1 Topic by The Isen-gardener

  • The Isen-gardener
  • Snaga
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2019-10-09
  • Posts: 0

Topic: Orc Dialects

Greetings, fellow orators of Black Speech!

I am curious to know if other goblins and orcs, particularly those residing outside of Mordor spoke Black Speech. For example, did the Uruks of Isengard or the Goblins of the Misty Mountains speak Black Speech? Thanks in advance!

P.S. I recently signed up and am very happy to be a part of this community!

Thanks,
The Isen-gardener, Saruman’s personal botanical expert

2 Reply by Un4givenOrc

  • Un4givenOrc
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2013-06-15
  • Posts: 144

Re: Orc Dialects

Welcome!
I think these groups of orcs used Westron. Isengard's uruks may knew some Black Speech. I'll give you some proofs from LOTR itself:

So it was that in the Third Age Orcs used for communication
between breed and breed the Westron tongue; and many indeed
of the older tribes, such as those that still lingered in the North
and in the Misty Mountains, had long used the Westron as their
native language, though in such a fashion as to make it hardly
less unlovely than Orkish.

LOTR III, Appendix F, Of other races

To Pippin’s surprise he found that much of the talk was intelligible; many of the Orcs were using ordinary language. Apparently the members of two or three quite different tribes were present, and they could not understand one another’s orc-speech.

LOTR II, Book Three, Chapter III: The Uruk-hai

3 Reply by lugrekh

  • lugrekh
  • Uruk
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2019-09-27
  • Posts: 16

Re: Orc Dialects

I wonder if Black Speech to those groups would be like Latin is/was to English speakers, an ancient language long-forgotten to all but the eldest orcs.

Tolkien had so many different, often conflicting, origin stories for the Orcs that it's hard to know for sure what languages they knew over the ages and what they evolved from or into.

4 Reply by Un4givenOrc

  • Un4givenOrc
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2013-06-15
  • Posts: 144

Re: Orc Dialects

lugrekh wrote:

I wonder if Black Speech to those groups would be like Latin is/was to English speakers, an ancient language long-forgotten to all but the eldest orcs.

If to make a parallel with Latin, then it would me Middle Age Latin. BS was planned more like Esperanto. It was not native to anybody and lower class orcs didn't care to learn it. So, initially dead.  If Sauron won, then it would become more successful, like Orwell's Newspeak.

lugrekh wrote:

Tolkien had so many different, often conflicting, origin stories for the Orcs that it's hard to know for sure what languages they knew over the ages and what they evolved from or into.

Obviously, LOTR and Silmarillion statements should have more weight over various drafts published in History of Middle-Earth