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The Black Speech text inscribed on the One Ring
- Frodo: "It's some form of Elvish. I can't read it."
Gandalf: "There are few who can. The language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here." - —Frodo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, on the inscription on the One Ring, The Fellowship of the Ring (film)
The Black Speech, also known as the Dark Tongue of Mordor, was the official language of Mordor.
History[]
Sauron created the Black Speech to be the unifying language of all the servants of Mordor, used along with different varieties of Orkish and other languages used by his servants. J.R.R. 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. 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."
- —The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Ch. II: "The Council of Elrond"
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."
- —J.R.R. Tolkien's epigraph to The Lord of the Rings
These are the first two lines from the end of a verse about the Rings of Power.
Many Orkish dialects had adopted words from the Black Speech. One Orc from the band that took Merry and Pippin prisoners utters a tirade of curses at one point that is presumably Orkish, but apparently contains at least some elements of Black Speech.
Black Speech could be understood by anyone who wore the One Ring. Samwise Gamgee wore the ring in the Tower of Cirith Ungol to be invisible from Orcs of Sauron, and in the process heard many of the Orcs' plans.
Speaking the pure Black Speech had a harshening effect on the speaker's voice and a darkening effect on the speaker's surroundings, as seen when Gandalf recited the Ring Poem at the Council of Elrond. This effect did not extend to Black Speech loanwords in other languages, such as the word "Nazgûl".
Background[]
In real life, J. R. R. Tolkien created this language with the intention of making it harsh and ugly. The Black Speech is unfortunately one of the more incomplete languages in Tolkien's novels, as the forces of good are reluctant to utter it. Unlike Elvish languages, there are no poems or songs written in it (apart from the Ring's inscription), and because Tolkien designed it to be unpleasant in his own mind, he 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 Tolkien, finding it distasteful, never drank from it and used it only as an ashtray. The result is a random collection of words that are hard to actually use in day-to-day conversation. We learn from the text in the ring and its translation that the Black Speech is a strongly agglutinating language.
Russian historian Alexander Nemirovski identified an ergative case in durbatuluk and thrakatuluk according to a common suffix -tuluk meaning "them all", relating to the verb's object rather than to its subject. This was found as a similarity to other ergative languages such the Hurrian language of ancient Mesopotamia.
In other versions[]
Melkian had been the linguistic phylum of the servants of Melkor in an early conception of the legendarium, seen in The Lhammas. In this branch were the Black Speech, Orkish, and all other tongues of evil races. The other two phyla were Oromëan, from which descended both Elvish and Mannish languages, and Aulëan, the branch of Khuzdûl.[1]
Words[]
Some of these words are true to J.R.R. Tolkien's books; most others are part of the Neo-Black Speech lexicon invented in the making of Peter Jackson's film trilogies.
- -a - to (Debased Black Speech)
- alba - elf
- agh -and (for conjoining sentences)
- ash - one
- burz - dark
- burzum - darkness
- durb - rule
- carnish - ambush
- gazat - dwarf
