV as you like to call it), Grishnakh's lads are being described in their difference to Ugluk's troops. If the Isengarders, Moria Maggots, and Grishnakh's lads all had equivalently long arms, then Pippin (or the narrator, as it were) would hardly remark to the fact. Similarly, Sam in Mordor was comparing Shagrat (not to be confused with you, ShagratU) with Snaga and the other Orcs of his experience. In this comparison, Sam found Shagrat to be an Orc with long arms, meaning longer than the other Orcs Sam was aware of. The striking thing about the Hobbit passage is that Tolkien uses Orcs and Goblins in the same sense as how he originally used them in Moria. In Moria Gandalf originally sees Goblins, with some veritable Orcs among them. It is not until after the revision of the Hobbit (1947) that Tolkien makes the larger creatures in Moria Uruks, and the lesser creatures Orcs. My main point here is that Shagrat, the Orcs of Moria, the Hobbit orcs, and Grishnakh's lads were all described as a breed relatively different from the Uruk-hai of Isengard, and all of this was done before the term Uruks was applied to them in the text.
Re: Re: Origin of the Terms Uruk and Uruk-hai
Anyway, to reiterate my point about the passage from The Hobbit, this passage was written long after the other passage with reference to orcs. This passage is written when there was an extant passage from Moria (HoME VI p.437) contrasting Orcs with Goblins. Interestingly, the Orcs of The Hobbit p.93 are described similarly to creatures labeled as Uruks in the published LotR. This is evidence to me that Tolkien had to apply the term Uruks to his original Orcs, when he decided that his original Goblins were to become Orcs. This all happened 6 years after the labelling of Isengarders as Uruk-hai, and so it seems to be relatively independent of that concept. The word uruk ties the two together, and later we see that they are indeed related. 'Great uruks from the mountains in the service of Saruman' were surely the original stock from which the Wizard later created his hybrid race.
Unless I am mistaken, this is exactly how Greenwood and I are saying that 'Uruk-hai of Isengard' and 'rebel Uruk-hai' should be taken.
Anyway, to reiterate my point about the passage from The Hobbit, this passage was written long after the other passage with reference to orcs. This passage is written when there was an extant passage from Moria (HoME VI p.437) contrasting Orcs with Goblins. Interestingly, the Orcs of The Hobbit p.93 are described similarly to creatures labeled as Uruks in the published LotR. This is evidence to me that Tolkien had to apply the term Uruks to his original Orcs, when he decided that his original Goblins were to become Orcs. This all happened 6 years after the labelling of Isengarders as Uruk-hai, and so it seems to be relatively independent of that concept. The word uruk ties the two together, and later we see that they are indeed related. 'Great uruks from the mountains in the service of Saruman' were surely the original stock from which the Wizard later created his hybrid race.
Re: Re: Re: Origin of the Terms Uruk and Uruk-hai
The point with Shagrat and the orcs of the mountains is that their arms are hanging almost to the ground when they run in a hunched orcish fashion (indeed "The Hobbit" text doesn't really imply that the orcs have especially long arms, but that they run in an extremely stooped position). One could make a good case for similarity between the orcs of the mountains and the Isengarders, who run with "bowed backs" and have "long arms."
Yes, that's a good point. Grishnakh seems to be of exceptionally grotesque proportions, perhaps more so than his followers, but they are described as "long-armed" orcs, so the logical inference is that they have long arms even by orcish standards.
I'm not so sure here. I think Tolkien is just describing the characteristic Orcish running style. I imagine Shagrat's proportions would be rather similar to the "big fighting orcs" of his garrison.
On the other hand, if Tolkien had published the "real Orcs" part, he would have been contradicting "The Hobbit", which tells us that "goblin" and "Orc" are synonyms. I suspect that he was probably dissatisfied with the "real Orcs" usage from the outset because of this linguistic anomaly.
