Uruks vs. Uruk-hai

[Greenwood]

I repeat: "Throughout the narrative of LOTR, JRRT uses Uruks to refer to the soldier orcs of Mordor." The only exception (not in the narrative proper) is: "In Appendix A there is a mention of uruks from the Misty Mountains in Saruman's service but this is in the early 2990's, approximately thirty years before the action of LOTR and these were presumably the original stock from which Saruman developed his Uruk-hai."

In Appendix F, JRRT tells us that the Black Speech word uruk is applied to the soldier orcs of Mordor and Isengard and so it is, in the form Uruks for the soldier orcs of Mordor and in the form Uruk-hai for the soldier orcs of Isengard. JRRT is quite consistent in the narrative. As I pointed out a few posts up Tolkien told his readers to skip the Appendices if they weren't interested. Can you point to a single instance (other than your argument in this case) where Tolkien changed the usage of words in the narrative proper with redefinitions in the Appendices? That would be very poor story-telling, especially after telling your readers they do not have to read the Appendices. Appendices are "supplementary material at the end of a text" (from my Random House Webster's). Appendices supplement the text, they do not supercede it. I suggest that any interpretation from appendix material that changes the clear usage of words in the main text, must be an incorrect interpretation. It contradicts the normal usage of Appendices and it goes against JRRT's clear statement to his readers that they can skip the Appendices if they wish.

 

[Cian]

Originally posted by Greenwood
In Appendix F, JRRT tells us that the Black Speech word uruk is applied to the soldier orcs of Mordor and Isengard and so it is, in the form Uruks for the soldier orcs of Mordor and in the form Uruk-hai for the soldier orcs of Isengard.

Add that Balrog "BalrogS" and Balrogath is applied to the same thing, as with Silmaril "SilmarilS" and Silmarilli

 

[Cian]

We should at least shoot for 500 posts here

 

[Greenwood]

Originally posted by Cian
We should at least shoot for 500 posts here

Lets go for it! And everyone can come to the celebration dressed as their favorite orc!

 

[Grond]

God, I love this thread.

 

[aragil]

Well, the whole intrusion of Westron between what we read and what was actually said in these instances is becoming quite a nuisance.

Regarding Uruks vs. Uruk vs. Uruk-hai: From everything I've read from HoME to Letters to Carpenter's Biography, Uruks seems to be a (anglicized) plural to Uruk. That Uruks and Uruk-hai were originally conceived to refer to the same creatures is reasonably evident from the letter of August 12th 1944. However, it is also reasonably evident that it was another four years before this term was applied to the already extant Soldier-Orcs of Mordor. During this same time, Aragorn went from 'Trotter' to 'Strider'. Clearly, names were developing and being refined during this period. When Tolkien finally decided to use the term Uruks (applied to Mordor Orcs), he also went back and re-named his earlier 'veritable orcs' Uruks. So Sauron already had 'large soldier Orcs', they were just called by another name (they still smelled as sweet). These were different than the large fighting Orcs of Saruman, which were called 'Uruk-hai' from conception through publishing. If people are still not accepting this (why?), then we can always look back and see how the two theories handle the different uses (referring to Greenwood's post http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=51353#post51353 with the added entry #15, Appendix B, Year 2901):

Theory 1: Uruks = Uruk-hai. This is the theory where 'Uruks' is simply an anglicization of Uruk-hai, so that when Westron (translated to English speakers) refer to the creatures, they say 'Uruks'. This includes narrators (Hobbits) and Gandalf. When Black Speechers refer to the creatures, they use the BS term 'Uruk-hai'.
Usages 1-7, 12: All Westron Speakers, all use the term Uruk-hai. This goes against the general idea of theory 1, even if we come up with special usages for each term.
Usage 8, 10-11, 13-15: All Westron Speakers, all use the term Uruks. These usages are all consistent with theory 1.
Usage 9: A Black Speecher (the only confirmed one in the whole of the trilogy, as far as I'm aware) using the term Uruks. This again goes against theory 1 unless we say that the ring translated (as opposed to allowing Sam to understand) the Black Speech.
Total (disregarding special instances):6 usages supporting theory 1, 9 refuting it.

Theory 2: Uruk-hai is the term for Saruman's Orcs, Uruks is the term for Sauron's Orcs. Language of the speaker now becomes irrelevant, as we allow Tolkien (or the Hobbits) to filter all names for us, first through Westron, and then into English.
Usages 1-6: Saruman's Orcs referred to as Uruk-hai. This conforms with theory 2.
Usage 7: Gorbag's lot referred to as 'rebel Uruk-hai'. This needs to be explained as an incorrect reference on the part of the Higher Ups (much as they incorrectly labelled a Hobbit as a great Elf, or mischaracterized the falling out between Gorbag and Shagrat as a 'raid' on the tower), and so goes against theory 2 without the invocation of 'special instance' arguments.
Usages 8-11, 13, 15: Mordor Orcs referred to as Uruks, conforming with theory 2.
Usage 12: Being as conciliatory to camp 1 as possible here, I'll say that without deeper reading this passage implies that both Mordor & Isengard Orcs are referred to as Uruk-hai, although the passage does not say that. Therefore this passage goes against theory 2 (without further explanation).
Usage 14: Here we have troops in the service of Saruman coming ~26 years prior to Ugluk and co. described as 'great uruks from the mountains'. I think that it is entirely probable that these pre-date Saruman's breeding program, but again I'll be conciliatory and say that this usage goes against theory 2 without further explaining.
Total (disregarding special instances):12 usages supporting theory 2, 3 refuting it.

