Mythic Unities in The Lord of the Rings

[davem]

Originally Posted by Helen

Those who speak elvish are Good Guys. Those who use the black speech are Bad Guys. But both orcs and men speak Westron at need. Interesting that the language of men is useable by the corrupt while the language of elves resists use by corruption.

I agree - yet wouldn't Sauron as Annatar' have spoken Elvish with the Elves of Eregion? And I also find it interesting that Sauron actually created the Black SpeechIts a language intended to create a new kind of link between name & thing named. Its an attempt, in a sense to change the world, to impose a new meaning on things- actually to alter the way his servants think about the world.

Surely, what he's attempting with the Black Speech is to change 'perceptions'. Its a bit like calling wild creatures 'game', or foxes 'vermin'. If a language is full of words for ugliness, violence, cruelty, that must inevitably affect the mindset of those who speak it. As we know, it never caught on among the orcs - perhaps they retained enough of their 'eruhini' nature that they couldn't adopt it fully, but the mentality behind it seems to have 'infected' the Westron they used. The orcs seem to have spoken almost a 'black Westron'.

Language, the words we use to refer to the 'things' of experience, affect the way we relate to them, so manipulation of language affects our behaviour, because it determines the way we treat things.

So, 'Those who speak elvish are Good Guys. Those who use the black speech are Bad Guys.' Yes, but are to what extent do the Elves 'speak' a 'good' language because they're 'good' beings, & to what extent are they 'good' because they speak a 'good' language'. & obviously the opposite point could be made in regard to Orcs? Do races (&individuals) shape the language they use, or does it shape them?. How 'orcish' would an orc be if he had been brought up speaking only Elvish? Or, how much 'magic', or 'genetic manipulation' did Morgoth use in making Orcs from Elves? Maybe his most powerful tool in that 'transformation' was language.....