Lessons
• Lesson I – Background information
• Lesson II – Black Speech Sounds and Pronunciation
• Lesson III – Nouns
• Lesson IV – Verbs: Infinitive and Present Tense
• Lesson V – Verbs: Future Tense
• Lesson VI – Adjectives and Word Order
• Lesson VII – Pre- and Postpositions, Noun Cases, Phrase Verbs
• Lesson VIII – Verbs: Past Tense
• Lesson IX – Numbers
• Lesson X – Pronouns and Commands (Imperatives)
• * Lesson XII – Comparisons
• * Lesson XIII – Suffix Order and Indirect Objects
• * Lesson XIV – Questions
• * Lesson XV – Participles and Passive Voice
• * Lesson XVI – Conditional and Subjunctive Moods
• Appendix A: Prefixes and Suffixes
• Appendix B: Grammar quick overview
• Appendix C: Measures, Directions, Army Ranks
• Appendix D: List Of Abbreviations
• Appendix E: Canonical Tolkien's Black Speech
Lesson IV – Verbs: Infinitive and Present Tense
Because this is an invented language, we will assume that all verbs are regular. Therefore, all infinitives end in -at: for example, durbat = to rule, gimbat = to find, krimpat = to bind, and thrakat = to bring. The BS dictionary gives only the verb stem (for example, durb-, gimb-, krimp- etc) to which you will add the various endings, like -at, -ut, -ub, -uz, etc.
Find several other verbs in the dictionary and give the infinitive form for each.
In Black Speech, we assume that all verbs are regular and are conjugated in the following way:
Gimbat, to find:gimb | I find | gimb | we find |
gimb | you find (sing.) | gimb | you find (pl.) |
gimbat | he/ |
gimbut | they find |
Thrakat, to bring:
thrak | I bring | thrak | we bring |
thrak | you bring (sing.) | thrak | you bring (pl.) |
thrakat | he/ |
thrakut | they bring |
Please note: According to some of the contributors to Tolklang, third person plural takes the ending “ut”. I have added the ending “at” to the third person singular, even though I realize this may be a little confusing. I have done this for two reasons: first, because some of the posters on the LOS board were already using the infinitive form as the third person singular, and second, it made sense to be able to indicate the difference between a command (gimb! = you find, and gimbat = he finds). Using the -at ending for the third person singular and for the infinitive should not be too problematic. After all, the English language uses the same ending for almost all verb endings.
Vocabulary
Some new words:
azat | to kill | |
bugdat | to call | |
durbat | to rule | |
dûmpat | to doom | |
fauthat | to hide / to lie hidden | |
srinkhat | to gather | |
prakhat | to lure |
Exercise
Translate the following
:they bind
I devour
I find
they hide
I hide
you (sing.) doom
I call
it brings
you (sing.) lure
you (pl.) gather
she devours*
it kills
he calls
they devour*
you (pl.) bind
they gather
I lure
we bring
they rule
it hides
we kill
*note that the verb stem “throqu-” ends in a “u”, so you will have to add another “u” to form the present 3rd plural or future tense: throqu, I devour, throquub, I will devour (pronounced “throw-kwoob”). In many European languages, it is customary to add a “u” after the “q” to indicate the “kw” sound. In Middle Earth, of course, Black Speech would be written in tengwar or runes, not in English letters, so the extra “u” would not be an issue. In other words, the fact that you happen to have two “u's” together here doesn't mean you should pronounce them as a long “uu”.
You might notice that all verb forms in this lesson are Present Simple. And what about Continuous, Perfect and Perfect Continuous forms? Black Speech doesn't have them! It's very hard to understand for English students, but evident for slavic students. I suppose you should use Past Tense in Black Speech instead of Present Perfect, use Present Tense in other cases. So phrases “I eat”, “I am eating” and “I have been eating (for 10 minutes)” will be all translated as “throqu”. And “I have (just) eaten” may be translated as “throquuz”.
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Comments

Has anyone here ever tried the lessons? I think some of them may need some corrections and updates. Let me know your thoughts.
The Swedish LARP-orcish Svartiska was not really created by a single LARP-group but by the community of orc-larpers where different groups created different dialects.
On pronunciation
There is an orc name that begins with y - Yagul - in The War of the Ring (The History of Middle Earth, vol. 8 )
I think Tolkien pronounce Mordor in Elvish, it is after all an Elvish name meaning Black land in Sindarin (or "shadows" in Quenya). It has nothing to do with pronunciation of the Black Speech.
And what about the sounds in the excercise: -qu- in "throqu-" and sr- in "srinkh-"? Especially -qu- seems out of place. Why not spell it kv or kw?
Yes, there as some issues with qu, specially when next letter is also u. Could be also spelled like Q. It appears only in words borrowed from elvish languages. I will replace it with something else if I would create new dialect.
I think there is nothing special with sr, for me it's easier to say than thr (thrakatulat).
Does comparative and superlative adjectives, and adverbs mark plural?
The dark tower - lugbûrz; the darkest tower - lugbûrzaz; the darkest towers - lugbûrzazu
urukû ghâshuzat hîzarz lug "the old orc quickly burned the tower"; urukûz ghâshuzut hîzarzu lug "the old orcs quickly burned the tower"
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edit 1. I saw that the adverb is not agreeing in number so: urukfuz ghâshuzut hîzarz lug
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edit 2. I saw that I somehow confused the adjectives - this i now corrected.
I think adverbs do not have plural form. Adjectives do in any form
There are two collective plural, -hai and -ûk. In contrast to the ordinary plural these can be used with people and races. So we have uruk-hai (the orc people) as the most famous example. And then in the lessons (IV) there is an example of the -ûk ending used with sharkû (old man) > sharkûk "all old men". So both the collective plurals can be used with people and races but what is the difference between them. What does sharkû-hai mean "all the old people" or maybe "the society of old men" or is it equivalent to sharkûk? Or is it just gibberish.
In lesson XIII on suffix order, verbs collective #6 two endings are given, -ûk and -âzh. The -âzh ending is used with a verb 'ufubulâzh' (will frighten them slightly). I cannot find this -âzh in the lessons or in the wordlists (there is "azh (conj, HORN) "also").
It seems to mean "slightly" but then it is not a collective. Confusing
I think it's Scatha's mistake.
I don't like interpretation of -hai as collective plural suffix nor simply as "folk", "people of" etc. However I can't offer better one.
I've added this shortly before my HDD crashed. Online version of dictionary is not updated still.
Here -uuk and -aazh are something like verb's aspect (perfect and "partial" respectively). Interpretation of "-uuk" as "completely", "fully" is taken from A. Nemirovsky's analysis