Without further argument the text supports theory 2 over theory 1. Furthermore, the 'further arguments' for theory 1 requires us to make special instances of 9 of our 15 usages. This line of arguing results with 'special instances' being more likely than 'normal instances', which is usually the downfall of a theory.

Regarding Cian's argument: Balrogath is a general plural referring to all 30+(?) balrogs. Sindarin also has a partitive plural, for which balrogS is the anglicization. This is evident by looking at the correlate of uruk, orch. There is singular orch, partitive plural yrch, and general plural orchoth (sp?). From what I've read it looks to me as if Tolkien originally had a similar plural argument for uruk- with uruks being anglicized partitive plural and urukhai being a general plural. But as I continually point out, he changed this concept when he re-named the large soldier Orcs of Mordor. I'm supported by the above numbers, even more so if we expand usage #6 into 3 usages. Tolkien is distinguishing between when he uses uruks and when he uses uruk-hai, and it appears he is distinguishing based on who the orcs serve rather than the language of the speaker (see theory 1 vs theory 2 above).

Originally posted by Cian
We should at least shoot for 500 posts here

I think 500 posts apiece on this thread is a better goal. At least that way we'd outdo that whiny thread about things that ****ed us off about the movie.

Originally posted by Greenwood
Lets go for it! And everyone can come to the celebration dressed as their favorite orc!

Oh good, Dibs on Ugluk! If Harad is there I can show him the myriad ways Brute Strength triumphs over Low Cunning. I hope he's been practicing his shrieking.

 

[Cian]

Originally posted by aragil
Regarding Cian's argument: Balrogath is a general plural referring to all 30+(?) balrogs. Sindarin also has a partitive plural, for which balrogS is the anglicization. This is evident by looking at the correlate of uruk, orch. There is singular orch, partitive plural yrch, and general plural orchoth (sp?).

Aragil, my argument is simply that the words refer to the same thing, demon(s). I could have left Balrogath out, or added the (hypothetical) vowel change plural with, or instead of, Balrogath, and my point, such as it is, is the same. Maybe that was just too basic a thing to say, but it seems hardly arguable. Not the greatest analogy in certain respects, but there it was.

Appendix F tells us that uruk refers to: the great soldier-orcs of Mordor and Isengard. And if we simply say that uruks refers to the same thing as uruk, then uruks can also refer to: the great soldier-orcs of Mordor and Isengard.

 

[aragil]

Cian- I agree that they probably referred to the same thing in their derivation. But I think that Tolkien changed his mind on what Uruks meant while he was writing. Tolkien first conceived of the terms Uruk-hai and uruks to refer to the orc-human crosses of Isengard. At the same time he had conceived of large soldiers of Mordor- he called them 'veritable orcs'. He later took the term Uruks, and applied it to Mordor Orcs. I'm not saying this was good to do linguistically- it ends up with two different breeds having different plurals but the same singular form. This is reflected in Appendix F: the word uruk was only applied to the great soldier Orcs issuing from both Mordor and Isengard. The evidence is fairly plain to see by looking at the history of the writings:
1) ~1941 there were goblins and 'veritable orcs'.
2) In 1942 there was the Uruk-hai, which were cross-breeds of Saruman.
3) In 1944 Tolkien wrote a letter equating Uruk-hai and Uruks.
4) In 1947 Tolkien submitted his changes to the Hobbit, calling the big goblins 'Orcs' (echoing 'veritable orcs' of ~1941), and describing them similarly to descriptions of Shagrat and Grishnakh.
5) In 1948 Tolkien first calls large soldier orcs of Mordor 'Uruks'.
6) In the published version of 1953 Tolkien had revised 'veritable Orcs' to read 'Uruks', yet Uruk-hai remained Uruk-hai throughout.
I am well aware that this was not the best thing to do linguistically. However, if we look at when the terms are used, Uruk-hai is generally used by Westron speakers (i.e. when the anglicized term should have been used), and Uruks is used the one time a Black Speecher is speaking. I know that Gorbag's words were 'understood' or 'translated' by the ring for Sam, yet (in the internal history) the Red Book was written years later when Frodo had all the facts laid out in front of him, as well as the words of Pippin and Merry to compare with. If Gorbag had said 'Uruk-hai', Frodo would have gathered this as he was writing.

