This post will contain Orcish names and phrases from the second season of “The Rings of Power” series. Check my previous article about the first season. Many thanks to Bear McCreary for his blog shading light on the languages of Middle-Earth used in the show's songs.
I like that Black Speech is now featured in almost every episode.
I do not publish the full wordlists because the information isn't complete (probably, it will not be until the end of the show) and I'm not good at recognizing the sounds of language I don't know. However, few 100% confirmed words are now included into Orcish-English-Russian dictionary of blackspeech.de.
Also, now it's confirmed that the translations into Tolkien's languages are done by a team lead by Carl F. Hostetter.
Names of the Orcs across the season:
- Borzag
- Glûg / Glüg
- Snaghûl
- Zhor
Episode 1
- All Hail, lord Sauron! — Haiûk g?zambat?
- The New Dark Lord — durbolum burz ikli?
- ? — nûk?
Some chorus after the scene of “killing” Sauron:
Nampakoz durbol, dorz iklish glugak.
Skarg-sha ralûk, ghubagdafat,
Burzum-ish duthmak.
Lord of the dead, cast in a new form.
Filled with revenge, unrelenting,Reborn in darkness.
Hooray, new words! And they seem sensible again!
- Nampakoz — we had “nampak” in season 1, and if “nampat” means “death” or probably “to die”, then “nampak” is probably “dead” (see below for other uses 2 uses of this word in this verse), so “-oz” should be genitive/possessive marker;
- durbol — obviously translates as “lord” or “ruler” from Ring-verse's “durbatulûk”. The agentive suffix “-ol” was also used in the name “Gorgol the Butcher” (see The History of Middle-earth Volume III: The Lays of Beleriand, The Lay of Leithian poem: Of Beren, son of Barahir & his escape).
I suggest that both “ish” here are the quite obvious variations of Ring-verse's “-ishi” translated as the preposition “in” (probably final -i dropped to match the musical score), thus “dorz iklish glugak” may be glossed as “form new-in cast (passive)”, and so “-ak” is the past/passive participle suffix. So:
- dorz — form;
- ikl — new; probably from Quenya “ceulë” (renewal) < root “KEW”;
- glug — cast; I think this one may be related to Quenya “hecil” (outcast) < root “HEK”, but I'm not sure if in other languages “cast” (form) and “cast” (throw) should be connected;
- skarg-sha — with revenge, where “sha” (= with) is obviously taken from the orc-curse; “skarg” may be related to Gnomish “sagruith” (hatred, revenge);
- ralûk — filled; well, other passive verbs in this text were formed with suffix “-ak”, probably this one is verbal adjective or some other verbal form constructed with suffix “-ûk” (fully, completely, all) taken from the Ring-verse.
- ghubagdafat — unrelenting; this one is hard to analyze: probably, “ghu-” is a negative prefix translating “un-” based on “GŪ” from “The Etymologies” (published in “Lost Road and Other Writings”) and “ƷŪ” (pronounced the same as the “ghu”) from “Addenda and Corrigenda” to it (see the journal “Vinyar Tengwar” #45, 46); “-at” is from the Ring-verse again; thus the whole word is probably something like “to be not yielded”.
- burzum-ish — is also from the Ring-verse (“into darkness”);
- duthmak — reborn: “-ak” was discussed above, thus “duthm” should stand for “reborn”; it's strange that so short word is used for this.
Note, that “-ish” in translation of the phrase “in new form” was added to adjective, not the noun.
Episode 2
Burzum kurgrimpat,burzum ozguyat.Grithum ozgat, ghubagdafat,pushnothul higthu.Encroaching darkness,Darkness spreading.Reach of evil, unrelenting,Evil approaches.
I'm sure the translation is quite loose here, the last two lines were swapped. We have the word “burzum” (darkness) again, “-at” is consistently used to translate present adjectival participle; “ghubagdafat” was used in Episode 1.
- kurgrimp — encroach, intrude, invade; “kur” could be a prefix similar to “in-”, “en-”;
- ozguy — to spread; I like it when it becomes a solvable puzzle! This word was used in S1E6 with translation “fan out”;
- grithum — evil; compare with roots “QṚÐṚ” of Qenya Lexicon and “qṛđ” of Gnomish Lexicon;
- ozgat — not certain if it means “to reach” or “to approach”;
- pushnothul — hard to parse: is it “push-noth-ul” with the last element translated as “them” or “push-no-thul” where “thul” is related to Etymologies' root “TUL” (come, approach);
- higthu — here English translation from Bear's blog is definitely lost; may be another derivative of the root “HEK”;
Another sample of Black Speech in this episode repeats the strange translation of the phrase “evil approaches”:
Zûd Búgash, pushnothul higthu.Burzum kurgrimpat burzumish glufúshak.Mount Doom, evil approaches.Encroaching darkness, eclipsed by darkness.
And why there is a difference between û and ú?
