Re: Common Orcish Article (Long) - was Re: tolkien?

On Sunday, December 14, 2003, at 02:13 AM, Doug Dee wrote:

> Everything below is a direct quote except the comments in square brackets
> (and any typos are mine).
Mind if I add one or two other comments to Mr Heaton's article?
> [from "Even Orcish is Logical" by Clyde Heaton, in Dragon #75, July 1983]
[snip]

> and with?  . . . The sound and grammar of a language will almost certainly
> reflect the cultural environment in which it is used.
superstitious bosh!

>        For example, it may be no coincidence that ancient Rome, and
> aggressive, expansionist society, spoke Latin by putting the verb first.
> [He's wrong
> about Latin word order.]  . . .
Indeed he is!  The most popular place was, in fact, verb last, especially
in
subordinate clause.  In fact the _least_ popular position was verb first.

I suppose the verb-first position favored by the Semitic langs and by the
'insular Celtic' languages single their speakers as aggressive &
expansionist.
That's, I guess, why Cornish, Welsh & Gaelic are so widely spoken!!

> The English-speaking world puts the subject of a
> sentence, a noun, in leadoff position in the simplest sentences.  This may
> reflect, as it seems to do, an acquisitive, possession-oriented
> culture.  [I
> doubt that, since SVO and SOV are the most common orders in the languages
> of many
> different cultures.]  . . .
Quite - subject first is by far the most common word order.  But, I
suppose,
Mr Heaton might argue that humans are, for the most part, acquisitive &
possession-oriented.

>        The third fundamental decision involves the question of use.  What
> do
> these people _do_ with this language?  Is it spoken primarily courtiers
> (such
> as High German) or by peasants and merchants (such as Low German)?
> [Apparently he thinks that the "high" and "low" refer to the social class
> of the
> speakers of varieties of German.]
Quite - How ignorant can you get?  I guess all peasants and merchants from
southern Germany & Austria had better head north immediately and learn
Plattdeutsch.  Let's have only courtiers down south!

> To you, as the game-world designer, this decision
> is important because it will limit the kind of vocabulary you will
> develop. . .
> .
>        Orcs are always shown with protruding fangs, a physical feature
> which
> definitely limits the sounds they can make.  Many subtle sounds that
> require a
> completely closed mouth to produce will be unknown to orcs, because their
> fangs literally get in the way.  Their harsh, savage nature will further
> lead
> orcs to use mostly harsh, guttural sounds.  Therefore, the only consonant
> sounds
> in the language are D, G, J, K, N, R, T, and Z.
I don't notice any 'guttural' sounds there, unless R is uvular.
Mr Heaton also hasn't explained why Orcs are, apparently, able to produce
voiceless equivalents of D and G, but not, apparently, of J (which I
assume is
/dZ/) and Z.  Why?

> The vowel sounds are A (as in
> "at"), E (as in "egg"), and O (as in "off"). . .
Why? Low vowels are neither harsh nor guttural sounds.

[snip]
>        Orcs are not as highly developed as either dwarves or elves,
> however,
> so we will use the simple egocentric grammar of subject, verb, and object,
>  in
> that order.
Er - sort of like English, and so many other natlangs.
Quite what makes SVO 'egocentric'?

But earlier this gentleman gives us verb-first as the sign of aggressive,
expansionist mentality.  Good to know Orcs aren't aggressive &
expansionist -
just egocentric, like babies.

> Words modifying another word will follow it. . . .
Why?

[snip]
>        The complete rearranged sentence reads "Officer order (past) to
> climb
> wall us."  A direct translation of this sentence into Common Orcish yields
> "Jeddar jen dotad teg kokad dagada."
I see Orcs are capable of consonant gemination  :)

What a pity that a creation of an accomplished linguist like JRRT is
subject
to such a poorly designed language.

In fact, according to JRRT (perhaps Mr Heaton hasn't read the appendices of
the LotR), there could be no 'common Orcish", or "Orkish" as JRRT spelled
it.
I quote: "these creatures [Orcs] being filled with malice, hating even
their
own kind, quickly developed as many barbarous dialects as there were
groups or
settlements of their race, so that their Orkish speech was of little use to
them in intercourse between different tribes."

It was because the diversity & mutability of Orkish dialects prevented
effective
communication that Sauron devised the conlang known as the "Black
Speech."  Although
JRRT doesn't give us details of the Black Speech, we have enough
information to
know that the phonology differs quite a bit from that given by Mr Heaton.
The
inscription on the Ring is enough to show that.

Ray
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