Old Notes on "The Black Speech"

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

These are the first words written of the One Ring's inscription, the lone inscription in the language that Tolkein himself abhorred. But what can be gathered from this?

The Sarumanic forces represented in his epic are clearly based off of the paganic, war-centered barbarians of the Germanic tribes. Concerning their relations to dark forces, it is possible that sound mutation laws may apply and therefore have correspondance with germanic and even PIE-roots.

For example, the norse 'og' (and) could be analogous following this postulation to 'agh'.

Black Speech's a corresponds to a north germanic o.
Hard G in norse becomes gh, and visa versa.

One link to this postulation is the suffix -at, which can be analogous to ad or at just in suffix form.

Also, the word 'Uruk' can refer to the 'arisk' people that the berserker race was based off of, with 'ur' having its root in 'Ar-' and '-uk' being a mutation of '-ik'.

From this we conclude that i becomes u.

Therefore the nordic word 'ik' becomes 'ugh'.

BS:Reconstruction Ur-Dialect (RUD)

balgat    to know
durbat    to rule (lit. towards rulling)
gimbat    to find
kimpat    to lurk
krimpat    to bind
simpat    to sleep
thrakat    to bring

bak    book
ban    gate
buk    ground
burz    dark
gul    a spirit, entity, daemonic force made manifest, a goule or sorts, wraith, thing
hai    people, race, group, collective
mal    language, speech, speak
min    land, ground
mirz    Egypt
nazg    ring
zun    wall

-at    towards, to, for (jp. -he)
-uk    -ic, -ian, -isk, -ish
    v. -all, implies totality, all of as object marker
-ul    them, object marker
-um    the, -ness, totality/thing-manifest marker

ash    one

agh    and

Ugh balgul - I know them