Black Speech

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The Black Speech is the fictional language of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. Sauron created the Black Speech, as an artificial language, to be the sole language of all the servants of Mordor, replacing the many different varieties of Orkish and other languages used by his servants. Tolkien describes the language as existing in two forms, the ancient "pure" forms used by Sauron himself, the Nazgûl, and the Olog-hai, and the more "debased" form used by the soldiery of the Barad-dûr at the end of the Third Age.

[edit] History

The Black Speech was likely based entirely on Valarin, as Morgoth and his Maiar (all of whom would have spoken Valarin) minions did not possess the Secret Fire, but were only able to corrupt things to their service. It may have also been based on Quenya. Just as likely it was using multiple languages as sources.

Having designed the Black Speech to be unpleasant, J. R. R. Tolkien did not enjoy writing in it (according to Tolkien, he once received a goblet from a fan with the Ring inscription on it in Black Speech, and, finding it distasteful, used it only as an ashtray).^[1] As a result, the Black Speech is one of the more fragmentary languages in the novels. The forces of good refuse to utter it, as it attracts the attention of the Eye of Sauron. Unlike Elvish, there are no poems or songs written in it (apart from the Ring's inscription).

[edit] Examples from Tolkien

[edit] The Ring Inscription

The only example given of "pure" Black Speech is the inscription upon the One Ring:

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

When translated into English, these words form the lines:

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

These are the first two lines from the end of a verse about the Rings of Power. This corresponds to the following table.^{[verification needed]}

[edit] Other examples

Some other Black Speech words are known, given as examples by Tolkien in Appendix F of The Return of the King. These include Lugbúrz, meaning "Dark Tower" (Barad-dûr), snaga, meaning "slave", and ghâsh "fire". Many Orkish dialects had adopted words from it. A substantial sample of debased Black Speech/Orkish can be found in The Two Towers, where the Mordor Orc Grishnákh curses the Isengard Uruk Uglúk:

Uglúk u bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai!

In The Peoples of Middle-earth, Tolkien gives the translation: "Uglúk to the cesspool, sha! the dungfilth; the great Saruman-fool, skai!". However, in a note published in the Tolkien scholarly linguistic journal Vinyar Tengwar, this alternative translation is given: "Uglúk to the dung-pit with stinking Saruman-filth, pig-guts, gah!"

[edit] Film use

The ring inscription and its translation show that the Black Speech is a strongly agglutinating language. For The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the linguist David Salo used what little is known of the Black Speech to create enough of a language for use in the movies. This is usually referred to by Tolkienists as neo-Black Speech. One word created for the film is ashi - derived from ash ("one") and meaning "only." Two phrases in Black Speech appear in the film: Gu kibum kelkum-ishi, burzum-ishi. Akha-gum-ishi ashi gurum. ("No life in coldness, in darkness. Here in void, only death." Gurum means "death" and Gurut means "to die.")

[edit] Parallels to natural languages

Russian historian Alexander Nemirovski identified an ergative suffix (-uk in "durbatuluk" is the verb suffix meaning "them all" and is related to object and not to subject, verb forms related to object are specific to ergative languages), and claimed a "strong lexical similarity" to Hurrian (also an ergative language).[1]

Hurrian was a recently deciphered language at the time of the writing of The Lord of the Rings, E. A. Speiser's Introduction to Hurrian appearing in 1941.^[2]

[edit] In music

As its more common subject matter includes fantasy and dark, demonic or diabolical themes, some black metal bands have taken their names and occasionally song and album titles from Black Speech, including:

• Burzum, Black Speech for 'darkness', as seen on the One Ring.
• Summoning, particularly the song "Mirdautas Vras" from Oath Bound, the first song not part of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack written entirely in Black Speech.
• Za Frûmi have numerous concept albums centred around the exploits of a tribe of Uruk-hai. All lyrics are spoken in Black Speech and the translations are included in each album.

[edit] In television

The Ring inscription is said fully (if distorted) in an episode of The Real Ghostbusters "Ragnarok and Roll", where it is used to summon a dark artifact of apocalyptic power.

[edit] See also

• Fictional languages
• Constructed languages
• Languages of Middle-earth

[edit] External links

• Learn the Black Speech
• Orkish and the Black Speech - base language for base purposes
• Black Speech analysis by Craig Daniel
• neo-Black Speech vocabulary

[edit] Notes

1. ^ The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 343
2. ^ The annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, v. 20, N.H. 1941.