I specifically addressed your balrogath example, because I believe that Tolkien intended the Black Speech to reflect Sindarin:
orch=uruk
yrch='un-anglicized' version of uruks
orchath=urukhai

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Greenwood, you nearly have me convinced.
I must agree, if we dismiss some 'Letters' as "not relevant" and dismiss posthumous works as "muddying the primary works", and dismiss the appendices because you are saying "Tolkien is telling his readers: "Don't bother to read the Appendices if you don't want to, you will still understand the story without the Appendices.""; and of course even within the primary work narrative you can say it is "at best ambiguous and hence can be ignored", then you are it seems quite correct. If we do _all_ those things, your case is made.
However, I am not so willing to dismiss these things, especially when they add depth, clarity and insight to the Legendarium, and do not contradict the published 'canon'.

Originally posted by Greenwood
Let us look at Tolkien's Introduction to the First Edition. In it, referring to the third volume, ROTK, Tolkien says: "And for those who like such lore in an appendix some brief account is given of the languages, alphabets, and calendars that were used in the Westlands in the Third Age of Middle-earth. Those who do not need such information, or who do not wish for it, may neglect these pages and the strange names that they may meet they may, of course, pronounce as they like. Care has been given to their transcription from the original alphabets, and some notes are offered on the intentions of the spelling adopted. [There is a footnote making it clear that by spelling, Tolkien is talking in reference to pronounciation.] But not all are interested in such matters, and many who are not may still find the account of these great and valiant deeds worth the reading. It was in that hope that I began the work of translating and selecting the stories of the Red Book, part of which are now presented to Men of a later Age, one almost as darkling and ominous as was the Third Age that ended with the great years 1418 and 1419 of the Shire long ago." [emphasis added] Here we have Tolkien at the outset of LOTR anticipating that many readers will not read the Appendices.

This is interesting, but lets see what else JRRT said about this 'Forword to the First Edition': "In the Second Edition of 1966 this Foreword was rejected in its entirety. On one of his copies of the First Edition my father wrote beside it: 'This Foreword I should wish very much in any case to cancel. Confusing (as it does) real personal matters with the "machinery" of the Tale is a serious mistake.'", see PoME.
And he did, in effect, 'cancel' (or as CT notes "rejected in its entirety") the Forword of the First Edition, since he provided an entirely new one for the Second.

Indeed, he is encouraging those readers who are not interested in further Middle-earth history and minutia to not read the Appendices. [In the Introduction to UT, CT cites a letter of his father's in which JRRT says: "I now wish that no appendices had been promised!" This letter was written before ROTK was published. -- added in later edit.]

JRRT wrote:
"I now wish that no appendices had been promised! For I think their appearance in truncated and compressed form will satisfy nobody: certainly not me; clearly from the (appalling mass of) letters I receive not those people who like that kind of thing - astonishingly many; while those who enjoy the book as an 'heroic romance' only, and find 'unexplained vistas' part of the literary effect, will neglect the appendices, very properly.
I am not now at all sure that the tendency to treat the whole thing as a kind of vast game is really good - cert. not for me, who find that kind of thing only too fatally attractive. It is, I suppose, a tribute to the curious effect that story has, when based on very elaborate and detailed workings of geography, chronology, and language, that so many should clamour for sheer 'information', or 'lore'." (see UT).

It is good thing that we are "people who like that kind of thing", and that we enjoy the explanation provided to the "unexplained vistas" that add depth to the Tale. I for one am quite glad JRRT found such things "fatally attractive" and provided so much more information on the "detailed workings of geography, chronology, and language".

However, you are insisting that Tolkien was such a bad writer that he is going to change the meaning of words and passages in the narrative for those readers who do read the Appendices and leave the readers who do not read the Appendices with a false impression.

We are insisting that? I thought "One thing we all agree on is that Tolkien was not a poor storyteller but a great one!".

I nearly see your point. With as much as Shagrat and I are dismissing JRRT's writings, declaring them ambiguous and saying they should be ignored or that they are not relevant we obviously think he was a "bad writer".

Thus, readers of the Appendices are admitted to some sort of secret fraternity with a truer understanding of the LOTR narrative than those who do not. I do not believe that Tolkien was playing these sorts of head games with his readers, or was that bad a writer.

I think JRRT was providing those interested with further explanation and detail to his world. I think you are insisting that you do not enjoy "very elaborate and detailed workings of geography, chronology, and language" or "sheer 'information', or 'lore'", and put yourself in the place of "those who enjoy the book as an 'heroic romance' only", and so perhaps you should "neglect the appendices, very properly". I however will not neglect them, I am with those many who clamoured for more .

 

[Grond]

Originally posted by aragil
Cian- I agree that they probably referred to the same thing in their derivation. But I think that Tolkien changed his mind on what Uruks meant while he was writing...

ARAGIL, I THOUGHT YOU WERE SURE!! Now you say that you think that JRRT changed his mind. If you're not sure, you have no certain argument, only an argument of opinion. I thought this thread had boiled down to two sides arguing certainties and now Aragil throws uncertainty back into it. Greenwood, I think you need to PM Aragil and get him back in line!!!

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Aragil wrote:
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.