I think this point is something of a stretch, especially when you include the "orcs of the mountains", those in Moria, and Shagrat, who are not described as being terribly different from the Isengarders. If I run with a bowed back, my arms get pretty close to the ground, and the Isengarders are specifically said to have long arms as well as running with bowed backs! I think the "orcs of the mountains" description would thus fit the Isengarders fairly well.
On a related note, I seem to remember that at one point in the drafting, Tolkien had the Isengarders in Moria. Were these, I wonder, originally the "real Orcs"?
The point with Shagrat and the orcs of the mountains is that their arms are hanging almost to the ground when they run in a hunched orcish fashion (indeed "The Hobbit" text doesn't really imply that the orcs have especially long arms, but that they run in an extremely stooped position). One could make a good case for similarity between the orcs of the mountains and the Isengarders, who run with "bowed backs" and have "long arms."
Yes, that's a good point. Grishnakh seems to be of exceptionally grotesque proportions, perhaps more so than his followers, but they are described as "long-armed" orcs, so the logical inference is that they have long arms even by orcish standards.
I'm not so sure here. I think Tolkien is just describing the characteristic Orcish running style. I imagine Shagrat's proportions would be rather similar to the "big fighting orcs" of his garrison.
On the other hand, if Tolkien had published the "real Orcs" part, he would have been contradicting "The Hobbit", which tells us that "goblin" and "Orc" are synonyms. I suspect that he was probably dissatisfied with the "real Orcs" usage from the outset because of this linguistic anomaly.
I think this point is something of a stretch, especially when you include the "orcs of the mountains", those in Moria, and Shagrat, who are not described as being terribly different from the Isengarders. If I run with a bowed back, my arms get pretty close to the ground, and the Isengarders are specifically said to have long arms as well as running with bowed backs!
I think the "orcs of the mountains" description would thus fit the Isengarders fairly well.On a related note, I seem to remember that at one point in the drafting, Tolkien had the Isengarders in Moria. Were these, I wonder, originally the "real Orcs"?
Re: Re: Re: Origin of the Terms Uruk and Uruk-hai
I think you are! My point is that Tolkien's use of "orcs" and "goblins" side by side in "The Hobbit" is not necessarily in contradiction to his statement that "Orc" and "goblin" are in fact synonyms.
I think I see what you mean though; you think that the qualifications may not be significant. That's a possibility; but the explanation offered by Christopher Tolkien fits far better with the facts. The tracker and the soldier are pretty well-informed (according to the information that Shagrat had to report), and so a reference to Isengarders seems entirely out of place.
If you acknowledge the possibility that "Uruk-hai" may in fact just mean "Uruk-folk" (and I have not seen anything from you to rule out that possibility), and that Christopher Tolkien could be right, then the soldier-orc's words are easily explicable. The "Isen" passage from UT then falls into line also.
Where exactly does the "-folk"/Anglicization thesis fail?
But remember that according to the introduction of "The Hobbit", and Elrond's translation at Rivendell, Tolkien's goblins were already Orcs.
I think you are!
My point is that Tolkien's use of "orcs" and "goblins" side by side in "The Hobbit" is not necessarily in contradiction to his statement that "Orc" and "goblin" are in fact synonyms. I think I see what you mean though; you think that the qualifications may not be significant. That's a possibility; but the explanation offered by Christopher Tolkien fits far better with the facts. The tracker and the soldier are pretty well-informed (according to the information that Shagrat had to report), and so a reference to Isengarders seems entirely out of place.
If you acknowledge the possibility that "Uruk-hai" may in fact just mean "Uruk-folk" (and I have not seen anything from you to rule out that possibility
), and that Christopher Tolkien could be right, then the soldier-orc's words are easily explicable. The "Isen" passage from UT then falls into line also. Where exactly does the "-folk"/Anglicization thesis fail?
But remember that according to the introduction of "The Hobbit", and Elrond's translation at Rivendell, Tolkien's goblins were already Orcs.
