Tolkien’s Orcish Delight

[Nakharar]

Tolkien’s Orcish delight

 

 

If Tolkien based The Shire, where the Hobbits lived in The Lord Of The Rings, on Shropshire, where was Mordor?

 

There is some debate as to where Tolkien based the Shire. In one of his letters, he indicated that its approximate location is rural Warwickshire. Shropshire, Lancashire’s Lune valley and rural Worcestershire have also been mooted as possible locations

 

Most of the geographical and personal names used by Tolkien were adapted from European mythology. Middle Earth, where most of the action in Lord Of The Rings, the Hobbit and The Silmarillion takes place, is a literal translation of the Old Norse mythological term Midgard, referring to this world, the realm of humans.

 

Likewise a proposed etymology for Mordor is the Old English morthor, which means ‘mortal sin’ or ‘murder’.

 

To the casual reader, Middle Earth appears to be an entirely imaginary other-world. In fact, Tolkien devised it as a fictional period in our Earth’s own past 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. The action of the books is largely confined to the north-west of the continent, corresponding to modern-day Europe, and little is known about the east and south of Middle Earth.

 

If you were to superimpose a scale map of Tolkien’s Middle Earth over a map of Europe, aligning some of the most obvious climatological, botanical and zoological similarities, you get a good approximation of how Tolkien saw his domain.

 

Mordor, home to the Dark Lord Sauron, by position and shape (swopping the mountainous borders for the sea on three sides) is Turkey. Harad is the Arab lands and the Easterlings come from central Asia. Not only does Mordor have the shape of Turkey/ Asia Minor, but Turkish also has similarities to Orcish/the Black Speech, and more fancifully Tolkien’s slave peoples who live around the Sea of Nurnen could be linked to the Armenians and their original homeland round Lake Van.

 

The Hobbits’ Shire would be in temperate England; Gondor in Mediterranean Italy and Greece; South Gondor in the deserts of Northern Africa; Rhovanion in the forests of Eastern Europe and the steppes of Western and Southern Russia; and the Ice Bay of Forochel in the fjords of Norway.

 

More specifically, Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, is comparable to Venice, and Pelargir, Gondor’s second city, with Byzantium (Constantinople).

 

Answer provided by Chris Watkinson, Nottingham.

 

© The Daily Mail

[Nakharar]

Domuzdan post, gâvurdan dost olmaz

 

Whoops, I guess I used the black language of Mordor

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Gurgen was on to something.

[Nakharar]

About Black Language. I heard Circassian for the first time in my life this weekend when a group of Turkish Circassians held a demo in Köln. Oh my, I've never heard such an ugly language before. It seemed like an unstoopable flow of vomit and hacking sounds. Which is not surprising since these tribal folks do have a slight resemblance to Orks both in appearance and culture.

[gamavor]

About Black Language. I heard Circassian for the first time in my life this weekend when a group of Turkish Circassians held a demo in Köln. Oh my, I've never heard such an ugly language before. It seemed like an unstoopable flow of vomit and hacking sounds. Which is not surprising since these tribal folks do have a slight resemblance to Orks both in appearance and culture.

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Cheers Nakharar!

[Zartonk]

I knew it!! This is cool!

 

When I heard Naz-gul (c'mmon, naz guul!) and Uruk-hai (hye) I was convienced.

 

Which is not surprising since these tribal folks do have a slight resemblance to Orks both in appearance and culture.

 

ouch