Re: tolkien?

On Sunday, December 14, 2003, at 08:36  PM, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>:
>> Naaaa, if i were really that skillzed and/or audacious i would've come
>> up with a lot more than just some sound correspondences and a
>> word-analysis or two, i'd've filled in the whole Drughu language!
>> Since I am writing this email while offline and therefore can't check
>> for everything i've posted to the Conlang list about the
>> Drughu-Rokbeigalm connection, here's what i remember:
>> The Drughu word "gorgûn" used by Ghân-buri-Ghân is analyzable as:
>> gorgu+u+n
>> |gorgu| [gorgu] meaning "orc" (the Rok. cognate meaning something like
>> 'swarm' if i remember correctly could be |gaurg| [gO4g], |gaurguh|
>> (with final [V]) or |gaurgoo| (with final high central rounded vowel)
>> depending on whether the final vowel was originally */@/, */@:/, or
>> */u/)
>
> Have you done anything with Tolkien's statement that _gorgûn_ seems to
> be
> related to the Elvish words for "orc"? I've got my books back in
> Sweden, so I
> can't give you the reference, but I think it's in the essay "Quendi
> and Eldar" in The War of the Jewels.
Not really... although it's very conceivable that the proto-form from
which the word |gorgu| comes could have been borrowed or adapted from
an Elvish language at or soon after the Awakening at Hildorien.  Or, as
a native word, the original meaning of the root may have been something
like "swarm, swarming creature, creepy-crawly", which was preserved in
the Rokbeigalmki form, but which was used for Orcs by the Drughu as
originally an insult (or a sound-'translation' of an Elvish form?)
which then replaced the original meaning of the word.
I don't know much yet about Drughki, but assuming that it keeps some
vestiges of the hypothetical Proto-R/D classificatory gender system we
discussed here a few weeks ago, the word for 'orc' is not treated as
belonging to the sentient gender.  Comparatively, in Rokbeigalmki the
word for 'orc' (borrowed from some form of Elvish), |urkud|, has the
vestigial sentient-marker ending |d|, the same as |mald| 'human' and
|kfend| 'elf'.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "...i took the cane from a blind man
   and i tasted the fruit in the garden of eden;
   when i walk out of here
   i know i'll stand clear,
   but the taste in my mouth still remains, still remains..."
      ~ 'eden' by guster