Do not trust David Day. He presents opinions as facts and sometimes just plain makes things up.
JRRT wrote:
" For these shapes and the terror that they inspired the element chiefly used in the ancient tongue of the Elves appears to have been *RUKU. In all the Eldarin tongues (and, it is said, in the Avarin also) there are many derivatives of this stem, having such ancient forms as: ruk-, rauk-, uruk-, urk(u), runk-, rukut/s, besides the strengthened stem gruk-, and the elaborated guruk-, nguruk. (Note 27, p. 415) Already in PQ that word must have been formed which had in CE the form *rauku or *rauko. This was applied to the larger and more terrible of the enemy shapes. But ancient were also the forms uruk, urku/o, and the adjectival urka 'horrible'."
"The form in Adunaic urku, urkhu may be direct from Quenya or Sindarin; and this form underlies the words for Orc in the languages of Men of the North-West in the Second and Third Ages. The Orcs themselves adopted it, for the fact that it referred to terror and detestation delighted them. The word uruk that occurs in the Black Speech, devised (it is said) by Sauron to serve as a lingua franca for his subjects, was probably borrowed by him from the Elvish tongues of earlier times."
Quoted from 'Quendi and Eldar', in in 'War of the Jewels'.
Uruk-hai most likely means something like 'Orc-folk' ('hai' likely indicating a 'plural' form).
[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: Tar Elenion ]
[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: Tar Elenion ]
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Tar-Elenion
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