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Re: tolkien?

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Monday, December 15, 2003, 16:23
Quoting Greg <greg.johnstons@...>:

> 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.
Nope, it most certainly isn.t It's the Sindarin word for "orc", however. Pl _yrch_. Quenya has a couple variants; etymological _urco_, pl _urqui_, and Sindarin- influenced _orco_, pl _orqui_ or _orcor_. (This following the later info in Quendi and Eldar; back in the 30s, when the Professors was writing the Etymologies, _orco_ was a perfectly regular Q derivation.) It's said somewhere (unfortunately don't have the books at hand to check out exactly where) that the Common Speech, lacking /x/ adopted Sindarin [x] as /h/ initially and medially, but as /k/ finally, so it would seem that _orc_ is a CS loan from Sindarin. (It's also an OE word meaning something like "demon"; coincidence, as they say in Middle-earth!) Andreas
> -----Original Message----- > 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 >

Replies

Greg <greg.johnstons@...>
Pavel Iosad <edricson@...>