Yet his father's use of "Uruks" in UT to describe Saruman's Uruk-hai seems to prove the UT Index definition correct, whether it came from JRRT or CT.
Given that UT is a post-LotR text, it seems unlikely in the extreme that Tolkien would use a term to describe the Isengarders that was incorrect and inconsistent with the published work. However, there is nothing in LotR that shows Tolkien's usage in UT to be wrong. Indeed, Appendix F can be read to support his usage.
Of course, for Christopher Tolkien to be in error, JRR Tolkien also has to be "in error" in UT. And this seems most unlikely.
I agree, however, that there is nothing to support the theory that Mordor Uruks were as sun-resilient as Isengard Uruks.
Tar-Elenion
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'Mischaracterization'... hmm...
Thank you for responding to my _query_ (_?_):
_CT_ has said that he made a change to bring his fathers writings in line with Foster? Where does this occur?
And thank you for clarifying what I said ('you seem to have asserted that CT says he changed his fathers writings to bring them in line with Foster') you _seemed_ to be asserting.
The clarification of what you were stating is appreciated.
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As pointed out earlier, Uruk-hai is apparently not a pure Black Speech coinage. Together Aragil and I have pointed out that Oghor-hai is an Orcish term, apparently from a time before the invention of Black Speech. That means "-hai" (whatever it means) is Orcish, not Black Speech. Thus it would be perfectly reasonable for the results of Saruman's breeding experiments to receive an Orcish modification to the Black Speech word uruk, especially if they were developed from Uruks as seems likely. It also seems quite clear that Saruman has developed his own breed of orc troops. Why should they refer to themselves with a Black Speech term? You say Black Speech was a failure as a language and was only spoken by the Captains of Mordor. So why should one of Saruman's lieutenants (Ugluk) call himself by a Black Speech term when he has shown such contempt for Grishnakh and his Mordor lads. The same goes for Saruman's troops at Helm's Deep. It makes no sense for troops loyal to Saruman, bred by Saruman, to use a name for themselves that comes from the language of their rivals in Mordor. It makes far more sense for them to take the name of their progenitors, uruk and modify it in an orcish way to distinguish themselves from their Mordor cousins. The result is the Uruk-hai of Isengard and the Uruks of Mordor.
As for Mordor orcs knowing the word there is nothing strange there. Even if, though it is unlikely, Mordor had never heard of Saruman's Uruk-hai before Ugluk's raid, word of a new breed of large orcs who did not care about sunlight and who did not serve Mordor (rebels if you will
) was likely to spread like wildfire through the troops of Mordor after Grishnakh's report.
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I agree.
The problem is that you are also requiring readers to read LOTR as if it was a legal document and consider every possible narrow alternative reading of Tolkien's words instead of reading it as an adventure tale. You argue for a legalistic reading of phrases like "Uruk-hai of Isengard" implying that there are Uruk-hai from places other than Isengard, and from a strict legalistic standpoint point you may have an argument, but that does not mean the argument is correct. Far simpler is to read it as one normally would, the Uruk-hai come from Isengard. If someone read a history book that refered to the "Kamikaze of Japan during World War II" or the "Samurai of Japan", your argument would lead to the reader believing that countries other than Japan had Kamikaze in World War II or that there werer Samurai in countries other than Japan. That interpretation would be wrong, even though from a legalistic standpoint it is defendable. The simplest interpretation, and the one that fits with everything in LOTR is that the Uruk-hai are merely identifying where they come from.
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Of course, Tolkien's published sources indicate that "-hai" is Black Speech.
Most likely because their "Uruk-hai" identity (that of a superior military caste) was forged in Mordor and reinforced in the Misty Mountains. A smattering of man-blood would be unlikely to damage this, but likely to reinforce it still further
But given that "-hai" is demonstrably Black Speech ("Olog-hai"), and Uruk-hai thus combines a Black Speech element with another Black Speech element in a Black Speech element, we have to ask ourselves why the Isengarders go by a Black Speech appellation. The obvious answer is that their "Uruk-hai" ethnicity stems from Mordor, and has survived, or been enhanced by, Sarumanic tampering.