"Quendi Elves, of any kind, including the Avari. The sg. Quende was naturally less frequently used. As has been seen, the word was made when the Elves as yet knew of no other 'people' than themselves. The sense 'the Elvish people, as a whole', or in the sg. 'an Elf and not some other similar creature', developed first in Aman, where the Elves lived among or in contact with the Valar and Maiar. During the Exile when the Noldor became re-associated with their Elvish kin, the Sindar, but met other non-Elvish people, such as Orcs, Dwarves, and Men, it became an even more useful term. But in fact it had ceased in Aman to be a word of everyday use, and remained thereafter mainly used in the special language of Lore: histories or tales of old days, or learned writings on peoples and languages."
Emphasis and Italics mine. Quoted from 'Quendi and Eldar', in WotJ.
We have Orcs referred to as 'people'.


[Italics below mine]

from Letter 66 to CT:
Your service is, of course, as anybody with any intelligence and ears and eyes knows, a very bad one, living on the repute of a few gallant men, and you are probably in a particularly bad comer of it. But all Big Things planned in a big way feel like that to the toad under the harrow, though on a general view they do function and do their job. An ultimately evil job. For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side. .... 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. You are inside a very great story! I think also that you are suffering from suppressed 'writing'. That may be my fault. You have had rather too much of me and my peculiar mode of thought and reaction. And as we are so akin it has proved rather powerful. Possibly inhibited you.

What is interesting about this letter is that, while the 'hobbit amongst the Urukhai' is an obvious reference to Merry and Pippin being captured by the Isengarders, JRRT refers to breeding new Saurons as well as turning Elves and Men into Orcs.

from Letter 78 to CT:
I read your letters carefully, and of course as is quite right you open your rather troubled heart to us; but do not think that any detail of your exterior life, your friends, acquaintance, or the most minor events, are not worth writing or of interest. I am glad that you are finding it (at times) easier to rub along. I shouldn't worry too much, if the process sometimes seems to be a declension from the highest standards (intellectual and aesthetic, at any rate, not moral). I don't think you are in the least likely permanently to decline upon the worse; and I should say that you need a little thickening of the outer skin, if only as a protection for the more sensitive interior; and if you acquire it, it will be of permanent value in any walk of later life in this tough world (which shows no signs of softening). And of course, as you already discover, one of the discoveries of the process is the realization of the values that often lurk under dreadful appearances. 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).

As has been noted already, we have JRRT using 'Uruks' as an 'anglicization' for 'Urukhai'.
What is interesting here is that there is no reference to Saruman, and as is noted in the previously cited Letter 66 there is a reference to breeding new Saurons, as well as turning Elves and Men into Orcs. Saruman did not turn Elves and Men into Orcs. He, if the supposition holds, interbred Orcs with Men, and Orcs were already folk made bad. It was Morgoth who originally at least conceived of the idea of 'corrupting' Elves and/or Men for the purpose of defiling the Children of God, though Sauron may well have been responsible for its implemtation:
"We may assume, then, that the idea of breeding the Orcs came from Melkor, not at first maybe so much for the provision of servants or the infantry of his wars of destruction, as for the defilement of the Children and the blasphemous mockery of the designs of Eru. The details of the accomplishment of this wickedness were, however, left mainly to the subtleties of Sauron. In that case the conception in mind of the Orcs may go far back into the night of Melkor's thought, though the beginning of their actual breeding must await the awakening of Men." See Morgoth's Ring.

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Originally posted by Greenwood
Can you point to a single instance (other than your argument in this case) where Tolkien changed the usage of words in the narrative proper with redefinitions in the Appendices? That would be very poor story-telling, especially after telling your readers they do not have to read the Appendices. Appendices are "supplementary material at the end of a text" (from my Random House Webster's). Appendices supplement the text, they do not supercede it. I suggest that any interpretation from appendix material that changes the clear usage of words in the main text, must be an incorrect interpretation.

Depends on what you mean: But try App F, Of the Elves, footnote 1.

 

[Greenwood]

Quote by Tar-Elenion
Greenwood, you nearly have me convinced.

Good, there is hope for you yet.

I must agree, if we dismiss some 'Letters' as "not relevant" and dismiss posthumous works as "muddying the primary works", and dismiss the appendices because you are saying "Tolkien is telling his readers: "Don't bother to read the Appendices if you don't want to, you will still understand the story without the Appendices.""; and of course even within the primary work narrative you can say it is "at best ambiguous and hence can be ignored", then you are it seems quite correct. If we do _all_ those things, your case is made.

1) The letters: Aragil has shown in great detail how the meaning of the terms Uruk and Uruk-hai changed over the years. The letter you like to cite so much was written more than ten years before The Two Towers was published at a time when Aragorn was Trotter and Grishnakh was Ugluk. This right of the author to change his mind and change the meanings of his made-up words is exactly why one must look at the primary source, the LOTR, and why the primary source cannot be contradicted by the secondary sources.

