[Cúdae]

Writing would make sense. They are intelligent beings (not the most intelligent, but take what you can get), and considering their whole history of selective breeding, torture, mutilation, and whatever other pains Morgoth could inflict upon them to distort them from being Elves, I'd say they easily could have had a written language. Hold on, I just confused myself (which is not a good thing). What I mean to say is that if they are descended from the original Elvish distortions, it is reasonable to say that they reatained a suffient degree of the intelligence that the Elves obviously had (and have) to learn to read and write. Along these lines, it is also a very reasonable idea that if they're regiments were the base of their culture, they may have had different letters. Or, if not different letters, then different styles of writing. One regiment may do all its writing with a distinct slant to the left while another might do all its writing straight up and down, for instance.

Moria orcs would probably have had a different system of writing completely, since they were kind of cut off in those caves of theirs. Their writing and culture may have evolved in a different way because of the distance between them and other orcs. Also, since they were in an area originally created by Dwarves, it stands to reason that at least some parts of their culture was influenced by the remains of the Dwarves' culture(s). This might have included borrowing letters from (or even a whole alphabet) the Dwarves.

I have to go look up some more information on orcs. This whole discussion has really caught my mind. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]