Originally posted by Greenwood
As for Mordor orcs knowing the word there is nothing strange there. Even if, though it is unlikely, Mordor had never heard of Saruman's Uruk-hai before Ugluk's raid, word of a new breed of large orcs who did not care about sunlight and who did not serve Mordor (rebels if you will
Except of course that we are explicitly told that no news of the Orc-raid ever came back to Mordor.
Originally posted by Greenwood
I agree.
Not at all. LotR has a linguistic depth, which distinguishes it from a mere adventure tale. You seem, if I read your arguments correctly, to be reluctant to take Tolkien's word on issues such as orcs of different breeds using Common Speech to communicate. But it is this sort of linguistic depth that distinguishes LotR from a mere adventure tale. Appreciation of these subtleties is linguistic, not legalistic.
Originally posted by Greenwood
You argue for a legalistic reading of phrases like "Uruk-hai of Isengard" implying that there are Uruk-hai from places other than Isengard, and from a strict legalistic standpoint point you may have an argument, but that does not mean the argument is correct. Far simpler is to read it as one normally would, the Uruk-hai come from Isengard. If someone read a history book that refered to the "Kamikaze of Japan during World War II" or the "Samurai of Japan", your argument would lead to the reader believing that countries other than Japan had Kamikaze in World War II or that there werer Samurai in countries other than Japan. That interpretation would be wrong, even though from a legalistic standpoint it is defendable.
You're tilting at straw men here.
My argument is not that "Uruk-hai of Isengard" implies that there are other Uruk-hai, but that it leaves open the possibility. The implications come from elsewhere, and in the light of those implications, it is interesting that Ugluk never claims simply that "we are the Uruk-hai."It's not the simplest interpretation. It's simpler to assume that Uruks and Uruk-hai are synomyms. That clears up the problem of why Shagrat's report is translated into two accurate rumours and one utterly wild one, instead of three fairly accurate ones.
While we're on the subject of tactical retreats, I'm still waiting for your explanation of why "-hai" as "-folk" doesn't work.
You said that you had repeatedly argued why earlier in the thread, but no evidence of this is apparent.
Please clarify! Where? Appendix F of LOTR says uruk is Black Speech, it does not say Uruk-hai is Black Speech. The Druedain essay in UT has Oghor-hai being used by orcs before Black Speech was invented by Sauron. That means "-hai" as a word element predates Black Speech. Therefore, Uruk-hai is not pure Black Speech.
You have argued that because of the final "s" Uruks must be an Anglicization. If that is accepted than what is it an Anglicization of? The simplest would be that it is an Anglicization of uruk. Where does that lead us? It leaves us with Aragil and my arguments about the usage of the words in LOTR perfectly reasonable with Tolkien use the Anglicization of a Black Speech word for the Mordor orcs and Uruk-hai used for Saruman's orcs. And it leaves virtually all of your and Tar-Elenion's arguments about how the words are used in LOTR also reasonable.
Gandalf in Moria use an Anglicization of a Black Speech word to refer to Mordor orcs in Moria. Gorbag's words are translated into an Anglicization that refers to Mordor orcs. The only problem remaining is the soldier-tracker orc exchange which can easily be interpreted as Aragil and I have said. This interpretation also explains the seperate entries in the LOTR index for Uruks and Uruk-hai that Aragil has pointed out. We are left with the Uruks in the Fords of Isen chpater in UT, but CT has told us not to look for full consistency between LOTR and the posthumously published materials of his father. No. All three rumors are wild, as we the readers are well aware.
No news of the results of the raid went back to Mordor, but Grishnakh left Ugluk's band to get reinforcements. Word presumably got back at that time. And even if it did not at that time, Saruman has been breeding his own orcs into Uruk-hai for sometime and there is no reason to belief that word could not have reached Mordor prior to this particular raid.