2) The posthumously published material: You still don't get it, and it is clearly getting to be a waste of time to discuss things with somone who is so blind about the limitations of secondary sources. I quote: "I would agree with you that the posthumously published material cannot be used to contradict the published sources, but only to illuminate them." That is from ShagratU. He and I may disagree on interpretations, but at least he does recognize basic rules of scholarship which you seem unable to grasp, despite Christopher Tolkien's own repeated warnings about inconsistencies and the dangers of publishing unapproved texts by a dead author.

3) The Forward to the First Edition: You don't even seem to understand the Tolkien quotes that you type. From your post: On one of his copies of the First Edition my father wrote beside it: 'This Foreword I should wish very much in any case to cancel. Confusing (as it does) real personal matters with the "machinery" of the Tale is a serious mistake.'" [emphasis added] It is quite clear what Tolkien is referring to here and it has nothing to do with his telling his readers they can skip the Appendices if they wish. All one has to do to understand what Tolkien is referring to is to look at the Foreward to the First Edition. Look at the beginning of the Foreward: "This tale, which has grown to be almost a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument of Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say." So we start out the Foreward with the literary pretension that this whole book is not a fictional creation by Tolkien, but rather is a real history written by hobbits and Tolkien is just presenting excerpts from this actual history. Three papragraphs later Tolkien is dedicating the book to his children and his friends, the Inklings. On the next page he is referring to people in "England and across the water". And then we end with a footnote discussing pronounciation with examples from English, Welsh and German. This is the "confusing" of "real personal matters" with the "machinery" of the tale that Tolkein regrets. When we look at the new Foreward to the Second Edition this becomes abundantly clear. In the new Foreword, gone is any pretense of LOTR being an actual history that Tolkien is merely excerpting (all that is relegated to an expanded Prologue). Instead we have a straight forward (no pun intended) account of the writing of LOTR and its relationship to The Hobbit. There is no "confusing" of the personal with the "machinery" of the story. That is what Tolkien "rejected" and "canceled" with his new Foreward.
I repeat that only a poor storyteller and writer would use appendices to change the meanings of things in the main narrative. That or a writer who liked to play head games on his readers. We know the first possibility is not true and I challenge you to give evidence that the second possibility is true.

4) Ambiguity in the narrative: I personally do not think there is any ambiguity in the narrative. It seems quite clear to me that in every case in the narrative Uruks refer to Sauron's elite orc troops and Uruk-hai refer to Saruman's elite orc troops. I do not consider the tracker and soldier orc exchange in the least bit ambiguous, nor any of the other uses of Uruks and Uruk-hai in the narrative. I have allowed for the possibility of ambiguity out of politeness so as to avoid saying that I believe your interpretation to be totally wrong. But since you see fit to attempt to use that politeness on my part against me I will now unambiguously state that I do not believe there is any ambiguity in LOTR, but it is your interpretation that is completely wrong and does not agree with what Tolkien wrote in LOTR. [Edited for clarity and to correct typos -- I should know better than posting late at night after an evening out. ]

The arguments you and ShagratU advance are one special case after another, filled with contradictions from one case to another, i.e. in some cases Uruks is used because the speaker is using Westron, but in other cases, even though the character is speaking in Westron he uses a (supposed) Black Speech term because he is an orc. In one place a Westron speaker (Gandalf) uses an Anglicization because the "good guys" are reluctant to speak Black Speech, but in other places the "good guys" and the "narrator" (our hobbit POV) have no problem using Black Speech. In one place certain words are used because it is the hobbit "narrator" (ShagratU's internal POV) yet in other cases, the Appendices, it is the "authorial" (Tolkien) POV, though Tolkien clearly states in his Prologue that the Appendices are taken from the Red Book of Westmarch and other Shire Records, so there is no "authorial" POV. You insist that you want to use all the posthumously published work, but when it is pointed out that the posthumously published work goes against some of your and ShagratU's arguments (as in Oghor-hai predating Black Speech or uruk coming from ancient elvish tongues), well then suddenly you guys rediscover the warnings about inconsistencies (but for only certain things) or just totally ignore the problem. Your arguments are a mass of conflicting special cases, yet still you keep advancing them or making new special cases.

 

[Cian]

Originally posted by aragil
Cian- I agree that they probably referred to the same thing in their derivation. But I think that Tolkien changed his mind on what Uruks meant while he was writing.

Ok. Opinion noted Actually, in much of my latest ramblings, I was just trying to move in the direction of TBattlesoftFordsoIsen as "UrukS" relates to it and LotR. Greenwood was having none of it however as I expected.

I snipped some good work there by you ('good', though I'm not going to bother to see if it's accurate, so it better be ). But I have to say the conclusions you seem to be making from the research are all too speculative for me (kinda like the earlier missing hyphen thing).

I specifically addressed your balrogath example, because I believe that Tolkien intended the Black Speech to reflect Sindarin:
orch=uruk
yrch='un-anglicized' version of uruks
orchath=urukhai

I can't remember if orchath is attested but there's orchoth anyway (*orch-hoth) "Orc-folk" ("-host, -horde").

