1 Topic by Un4givenOrc (edited by Un4givenOrc 2022-10-03 21:57:26)

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Topic: Orcish/Black Speech in Amazon's "The Rings of Power" series

This post will contain Orcish names and phrases from "The Rings of Power" series. They will remain untranslated in the near feature. By the way, does anyone knows, who is responsible for Neo-Black Speech in this show? Carl F. Hostetter, Leith McPherson, writers, someone else?

Names:

  • Bazur

  • Grugzûk < Noldorin "grug" (angry) + BS "-ûk" (completely)?

  • Lurka < Gnomish "lurc" (frown, scowl)?

  • Magrot < early Noldorin "magradh" (to smell); Gnomish "magru" (slaughter), compare with name Magron (God of Wars) and "magrusaig" (bloodthirsty); Primitive Elvish "magrā" (good, useful) ?

  • Vrath < English "wrath"?; Gnomish "brath" (to cook); early Primitive Elvish root "VṚÐṚ" (to rule, reign)

Phrases:

  • Nampak uglursha - in the context probably some equivalent of "Rest in peace", "nampat" (see below) seems has meaning "die"; other options include: Gnomish "nam-" (to withdraw, retire); "ak" is probably some grammatical or objective clitic pronoun; "uglur" may be derived from Adunaic "aglar" (glory), however "ugl-" in other Neo-BS dialects means "to frighten, scare"; "-sha" is probably postposition "with", used as preposition in Orc-curse

  • Izmûmbogh - I smell him! - my guess was "I can feel (him)" < Gnomish "ist-" (feeling, sense), "mum-" (to low, bellow), "mûm" (lowing, n.), "og-" (can, be able / adjective suffix / agental suffix); Sindarin "im" (I, 1st person singular pronoun)

  • Kishdibatoth! - Search it! < Quenya "ces(ta)" (to search for, examine); "ib" - ???; "-at" BS infinitive/gerund/participle suffix expressing intention or purpose; "oth" < Sindarin "eth" (any 3rd person pronoun) or "ed" (it)

  • Nampat! - wasn't translated in English, but official Russian subtitles have a translation: "Death!", but the correct one would probably be "Die!".

Sources:

EDIT: I've added some speculations about possible meanings

2 Reply by Un4givenOrc (edited by Un4givenOrc 2022-10-03 21:50:21)

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Re: Orcish/Black Speech in Amazon's "The Rings of Power" series

Season 1 Episode 6 gave us another part of puzzle - it has English translations of Orcs' speech, but not the transcription. I've updated the first post with some correct translations, while new phrases of uncertain pronunciation will be listed below.

Uncertain phrases:

  • All of you! Fan out! Find them! - Nambûk! Ozomazduyon! Gimbatul!

  • Get out, now! - (?)azu(m)yukim lo(?)

  • They all must die - (K)hushe(?)nampûk

3 Reply by Un4givenOrc

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Re: Orcish/Black Speech in Amazon's "The Rings of Power" series

Bear McCreary, composer of soundtrack for The Rings Of Power, has published lyrics with translations of his songs for the show on his blog. There are also musical scores!
I will cite hear only lyrics of "Nampat" song:

Black Speech wrote:

Nampat burzum-ank
Ash gul ishi ghash
Nampat burzum-ank
Agh ash gul krimp-at ishi ghash

English translation wrote:

Death into darkness
One phantom in fire
Death into darkness
And one phantom to bind them in fire

My notes:
It seems that composer has ignored diacritics: it should be "gûl" and "ghâsh".
Author treated "-ishi" simply as "in" and made a separate postposition for "into": "-ank".
"Ishi" was written separately as a preposition, while in the Ring Inscription it was a postposition, like "-ank" here.
"Nampat" is still translated as a noun. However "-at" in the sense of verbal ending is written with hyphen, which wasn't the case with the Ring Inscription.
No other new words besides "nampat" and "-ank" were used.