Because Uruks and Uruk-hai are not equivalent as we have demonstrated repeatedly.
But at Helm's Deep, Saruman's elite troops do say "We are the Uruk-hai" (no qualifiers)!
And Tolkien does not qualify his chapter title, it is just "The Uruk-hai"! And in the Siege of Gondor chapter the reference is once again simply "the Uruk-hai" (no qualifiers)! So you admit that the phrase "Uruk-hai of Isengard" does not automatically imply there are other Uruk-hai from places other than Isengard! (Hey, Grond, did you catch that?) Therefore that argument only works if you believe there are other Uruk-hai and thus the argument is as circular as I have repeatedly pointed it out to be.
You have already conceded that Saruman's soldier orcs are genetically different from Sauron's soldier orcs.
What is so hard about believing that they would have a different name to distinguish them.As I said above, if we accept your lingistic argument that Uruks is an Anglicization, but make it an Anglicization of uruk instead of Uruk-hai, we are left with a simple explanation that explains all uses in LOTR!
End of debate.
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Originally posted by ShagratU
While we're on the subject of tactical retreats, I'm still waiting for your explanation of why "-hai" as "-folk" doesn't work.
You said that you had repeatedly argued why earlier in the thread, but no evidence of this is apparent.
Well, my earliest statements in this thread (starting as the fourth post on the first page) was that it is hard to distinguish between people/folk in terms of humans, or in terms of plural from another species:
http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=38314#post38314
http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=41400#post41400
http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=42023#post42023
I still say that folk/people is difficult to distinguish from human folk/people. Tolkien's letter of 8/1944 is a case in point. I will maintain that by 'folk made bad', he was referring to human folk- the Uruk-hai of Saruman. Having posted on the history of the term Uruk-hai, I think that Tolkien originally intended for Uruk-hai to be a plural term. On the other hand, I think that I have demonstrated that he came up with this denotation at least 6 years before he ever thought of applying the term 'uruks' to Mordor Orcs. As you point out, he was not entirely satisfied with differentiating between goblin and orc. I think this had to do more with his growing dislike for the term goblin rather than any loyalty he felt for his usage in the Hobbit, which he ammended with a new riddle-game. (look at HoME VI p.437 and HoME VII p.193 and p.205 note 5 for further info- there's another reference to 'Shadow of the Past' I think where CT describes how his father went from the predominance of 'goblin' in The Hobbit to 'orc' in LotR). Anyway, back to my point: the connotation of uruks and Uruk-hai changed drastically when Tolkien decided to exchange the term 'veritable orcs' with 'uruks'. Up until this point Uruk-hai was the only term used in the narrative, and it referred only to the sunlight-tolerant crossbreeds of Saruman. The creatures that were originally goblins became orcs, the creatures that were originally orcs became uruks. While this was happening the creatures that were originally Uruk-hai remained Uruk-hai. From the moment of their conception (when Aragorn examines their equipment at Amon Hen) they were fundamentally different from any of the other orcs Tolkien wrote about- they were consistently large enough to use bows of the same length as those used by men. From Morgoth's Ring, we know that breeding Orcs with men made Orcs larger. I think that Tolkien describes the Orcs' bows as being the same length as men's bows (as opposed to just being longer than Orcs' bows) for a reason- he's establishing their link with men. He further establishes it with their sun-tolerance (Legolas, Treebeard, and Gamling all remark on this), he originally has Ugluk use an Old English term (the language of the Rohirrim), and the Uruk-hai are consistently described as large relative to other Orcs, which Tolkien points out as one of the consequences of crossing Orcs with Humans. The Orcs of Mordor do not share any of these characteristics- they never use a mannish tongue (other than Westron), they never bear bows as long as those of the Isengarders, they never exhibit signs of sun-tolerance, and they certainly have never been cross-bred with humans. They are fundamentally different from the original Uruk-hai, and this distinction remains throughout the narrative of the LotR. I would say that the fact that he was calling the later uruks 'veritable orcs' for six years, while calling the later Uruk-hai 'Uruk-hai' should be evidence enough of this.
