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littlemanpoet · 10-07-2002, 05:11 AM

I just got done reading "The Uruk Hai" chapter out of The Two Towers. It's sprinkled full of words taken from the Black Speech.

It's pretty clear to me that Sauron did not "break all the rules". Not even Sauron can make a language that breaks all rules, for then there would not be language, but nonsense. Lugburz. Snaga. Grishnakh. Ugluk. Its ugliness aside, the Black Speech has its own elegance, so to speak. Tolkien, it seems to me, did not endeavor to have Sauron make a language that was corrupt in its grammar, but in its sound. Quite simply, it's not pleasant to the ear. This is an aesthetic judgment, and it probably deserves saying that it is not pleasant to an English speaker's ear. There may be people in the world whose language bears some resemblance in sound choice, and they might actually like some of it. So just as the Elvish languages are aesthetically pleasing to the ear, the Black speech is aesthetically displeasing to the ear. And thus Tolkien achieves his purpose of showing the corruptness of the Black speech. Azh nazg gimbatul and all that. Come to think of it, "gimbatul" is a pretty interesting word in its own right, no? As I said, the sound, meaning, and grammar of it come together in an elegantly pleasing way - but when placed along side of all the other Black speech woreds, the aesthetics make for a harsh sounding speech.

10-07-2002, 05:11 AM	#15
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	I just got done reading "The Uruk Hai" chapter out of The Two Towers. It's sprinkled full of words taken from the Black Speech. It's pretty clear to me that Sauron did not "break all the rules". Not even Sauron can make a language that breaks all rules, for then there would not be language, but nonsense. Lugburz. Snaga. Grishnakh. Ugluk. Its ugliness aside, the Black Speech has its own elegance, so to speak. Tolkien, it seems to me, did not endeavor to have Sauron make a language that was corrupt in its grammar, but in its sound. Quite simply, it's not pleasant to the ear. This is an aesthetic judgment, and it probably deserves saying that it is not pleasant to an English speaker's ear. There may be people in the world whose language bears some resemblance in sound choice, and they might actually like some of it. So just as the Elvish languages are aesthetically pleasing to the ear, the Black speech is aesthetically displeasing to the ear. And thus Tolkien achieves his purpose of showing the corruptness of the Black speech. Azh nazg gimbatul and all that. Come to think of it, "gimbatul" is a pretty interesting word in its own right, no? As I said, the sound, meaning, and grammar of it come together in an elegantly pleasing way - but when placed along side of all the other Black speech woreds, the aesthetics make for a harsh sounding speech.