LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 03 - The Uruk-Hai

[Aldarion Elf-Friend]

Here's another data point for our discussion of the nature of orcs, albeit a small one. I finally finished reading the appendices of LotR last night, and came across an interesting sentance - one I would have totally overlooked if not for our discussion here.

But Orcs and Trolls spoke as they would, without love of words or things; and their language was actually more degraded and filthy that I have shown it. I do not suppose that any will wish for a closer rendering, though models are easy to find. Much of the same sort of talk can still be heard among the orc-minded; dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigor, save in the ear of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong. Appendix F II, On Translation (Emphasis mine)

This is another indication, I think, that we need to look at orcs not just from a cosmological/evolutionary perspective, but from a literary/functional perspective. The cruelty of war was fresh on Tolkien's mind when this book was written, and I am sure that in his life he witnessed more of man's inhumanity to man than any one person should (true of just about anyone who has lived through one war, much less two).

This is, I think, the only place in the main work that Tolkien equates orc-behavior with man-behavior (the letter mention the cutting of trees, or course). I think that when Tolkien created the orcs as opponents of the elves and men and servants of the enemy, he wasn't considering their origins, which is one of the reasons they troubled him so in his later years.

Finally, I'm sure that we have all had the experience of hearing someone who uses the f-word in every sentance, and the "dreary and repetitive" is an apt description.