Re: tolkien?

Funny you should mention this, as I had too much caffeine last night and was
reading the Appendices. The Quenya word for orc is evidently "orch," which
uses the archaic Quenya spelling.

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Andreas Johansson
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 1:36 PM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: tolkien?

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.

Incidentally, _all_ words for "orc" in Tolkien's languages seem to be
ultimately derivable to the Quendian root *RUK "fear". Besides the plentiful
Elvish words and _gorgûn_, the Professor notes that Dwarvish _rukhs_, pl
_rakhâs_, seems to derive from it*, and the Black Speech word _uruk_ is not
only reminicent of "orc" in general sound, but identical to an attested
primitive derivative of *RUK (attested in the sense that Tolkien mentions a
such "reconstructed" form).

* Since both Dwarvish and Primitive Quendian distinguish plain /k/ from the
aspirate /kh/, I've always found it intriguing that the Dwarvish forms are
not
_ruks_, _rakâs_. Were I interested in fan fiction, I'd done something on
that
long ago.

                                                          Andreas

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