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GreenhillFox
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Post Goblins and orcs
on: May 02, 2017 12:41
I wonder if I am alone to feel somewhat confused with both words "goblins" and "orcs". It seems that TH mostly talks about goblins and LotR mostly about orcs, but also the alternative word occasionally appears in both.

I suppose it's sufficient to consider both words as synonyms.
Anyone a different opinion?
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Gandolorin
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on: May 02, 2017 03:04
No, they are basically synonyms, as you state. The Hobbit is a fairy-tale (not faery-story), using (supposedly) child-compatible terminology. Goblins were better-know, though also with wider, rather diffuser meanings.
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Elthir
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on: May 02, 2017 06:40
Hi Greenhill Fox, I brought my current avatar from another Tolkien forum over here. Thought you might like it!

To start with the simpler version of my answer: goblins and orcs are exactly the same thing.

Anyway, you are not alone with respect to confusion about this matter. Over the years Tolkien himself used the terms somewhat confusingly at times. In my opinion it's been confused on the web, and even by noted Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey too (to some degree I think), but from around the mid 1960s and later, I'd say that JRRT hit upon an elegant and simple idea...

... although, even this late notion is not plagued by complete consistency

Rather than synonym, I'll use "translation". Ultimately, and especially with respect to the author's note to The Hobbit [the revised third edition of the 1960s], the word orc became an actual Westron word, the English word "goblin" being used to translate this -- compare the Quenya word Eldar and the English word "Elves", for example.

To go over the possible (or arguable) earlier scenarios, might be...

... confusing

It's like "dog" used to translate German hund. Easy enough, and there's no difference intended between the two, yet Tolkien, ever word conscious, preferred the German [Westron] word for The Lord of the Rings, employing hund [orc] often, although using expected dog [goblin] as well, in the English version.

In one text, as I read it anyway, Tolkien even explains that for The Lord of the Rings, he should have always, or at least usually (as in The Hobbit), used the word goblin, according to his own system, but didn't.

Again, that explains what I argue is the final, authorized solution, not what was seemingly going on behind the scenes, so to speak, in the decades before.

[Edited on 05/02/2017 by Elthir]
Gandolorin
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on: May 02, 2017 07:42
Elthir said:... compare the Quenya word Eldar and the English word "Elves", for example ...

And for some reason, I feel like making an (almost?) irrelevant comment here. The German language also has the word “Elfen”, which I would by gut feeling equate with Tinker Belle. The word that was used for the Vanyar / Nordor / Teleri was “Elben”, which even JRRT found better than the English “Elves”. Elb is also a later version of the German word “Alb”, as in “Albtraum”, meaning nightmare, and very close to “Alf”, the King or faery in “Smith of Wootton Major”. Never mind “dog” and “hund”.
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Elthir
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on: May 02, 2017 12:52
Heheh, but I still like the dog and hund comparison, in part because to me, orc "sounds" bigger and more fearsome than goblin, just like [again to me] hund sounds bigger and more fearsome than dog. I realize such a thing is quite subjective, but another reason is that it's easy enough to imagine different kinds and sizes of dogs... but they are all dogs...

... and an uruk and a snaga, for instance, are both orcs... or in fuller English, both goblins.

Anyway, interesting post Gandolorin! Also, part of letter 151 is interesting here as well, where Tolkien explains about some real world baggage with "Elves".

"Also I now deeply regret having used Elves, though this is a word in ancestry and original meaning suitable enough. But the disastrous debasement of this word, in which Shakespeare played an unforgiveable part, has really overloaded it with regrettable tones, which are too much to overcome. I hope in the Appendices to Vol. III to be able to include a note "On translation' in which the matter of equivalences and my uses may be made clearly. My difficulty has been that I have tried to present a kind of legendary and history of a 'forgotten epoch', all the specific terms were in a foreign language, and no precise equivalents exist in English..."

JRRT 1954


And he did explain "Elf" a bit in Appendix F, for example... but dropped "Gnomes" for Noldor [yet another story].
Elthir
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on: May 02, 2017 09:33
By the way Greenhill Fox, I'll emphasize the relatively late date with respect to Tolkien's ultimate characterization. For me this can explain why the two instances of orc in The Hobbit [besides the sword-name Orcrist], at least arguably seem to suggest a distinction between an orc and a goblin. As some argue.

In my view this is because orcs and goblins were, at one time, while considered to be the same basic creature, distinct in fearsomeness. We can see this in drafts for The Lord of the Rings, even an arguable instance of distinction [of some sort] appearing in a draft for one of the Appendices.

But the ultimate characterization within the translation conceit neatly strips that notion away. In the mid 1960s and after, all examples of "goblin" then become, in a consistent context at least [if not within a consistently adhered to system], simply English terms for the exact same creature.

Whereas an orc had been [externally] a more fearsome kind of goblin, behind the scenes and at one time, the idea became that the word "beneath goblin", so to speak, was orc -- the Westron word to be found in the imagined original Westron text. Tolkien still employs words for greater goblins versus lesser goblins, but the words are uruk and snaga rather.


Tom Shippey's [fairly popular] claim was that while there is no difference between an orc and a goblin, the word goblin represents a word used by Hobbits, while orc represents a word used by other folk.

Seems correct... but I disagree

And his theory is more complicated than Tolkien's scenario, I think, suggesting, despite the note to the third edition Hobbit, that we don't know the actual word that the Hobbits used in their time. Anyway he commits a "scholar's sin" here, by not going to the primary source, instead relying on someone else to count the instances of goblin in The Lord of the Rings for him. Someone who missed some examples.

And I only add this post because... well... I like to drone on about certain subjects.

