Anders Svensson: Tolkien showed evil with consonants

When JRR Tolkien separates evil from good, he uses language to help. The reader does not need to know what is being said – but how something is said is enough to know whether a person is evil or good. Tolkien highlights this symbolism already at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings through the inscription in the Lord’s Ring:

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

The text is written in Blacktongue, one of the countless fictional languages ​​spoken in Tolkien’s literary world. In Lotta Olsson’s translation from 2005, the verse states:

A ring to judge them, a ring to see them,

A ring to catch them and for darkness give them,

In Mordor, in the land of shadows.

Tolkien claimed himself For black language to be expressive, orderly, and logical – a model that reflects Dark Lord Sauron’s goal in ruling Middle-earth. There will be a stream of snoring sounds. However, the inscription loomed over something strange and dangerous.

One of the basic tenets of linguistics today is that language is mostly arbitrary, that is, the relationship between words and meaning is arbitrary. There is no distinguishing characteristic of a dog that would cause it to be called accurately dogwithout a word dog It can mean “cat”.

But there are non-arbitrary words. The dog can also be called dog It is no coincidence that it is formed into a vov that imitates the sound. Onomatopoeic – or onomatopoetic – are also words like chirpAnd the zoomAnd the splashAnd the neighAnd the nag And the giggle.

In recent years, researchers have noticed other types of connections. In many languages, for example, there is an association between the tongue tip r and words for rough surfaces, as in English harsh. So this sounds like the texture of the surface.

There was speculation In that Tolkien’s black language would be inspired by Hurrian, a language spoken in present-day Turkey and Iraq 2300-1200 BC. But the inscription on the seal of the ruler is today an arbitrary invention. However, it is usually interpreted as evil.

The reason is that consonant groups like ghAnd the u And the stick Its pronunciation as in Tolkien’s world may sound harsh or harsh to someone who grew up with a language like Swedish or English, but it can be interpreted in other ways by other ears. Thus, the consistent richness of black language is an advanced kind of movie trick of having the bad guys speak English with an accent of German, Russian or Arabic, where language reveals the nature of a person – and where specific pronunciation and language hint at stereotypes about who is cruel, primitive and evil.

Seeing the language often goes hand in hand with the speaker’s point of view. An international survey showed that English with a Russian accent is considered the most insulting. The most complex is the French accent, the most confident is the Swedish accent, the uneducated American accent is the American accent and the most specific is the German accent. It is of course possible to call the bingo bias for less.

When did Tolkien create language? Spoken by peoples such as the Elves, Ents, Hobbits and Humans – practically the good side – Old English, Old Norse, and Celtic languages, among others, were models. It also drew inspiration from Latin and Greek. In the original script, the people of Rohan were simply allowed to speak Old English. The Elven Quenya language was largely based on Finnish, while Sindarin, another elven language, has strong elements of Welsh.

Thus, it was the European languages ​​that served as models when Tolkien built languages ​​for Sauron’s opponents. What these languages ​​have in common is that they were distinguished by sonors, the sounds of the language which, like vowels, are pronounced without significant hindrance. On the other hand, the languages ​​of evil were rich in obstacles, such as the master And the stick In the ruling verse, where the air does not flow freely through the speech apparatus.

The exception to this style was the Dwarf Treasury, which borrowed much from Hebrew. However, the dwarves were reluctant to use khozdel in front of the others, preferring then the Western, common human language, which in the original text was equivalent to English. In addition, he introduced dwarves with pseudonyms taken from Norse mythology, such as DoreenAnd the in a deep sleepAnd the bomberAnd the philly And the Kelly.

In Tolkien’s world, human allies spoke languages ​​that were appropriately exotic, somewhat nostalgic, and foreign without being unfamiliar. Instead, he symbolized evil with ring sounds and harmonious combinations that are difficult to master. And so language paired with stereotypes was enough to make Sauron, Ringwraiths, and Orcs the enemy.

Read more:

Charlotte Brandstrom: “The Rings of Power is the most secretive project I’ve ever worked on”

Bjorn Wiemann: The Lord of the Rings has become a favorite right-wing dwarf story