I'll generally add that the speculated BS loan-words do not specifically reflect Sindarin any more than other possibles (that I know of; there's a speculated Valarin loan). The grammar in the tiny corpus might possibly reflect Quenya in one respect (in the seeming instance of one locative ending, according to a theory set forth by Robert Foster), and the phonology of each language shows no more similarity by comparison than any two languages chosen at random ~ according to David Salo, who has indeed broken down the languages in this regard (or what he could of BS that is).

I'm not really sure what this X=X chart is trying to imply, but I assume you're aware, in any case, that Sindarin yrch represents a vowel change type of pluralization not attested in Black Speech. I think you are trying to say that uruks is an anglicization for some other unknown plural form in Black Speech, but not Uruk-hai. But I'll yet trust Tolkien or his son on this matter. I've not yet been convinced not to anyway :grin:

And yes, I wouldn't see a great problem with equating orchoth "Orc-folk" with Uruk-hai "Uruk-folk"

 

[aragil]

Originally posted by Grond
ARAGIL, I THOUGHT YOU WERE SURE!! Now you say that you think that JRRT changed his mind. If you're not sure, you have no certain argument, only an argument of opinion. I thought this thread had boiled down to two sides arguing certainties and now Aragil throws uncertainty back into it. Greenwood, I think you need to PM Aragil and get him back in line!!!

Ah, but you see Grond- I am always thinking. As a thinking being saying that 'I think' is just a colorful writing style. We should not think of the term 'I think' as a qualifier to my opinions, er, statements of fact.

Cian- rats. I said Orchoth (sp?) above, and then let your 'balrogath' convince me that the o should be an a. That orch is related to Sindarin is of course the Good Professor's suggestion in appendix F, not mine. I read the letter on page 178 (don't have books now, so can't give the letter #), and was familiar with the 2 different plural forms of orch. To me it looked as if orchoth was very similar to the (un-hyphenated) urukhai, and it reminded me of the consistent argument that 'hai' means 'folk'. So naturally I equate urukhai with a general plural term like orchoth. I just don't understand how a language would only form a plural by adding a term like 'host' or 'folk'. So I assume that there is some other term out there that has the equivalent of either a vowel change or the addition of an 's'. Sindarin goes from orch to yrch. Adunaic goes from uruk to urik. English goes from uruk to uruks. Shirley there must be another way to make a plural in Black Speech, rather than adding 'folk' or 'horde'. In my opinion, Tolkien didn't care to develop the Black Speech to that point. So I'm going to theorize that urukS is the anglicization of a hypothetical black speech term which has a vowel change somewhere: Yruk, Uryk, Urak (ack!), Urik, Urok, etc, rather than the anglicization of urukhai. And as always, I'll stand by our argument that Uruk-hai in the text of LotR (as opposed to it's conception, derivation, or use in Letters) refers to the offspring of Saruman's breeding program, while Uruks refers to the large soldier Orcs of Mordor.

As for my conclusions drawn from the 6 points above, they're bound to be speculative, I don't know where to draw the line at 'too'. CT never tells us when Tolkien changed 'veritable Orcs' in Moria to 'Uruks', but since the usage in 'The Land of Shadow' is said to be the first, then he must have made the change some time after the Summer of 1948. Tolkien had already concieved of 'large Soldier Orcs of Mordor', he called them 'veritable orcs', both before and after Saruman's troops were labeled 'Uruk-hai'. I see no evidence that when Tolkien started calling Mordor Orcs 'Uruks' he was trying to establish a relationship with the 'Uruk-hai' of Isengard. There is no point in the writing of the text where Tolkien referred to Saruman's troops as Uruks, as evidenced by CT's statement in HoME IX. In other words, Tolkien is using the terms Uruks and Uruk-hai in different contexts (as evidenced by my 'probability' post some 10+ pages ago). Of the theories advanced thus far, saying that Uruk-hai refers only to the hybrids of Saruman does the best in explaining the difference in usages. In fact, if we take 'rebel Uruk-hai' to be a mistaken label (like great Elf), and 'great uruks from the mountains in the service of Saruman' to pre-date the hybrids, then our theory perfectly explains every usage in both the text and the appendices.

 

[Cian]

Originally posted by aragil
Cian- rats. I said Orchoth (sp?) above, and then let your 'balrogath' convince me that the o should be an a.

Trickssy

That orch is related to Sindarin is of course the Good Professor's suggestion in appendix F, not mine.

You mean uruk is related to Sindarin orch. And it is 'related', both words coming from Elvish languages. Note that Black Speech uruk as a vocabulary borrowing is from archaic Elvish.

Quenya urco is from the same stem as uruk (cf. *RUKU) and had 'kinship' with S. orch. But here we have to know about how we might inflect the word uruk in the Black Speech.

In any event, to speculate about vowel change plurals in Black Speech, even were you to offer example of any simple vocabulary borrowing directly from Sindarin ... well, this is 'too' much speculation Imo.

A borrowed word in BS 'lives' within Sauron's Esperanto. Linguist Helge Fauskanger offers on BS plurality of simple nouns ~ that maybe a qualifier like ash "one" or hai "folk" -)) is added if the meaning has to be further specified.