Well, I don't have my books with me, but I think that I'll take a stab at the passage in UT now. The Fords of Isen narrative in UT comes from the same period as essays in 'late writings' in HoME v. 12. CT specifically addresses the style of these essays in his introduction to that section. These writings were done on a typewriter (Tolkien only used two fingers to type), and were done ab initio. Tolkien never scrawled out these thoughts before hand, and after initially typing them in a single draft, he never returned to edit them. This is particularly obvious for the Isen passage, as it ends tantalizingly in mid-sentence. CT acknowledges that there are inconsistancies between these writings and those of his father's earlier published works. In both the introduction to UT and in the intro to 'late writings' CT says that he has made an effort to point out these inconsistencies, which become increasingly glaring in Tolkien's last essays- those concerning Cirdan and Glorfindel. CT relates that his father admitted his thoughts were becoming increasingly confused at this late point in his life. The Isen narrative was written some time after 1969, and the essays on Cirdan and Glorfindel were written some time in 1970. The Good Professor passed away in August 1973, so these narratives came from the very end of his career. It appears to me to be the case that Tolkien either accidentally used the term Uruks for Uruk-hai, or he intentionally used the term uruks as shorthand and later meant to go back and expand it to 'Uruk-hai' but never did, which is entirely plausible since we know that there was only one draft for this piece. CT himself was apparently confused on the matter, which is why he might have put a definition for Uruk-hai in the index of a book which did not contain that term. While writing HoME v. 9 (p. 34 note 4) CT notes that it is strange that this is the first appearance of uruks in the narrative, coming six years after the appearance of the term Uruk-hai. This means that in all of his draftings, Tolkien never referred to Uguluk and co., nor those of Helm's Deep as 'uruks'. That term was apparently reserved for uruks of Mordor and uruks of the mountains (some of which came into the service of Saruman). That CT might have missed the inconsistency in his father's usage, and then made a mistake himself is hardly impossible. After all, there is the letter of 1944 which equates the two terms. But it is very important to stress that the letter was written before Tolkien ever used Uruks in reference to Mordor Orcs.
So this is what I think happened: Tolkien invented the name Uruk-hai to describe the human/orc hybrids of Saruman (both Orc-men and men-Orcs). This might have meant uruk-people, with 'people' then having the double meaning of a plural and indicating the human origin of the species. Tolkien probably intended that these hybrids were descended from the 'veritable orcs' of Moria and Mordor. During the writing of LotR Tolkien decided not to use the term 'goblin', and instead opted for 'orc' (for the most part). Having done this, he then decided to call the former 'veritable orcs' 'uruks' (ca 1948). The term is related to the term 'Uruk-hai', and indicates the relatedness of the two (separate) breeds. However, the two terms are not synonymous, as evidenced by the fact that they have separate entries in the Index of LotR. Twenty years after the completion of the LotR Tolkien wrote the narrative Fords of Isen in a single draft, and in that essay he used Uruks in a manner inconsistant with how he used it in the LotR. CT (who noted that UT contained inconsistencies with the earlier published works) missed this inconsistency- perhaps because of the letter to him which predated the application of uruks to Mordor Orcs. I can't find fault with either CT for making this error (can't think of too many others he made in all of his 1000s of published pages), or with the Good Professor for making an inconsistency in an essay he never had the chance to revise before publication.
Tar-Elenion
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Originally posted by Greenwood
Nice tactical retreat.
So my polite way of pointing out that I was asking questions and using qualifiers for my inference is a 'tactical retreat'? Interesting.
It does not ignore the "main point". The "main point" is that, I was asking questions about what you had posted.
CT having made changes has already been addressed. He even points out the changes he made.
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