Sam and the Ring

[Ophelia]

I read all over the chapters where Sam has the Ring and somethin' bothers me still . Maybe I have got it all wrong or missed something because of the book is not in my native language but still I would like to know one thing .

The Ring gave Sam a power to understand the orc language . But when he is at the tower of Cirith Ungol he understands what the orcs say to each other so the strangest part of it is that Sam isn't wearing the Ring . And now don't go telling me that Shagrat and Snaga used the Common Speech because it makes no sence - they were from the same breed .

So how did Sam understand them ? Or maybe he did not ? Help me to better understand this mystery of my mind .

And pleace forgive me if there is allready a topic like this but I could not find it anywhere .

[akhtene]

It's not said definitely that the Ring gave understanding of tongues, only 'perhaps'. But it sharpened some senses for sure.
And now don't go telling me that Shagrat and Snaga used the Common Speech because it makes no sence - they were from the same breed .
But they were not. Shagrat was an Uruk, and Snaga - some lesser orc, hence the (nick)name: Snaga = slave. Besides, Westron was widely used by orcs in the form of their jargon, while Black speech was mostly the language of the Dark Tower.

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Yes; as I remember, the language of orcish was merely a debased form of Westron -- that is to say a descendant of Numenorean, enriched with the speech of other Men of Middle-Earth -- enriched with components of the Black Speech. The Black Speech in its pure form was not spoken all over Mordor -- although Sauron's purpose was indeed to spread it over the whole of Middle-Earth once he had conquered it. Many Orcs would probably have mostly spoken Westron anyway.

So the speech of the Orcs would have been more or less intelligible to most listeners-in, such as Sam, even without the enhanced powers of aural perception awarded to him by the Ring.

[Samwise Gamgee]

If you remember, pippin and merry could both understand orcs

[Finwe]

I don't think he understood every word of it, he just understood the general meaning of what they were saying. Since the language of the Orcs was a corrupted form of Westron, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin could understand what they were saying, since they themselves spoke Westron.

[The Saucepan Man]

If you remember, pippin and merry could both understand orcs

Yes, that's true. But they were certainly of different tribes, some being Orcs of Mordor and others being Orcs of Isengard. There were also Moria Orcs present. In The Uruk-Hai, we are told:

To Pippin's surprise he found that much of the talk was intelligible; many of the Orcs were using ordinary language. Apparently the members of two or three quite different tribes were present, and they could not understand one another's orc-speech.

In fact, earlier, one of the Orcs (Grishnakh, I think) had "passed into a long angry speech in his own tongue" while talking to Pippin.

As for Sam, it may be that the Ring enabled him to understand Gorbag and Shagrat talking in their own tongue (they were both senior Orcs of Mordor and so might well have shared a language), or perhaps he only imagined that it did whereas they were in fact using the Common Speech. The account is, after all, written from Sam's perspective.

Later, when he is no longer wearing the Ring, he is able to understand Shagrat speaking to Snaga. But, as has already been said, Shagrat was a Captain and Snaga only a slave, it is unlikely that they shared a common language being from different "castes". Later, when they are travelling through Mordor, Frodo and Sam are able to understand the conversation between a "big fighting-orc" and a tracker:

As usual, they were quarrelling, and being of different breeds, they used the Common Speech after their fashion.

This confirms that there were different breeds of Orc within Mordor and that they used different languages. And this is probably why Frodo and Sam were also able to understand the "slave-driver" Orc who mistook them for one of the "gang of smaller breed" when they fell in with the line of Orcs marching to the front.

It is also worth noting that, in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, Sam is able to understand Shagrat's triumphant address to Gorbag after he has slain him. Perhaps Shagrat wanted others such as Snaga to hear and understand him, so as to instill fear in them. Or perhaps he just carried on using the language in which he had been conversing with Snaga.

In any event, in most of the situations where the Hobbits are able to understand the Orcs, it is because they are of different breeds and therefore conversing in the Common Speech. The only real exception is when Sam overhears Shagrat and Gorbag talking. Either they were speaking in their shared language and the Ring allowed Sam to understand, or they were speaking in the Common Speech and Sam only imagined that the Ring allowed him to understand them. Either explanation is possible.

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Orcish was a corrupted form of westron, but was probably different between the various breeds enough to cause confusion when speaking it to one another. ORcs are not famed for their intelligence and tolerance anyway. It was probably easier to use the common speech, but I believe that Sam could still have understood them speaking their own form of Orcish -- if only elementarily.

[Ophelia]

Thank you kind people for lightening up my little mind . Now I finally understand the book compleetly . Thank you once more and forgive my dumbnes in these matters . smilies/smile.gif