- ghâsh - fire
- gimb - find
- glob - filth
- gûl - wraith
- hai - folk
- -ishi - in
- krimp - bind
- lug - tower
- mas - mine
- nazg - ring
- nugu - nine
- olog - troll
- ombi - seven
- ronk - pit/pool (bagronk, as muttered by an Orc in The Two Towers, means "dung-pit")
- sha -and (for binding nouns)
- shara - man
- sharkû - old/old man (Debased Black Speech)
- shre - three
- snaga- slave
- thrak - bring
- -tul -them
- ûk - all
- -um -ness
- uruk - orc
- zagh - mountain pass/mountains
See also[]
Translations[]
| Foreign Language | Translated name |
| Afrikaans | Swart Spraak |
| Albanian | Fjala e zezë |
| Amharic | ጥቁር ንግግር |
| Arabic | الكلام الأسود |
| Aragonese | Luenga negra |
| Armenian | Սեւ ելույթը |
| Asturian | Llingua negra |
| Azerbaijani | Qara çıxış |
| Basque | Hizkuntza beltza |
| Belarussian Cyrillic | Чорная мова |
| Bengali | ব্ল্যাক বাক |
| Bosnian | Crni Govor |
| Bulgarian Cyrillic | Черна реч |
| Burmese | အနက်ရောင်မိန့်ခွန်း |
| Cambodian | សុន្ទរកថាខ្មៅ |
| Catalan | Llengua Negra |
| Cebuano | Itom nga Sinultihan |
| Chinese | 黑暗語 |
| Cornish | Kows Du |
| Croatian | Crni Govor |
| Czech | Černá řeč |
| Danish | Sort Tale |
| Dutch | Zwarte Taal |
| Esperanto | Nigra lingvo |
| Estonian | Must kõne |
| Faroese | Svartur mál |
| Filipino | Itim na pananalita |
| Finnish | Musta kieli |
| French | Noir parler/Langue noire |
| Frisian | Swarte Rede (Western) |
| Galician | Lingua negra |
| Georgian | შავი ენა |
| German | Schwarze Sprache |
| Greek | Μαύρη Ομιλία |
| Gujarati | બ્લેક સ્પીચ |
| Haitian Creole | Nwa Lapawòl |
| Hebrew | שפה השחורה |
| Hindi | काले भाषण |
| Hmong | Hais lus dub |
| Hungarian | Fekete Beszéd |
| Icelandic | Svartur Tal |
| Indonesian | Bicara Hitam |
| Irish Gaelic | Teanga dhubh |
| Italian | Linguaggio Nero |
| Japanese | 暗黒語 |
| Javanese | Wicara Ireng |
| Kannada | ಕಪ್ಪು ಭಾಷೆ |
| Kazakh | Қара тіл (Cyrillic) Qara til (Latin) |
| Korean | 암흑어 |
| Kurdish | Axaftina Reş (Kurmanji) |
| Kyrgyz Cyrillic | Каралар тили |
| Laotian | ພາສາສີດໍາ |
| Latin | Lingua Atra |
| Latvian | Melnā runa |
| Lithuanian | Juodoji kalba |
| Luxembourgish | Schwaarz Ried |
| Macedonian Cyrillic | Црна говор |
| Malagasy | Mainty Miteny |
| Malaysian | Ucapan Hitam |
| Malayalam | ബ്ലാക്ക് സ്പീച്ച് |
| Maltese | Diskors Iswed |
| Maori | Kōrero Pango |
| Marathi | काळा भाषण |
| Mongolian Cyrillic | Хар хэлсэн үг |
| Nepalese | काला भाषण |
| Norwegian | Svart Tale |
| Occitan | Lenga negra |
| Pashto | تور وینا |
| Persian | زبان سیاه |
| Polish | Czarna Mowa |
| Portuguese | Língua Negra |
| Punjabi | ਕਾਲੇ ਸਪੀਚ |
| Romanian | Limba Neagră |
| Romansh | Linguatg Naira |
| Russian | Чёрное наречие |
| Samoan | Tautala Uliuli |
| Sanskrit | राजिका वाच् |
| Sardinian | Limba de sos Nieddos |
| Scottish Gaelic | Dubh Òraid |
| Serbian | Црни Говор (Cyrillic) Crni Govor (Latin) |
| Sicilian | Lingua nera |
| Sindhi | ڪارو تقرير |
| Sinhalese | කළු කථාව |
| Slovak | Temná reč |
| Slovenian | Črni govor |
| Somali | Hadalka Madow |
| Spanish | Lengua Negra |
| Sundanese | Hideung Biantara |
| Swahili | Nyeusi Hotuba |
| Swedish | Svartspråket |
| Tajik Cyrillic | Суханронии сиёҳ |
| Tamil | கறுப்பு பேச்சு |
| Telugu | బ్లాక్ స్పీచ్ |
| Thai | แบล็กสปีช / ภาษามืด |
| Turkish | Kara Lisan |
| Turkmen | Gara dil |
| Ukrainian Cyrillic | Чорна говірка |
| Urdu | سیاہ خطاب |
| Uzbek | Қора Нутқ (Cyrillic) Qora Nutq (Latin) |
| Venetian | Lenguajo moro |
| Vietnamese | Chữ Đen |
| Welsh | Lleferydd Du |
| Xhosa | Intetho Abamnyama |
| Yiddish | שוואַרץ שפּראַך |
References[]
- ↑ The History of Middle-earth, Vol. V: The Lost Road and Other Writings, chapter VII: "The Lhammas"