- Zûd Búgash — Mount Doom; hard to say what the word order is, but maybe it's actually translated as “Mountain of Fire” — another name of that mountain;
- burzumish — is actually “in darkness”, not “by darkness”;
- glufúshak — eclipsed; may be related to David Salo's “gulshu” (shadows) or Primitive Elvish “uklā” (gloom).
And one more choir in Black Speech:
Nampat, burzum, bagronkatBurzum ghubrugakAsh grith afthágaDeath, darkness, sufferingDarkness welcomedA patient evil
- bagronkat — suffering, from the late variant of translation of “bagronk” as “torture chamber”, but it was obviously a compound word in the Tolkien's mind;
- ghubrugak — passive from “welcome”, not sure if “ghu-” here has the same meaning as in previous “ghubagdafat”;
- grith — evil, as in previous incantations;
- afthága — patient;
Episode 3
The song accompanying the appearance of hill-troll named Damrod (lyrics given in a separate article in McCreary's blog):
Frápat gulzûk! (Frâp! Frâp!)
Kronthap glikîsh! (Kronth! Kronth!)
Olog klaikat snaish, (Klaik! Klaik!)
Hogh-afthud-ump! (Kronth! Kronth!)
Snap go the bones! (Snap! Snap!)
Crunch go the teeth! (Crunch! Crunch!)
Troll cracking spines (Crack! Crack!)
Beneath his feet! (Crunch! Crunch!)
So, the new words are:
- frâp — snap;
- gulzûk — bones; (all the bones)
- kronth — crunch; (ap — yet another suffix with uncertain meaning);
- glikîsh — teeth;
- olog — troll; following the tradition of other dialects, “olog” is used for all kinds of trolls;
- klaik — crack;
- snaish — spines;
- hogh,
- afthud,
- ump — hard to analyze what each part means with all the previous inconsistent word order examples; “afthud” is similar to “afthaga” (patient), but means something else here;
Adar speaks with Damrod in Black Speech, but we have only the English translation:
- Damrod. Hill-troll of the Ered Mithrin. — Damrod, zindushiguz kudrulug?; “ulug” from “olog”?
- Killer of stone giants. — Thrugsku sharz kunugush?; “thrug” as “killer, murderer” appears in MERP dialect; “kun” may be related to Sindarin “gôn”, “gond” (stone)
- Eater of dragon bones. — Glabor spugurzh/spugulz?
- Welcome. — ghubrugat (as in previous episode).
Episode 5
Choir repeats the themes from previous episodes (no new words):
Nampat-sha ghâsh!Nampat, bagronkat!Nampat-sha ghâsh!Nampat, bagronkrat, ghubagdat!Death with fire!Death, suffering!Death with fire!Death, suffering, unyielding!
Given previous examples, it's no more strange, that “sha” was added to the first word, not to the second as it should be (or just written separately without hyphen).
Burzum kurgrimpat,Burzum ozguyat.Grithum ozgat,ghubagdafat,Pushnothul higthu.Ghubagdat, ghumazglubatûk,ash grith afthága.Encroaching darkness,Darkness spreading.Reach of evil,unrelenting,evil approaches.Unyielding, indestructible,a patient evil.
- ghumazglubatûk — indestructible; “ghu-” translates as “in-”, “ûk” again was used to express some sort of passive, so mazglub stands for “destroy”.
Translations without Black Speech subtitles:
- Back away! — Dushagdatar?
Episode 6
Burz thuzgum, grithum kurthûsh.Ghâsh, dorz iklish glugak. Bagronkat.Dark malice, evil survives.Fire, cast in a new form. Suffering.
New words:
- thuzgum — malice; may be related to the root UTHU (associated with wrong deeds);
- kurthûsh — survive; judging by previous examples, the 3rd person isn't specially marked, so “ûsh” isn't a suffix here;
Episode 7
- You told us... you loved us. — Nampikap hai... kinamshupak hai?
- Hurry — torbat?
- In flame they return to darkness — ushtha-ish hul-agda u burzum (this line is repeated by the choir, so has the full transcription in Bear McCreary's blog). So “ushtha” surely stands for “flame”, but it's hard to say which part of “hul-agda” corresponds to “return” and which to “they”, but something starting with “hu-” appeared in Season 1 within another phrase with “they”, so I suppose that “hul” means “they” (besides, it's similar to “-ul” meaning “them”); also “agda” may be related to root AK and/or Sindarin “dan”.
Episode 8
Burzum-ish duthmak, burzumkoz durbol
Reborn in darkness, the Dark Lord
So, a different translation of “Dark Lord”, but “-(k)oz” appeared in Episode 1 as genitive marker (“Lord of the Dead”), thus it literally translates as “Lord of the Darkness”.
Summary
It's nice that there's a continuity in Black Speech vocabulary between the seasons of the show, but there are still some inconsistencies in translations of the same word occurred in different phrases and in word order. I wish Amazon was more open about linguistic aspect of the show.
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