 

[aragil]

Originally posted by Cian
In any event, to speculate about vowel change plurals in Black Speech, even were you to offer example of any simple vocabulary borrowing directly from Sindarin ... well, this is 'too' much speculation Imo.

A borrowed word in BS 'lives' within Sauron's Esperanto. Linguist Helge Fauskanger offers on BS plurality of simple nouns ~ that maybe a qualifier like ash "one" or hai "folk" -)) is added if the meaning has to be further specified.

Well, unless the entire 'rings' poem is translated somewhere into Black Speech, then I'd say that Helge is speculating as much as I am, although perhaps with some more linguistic knowledge than me. Imagine what would happen to her theory if someone were to produce a line like:
'three nizg for the elven kings'
Anyway, if we presume that the verse rhymes in Black Speech (the original language of the verse), then the plural of 'ring' should rhyme with the plural of 'king'. That probably wouldn't happen if ring was pluralled by '3 ring' and king was pluralled by 'king-horde/folk/people'. However, if the plural were formed by a vowel change (orch to yrch) or a stem (Tar-Elenion's Urukin) then the verse would stand a fighting chance of rhyming.

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Why should the 'Rings poem' rhyme in the Black Speech?
It is not a B.S. composition. The only B.S. part of it is:
ash nazg durbatulûk
ash nazg gimbatul
ash nazg thrakatulûk
agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
(which does 'rhyme').
The "ancient rhyme", 'Three Rings...etc', is a later composition, perhaps written by 'loremasters' among the Eldar when it was determined how the Rings had been distributed, or perhaps by those among the Dunedain in the Third Age, too which Sauron's 'spell' had been added.

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Originally posted by Greenwood
1) The letters: Aragil has shown in great detail how the meaning of the terms Uruk and Uruk-hai changed over the years. The letter you like to cite so much was written more than ten years before The Two Towers was published at a time when Aragorn was Trotter and Grishnakh was Ugluk. This right of the author to change his mind and change the meanings of his made-up words is exactly why one must look at the primary source, the LOTR, and why the primary source cannot be contradicted by the secondary sources.

I dont think Aragil has shown this. The meaning of the terms did not change. 'Uruk' and 'Uruk-hai' always referred to Orcs (even if 'figuratively'). I do not think JRRT changed his mind. He always applied the terms to Orcs (even if 'figuratively'). You seem to be labelling them contradictory, because they do not support your position; conversely I do not label the secondary sources contradictory because they do support my position. You have suggested that 'secondary sources' can be used to clarify the primary, but you are unwiling to do this in this case because you seem to think the 'secondary sources' contradict (your reading of) the primary.

2) The posthumously published material: You still don't get it, and it is clearly getting to be a waste of time to discuss things with somone who is so blind about the limitations of secondary sources. I quote: "I would agree with you that the posthumously published material cannot be used to contradict the published sources, but only to illuminate them." That is from ShagratU. He and I may disagree on interpretations, but at least he does recognize basic rules of scholarship which you seem unable to grasp, despite Christopher Tolkien's own repeated warnings about inconsistencies and the dangers of publishing unapproved texts by a dead author.

This is a mis-characterization of my position (which you still do not seem to grasp) on 'secondary' and 'primary' sources. I hold the 'primary' (LotR, RGEO, Hobbit, and 'Guide to Names') works as 'law' (though they must be taken in proper context), and hold that the 'secondary' sources can be used to add depth and clarity to the 'primary', not contradict (with some few exceptions). If I see no contradition I do not feel the need to try and read one into them. As I have said before, I am quite loathe to simply dismiss any of JRRT's writings. If the 'secondary sources' contradict (or are used to contradict) your opinion then you can feel free to dismiss them, but I am equally free to use them to back up my position, which they do not contradict. If there was an inconsistancy in the posthumous writings with the published writings then I would agree with you, but in the matter we are discussing I see none, and am not willing to accept your assertion that there is.

3) The Forward to the First Edition: You don't even seem to understand the Tolkien quotes that you type. From your post: On one of his copies of the First Edition my father wrote beside it: 'This Foreword I should wish very much in any case to cancel. Confusing (as it does) real personal matters with the "machinery" of the Tale is a serious mistake.'" [emphasis added] It is quite clear what Tolkien is referring to here and it has nothing to do with his telling his readers they can skip the Appendices if they wish. All one has to do to understand what Tolkien is referring to is to look at the Foreward to the First Edition. Look at the beginning of the Foreward: "This tale, which has grown to be almost a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument of Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say." So we start out the Foreward with the literary pretension that this whole book is not a fictional creation by Tolkien, but rather is a real history written by hobbits and Tolkien is just presenting excerpts from this actual history. Three papragraphs later Tolkien is dedicating the book to his children and his friends, the Inklings. On the next page he is referring to people in "England and across the water". And then we end with a footnote discussing pronounciation with examples from English, Welsh and German. This is the "confusing" of "real personal matters" with the "machinery" of the tale that Tolkein regrets. When we look at the new Foreward to the Second Edition this becomes abundantly clear. In the new Foreword, gone is any pretense of LOTR being an actual history that Tolkien is merely excerpting (all that is relegated to an expanded Prologue). Instead we have a straight forward (no pun intended) account of the writing of LOTR and its relationship to The Hobbit. There is no "confusing" of the personal with the "machinery" of the story. That is what Tolkien "rejected" and "canceled" with his new Foreward.
I repeat that only a poor storyteller and writer would use appendices to change the meanings of things in the main narrative. That or a writer who liked to play head games on his readers. We know the first possibility is not true and I challenge you to give evidence that the second possibility is true.

You do not seem to understand what JRRT wrote and did. He wrote what he wanted to do ('cancel the Foreword'), he gave a reason for it ('confusing personal matters with the tale'), and then he did it (he wrote a new Foreword). What you noted as "rejected" or "cancelled" are indeed gone from the new Foreword. What else is gone from the new Foreword are any references to 'neglecting the appendices'. What I find interesting is how willing you are to attempt to simply dismiss anything written by JRRT that seems to disagree with your position. The Appendices were supplied by JRRT and add depth and clarity to the story. I will accept and use them. If you are one of "those readers who are not interested in further Middle-earth history and minutia" then do not read the Appendices. In the subject we are discussing the Appendices do not 'change the meaning of things' and add further clarity and insight.

4) Ambiguity in the narrative: I personally do not think there is any ambiguity in the narrative. It seems quite clear to me that in every case in the narrative Uruks refer to Sauron's elite orc troops and Uruk-hai refer to Saruman's elite orc troops. I do not consider the tracker and soldier orc exchange in the least bit ambiguous, nor any of the other uses of Uruks and Uruk-hai in the narrative. I have allowed for the possibility of ambiguity out of politeness so as to avoid saying that I believe your interpretation to be totally wrong. But since you see fit to attempt to use that politeness on my part against me I will now unambiguously state that I do not believe there is any ambiguity in LOTR, but it is your interpretation that is completely wrong and does not agree with what Tolkien wrote in LOTR. [Edited for clarity and to correct typos -- I should know better than posting late at night after an evening out. ]

Good enough. I will say that I believe your interpretation to be totally wrong, and that it does not agree with what JRRT wrote in LotR. The 'rebel Uruk-hai' (along with 'Elf-warrior' and 'small sort of dwarf-man') is clearly in reference to events at Cirith Ungol, and it is quite evident that it was Sauron's Uruk-hai that were the 'rebels'. There is no possibility that Gorbag etc. could have been thought to Saruman's Uruk-hai.

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Greenwood wrote:
The arguments you and ShagratU advance are one special case after another, filled with contradictions from one case to another, i.e. in some cases Uruks is used because the speaker is using Westron, but in other cases, even though the character is speaking in Westron he uses a (supposed) Black Speech term because he is an orc. In one place a Westron speaker (Gandalf) uses an Anglicization because the "good guys" are reluctant to speak Black Speech, but in other places the "good guys" and the "narrator" (our hobbit POV) have no problem using Black Speech. In one place certain words are used because it is the hobbit "narrator" (ShagratU's internal POV) yet in other cases, the Appendices, it is the "authorial" (Tolkien) POV, though Tolkien clearly states in his Prologue that the Appendices are taken from the Red Book of Westmarch and other Shire Records, so there is no "authorial" POV. You insist that you want to use all the posthumously published work, but when it is pointed out that the posthumously published work goes against some of your and ShagratU's arguments (as in Oghor-hai predating Black Speech or uruk coming from ancient elvish tongues), well then suddenly you guys rediscover the warnings about inconsistencies (but for only certain things) or just totally ignore the problem. Your arguments are a mass of conflicting special cases, yet still you keep advancing them or making new special cases.

I am not comfortable speaking for Shagrat currently, as it seems he will not be around for quite some time to correct any mistating of his position on my part. You may wish to hold off on addressing what he has said until he is able to respond, or at least expect it to be a bit of a wait.

However for my part, I dont see any contradictions in the positions I have advanced.
I will address some of the points you are making above even though there are some points above) that seem (by inclusion) to be attributed to me (as well as Shagrat), though I do not recall stating them. I do not think I said the 'good guys were reluctant to use B.S.' (I think Cian supplied a quote from JRRT to that effect), However Gandalf is using an 'anglicization'. 'S' is not a plural marker in any Middle-earth languages that I can recall. As 'Uruk' was applied to the 'great soldier orcs' I see no inconsistancy with Gandalf using it.
I want to use the posthumous works, as long as they don't contradict the primary, but in your axample "(as in Oghor-hai predating Black Speech or uruk coming from ancient elvish tongues)" and "well then suddenly you guys rediscover the warnings about inconsistencies", I have not stated my position directly on Oghor-hai and B.S., and as I recall it was me that pointed out that 'Uruk' was borrowed from Elvish. I have not said it was inconsistant. Indeed it is quite consistant with what we know of the development of B.S.