And mostly because I feel important disagreeing with Tom Shippey

[Edited on 05/03/2017 by Elthir]
tarcolan
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on: May 03, 2017 02:09
Curiously, the word 'goblin' only appears in FOTR and even then only spoken, mostly by hobbits (except Frodo), and appears in the name of a firework. Gimli uses it once in Moria, perhaps for the hobbits' sake. If Tolkien's intent was to leave the term behind, the fade-out is accomplished quite smoothly. Mr Shippey can be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that it was a hobbit word, perhaps?

In letter 144 he states that the word 'orc' comes from Old English for demon and owes much to the goblin tradition. I especially like this line -
They are not based on direct experience of mine...
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Gandolorin
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on: May 03, 2017 02:25
Elthir said:... just like [again to me] hund sounds bigger and more fearsome than dog ...

I’ll venture an educated guess why “hund” sounds bigger than “dog” to you: add the letter O to “hund”, and you get hound. In M-e, for me this almost automatically means Huan, who may have been the size of a horse. In real life, what could be his closest equivalent might be the Irish wolfhound – no lapdogs those pooches are!

But I can turn the whole thing on its head when I present what may be a German relation to the English word dog: “Dogge”, which in Germany almost always conjures up the Great Dane (which is called “Deutsche Dogge” in Germany – the renaming in English may have been a result of WW I, possibly for the same reason that what’s called the “Deutsche Schäferhund” (mis-) translates into Alsatian in some quarters; though German shepherd is also quite common). The term “Dogge” in German may also extend to many other triple-whopper pooches, like St. Bernard, Mastino, Mastiff, Bullmastiff, Dogue de Bordeaux (also Bordeaux Mastiff or French Mastiff) – the last being called “Bordeauxdogge” in German.

Interesting how two terms possibly deriving from a common linguistic root may have had senses shifting in diametrically opposite directions.
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Elthir
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on: May 03, 2017 03:48
Tarcolan wrote: Curiously, the word 'goblin' only appears in FOTR and even then only spoken, mostly by hobbits (except Frodo), and appears in the name of a firework. Gimli uses it once in Moria, perhaps for the hobbits' sake.


I don't think Gimli uses the word until after the Company is out of Moria, but anyway the word goblin [including compounds] occurs in The Two Towers as well, most notably in the chapter The Uruk-hai.


If Tolkien's intent was to leave the term behind, the fade-out is accomplished quite smoothly. Mr Shippey can be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that it was a hobbit word, perhaps?


Here's part of the characterization I referred to...

'I used to say that Tolkien dropped the word goblin after he introduced the word orc, because he was not satisfied with its etymology [...] I was wrong about goblin, as the Thesaurus again revealed to me, with nine uses of the word in The Lord of the Rings. The Thesaurus also reveals, however, that the word tends to be used, in The Lord of the Rings, not by the wise and the long-lived, like Gandalf or Elrond, but by the Hobbits*: and hobbits, like modern English-speakers, are not good at etymology. The word is perhaps part of their low-style speech mode, which attracts particular attention in Gondor and indeed in the Riddermark. Tolkien's use of language, in short, is deep and consistent, and the Thesaurus helps you trace it.'

*five times out of nine the word is either used by a Hobbit or in an entirely hobbitic context. Gimli and Gamling the Rider also use the word once, the latter perhaps showing the connection between the Rider's language and the ancestral speech of the hobbits. Twice it is used in general narration.'

Tom Shippey


But there are thirteen examples, not nine. And Gimli's use isn't really tackled here, nor general narration in my opinion, besides being referenced as [incorrectly] two. Also, The Hobbit itself is discounted, by reason that Tolkien wasn't trying to illustrate a particular Hobbit usage in that book.

Tolkien's ultimate translation scenario nicely works for all of his published books however. And if I recall correctly, I don't think Mr. Shippey tackled Tolkien's revised note to the Third Edition Hobbit, nor took on JRRT's explanation meant for various translators of The Lord of the Rings.

As I read these two, relatively late texts, Tolkien explains that the word the Hobbits actually used, back in their day, was orc, which to me doesn't flow well with the idea that English "goblin" represents some unknown term particular to Hobbits.

Although I'm a forgiving kind of pedantic guy anyway

[Edited on 05/03/2017 by Elthir]
Elthir
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on: May 03, 2017 04:08
Excellent info Gandolorin! And yep, I didn't expect even every English speaker to agree that hund "sounds" bigger than "dog", as I say it's quite subjective, but I love the sort of stuff you added.

From an online etymological dictionary:

dog (n.) Old English docga, a late, rare word, used in at least one Middle English source in reference to a powerful breed of canine. The word forced out Old English hund (the general Germanic and Indo-European word; see canine) by 16c. and subsequently was picked up in many continental languages (French dogue (16c.), Danish dogge, German Dogge (16c.)), but the origin remains one of the great mysteries of English etymology.


I note "powerful breed of canine" there. Will my personal "sound effect" change now... we shall see, but I still "need" a good real word translation pair, and I already know how to spell hund!



Tolkien did, at least once, refer to Huan as a wolfhound, however people take that. For myself, I picture something very similar to the current Irish breed... but "houndier" meaning embiggened here.

Or something.
tarcolan
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on: May 05, 2017 10:37
More notes on canines
From an online Old English thesaurus:
02.06.02.01.04 n
Domestic animals, livestock :: Dog docga

07.05.03.03|13 n
Calumny, backbiting :: Scorn, insult, abuse :: Abusive terms docga
and hound seems to be a worthy dog
Domestic animals, livestock :: Dog :: A hunting-dog hund[/b


There could be a connection to this word in an Anglo-Saxon dictionary
[b]dóc [] m (-es/-as) bastard, mongrel, hybrid, son


Now what were we talking about? Oh yes. Thanks for correcting me Elthir, etext is very handy if one can use the search function. The word 'goblin' is used in narration in relation to the dead orcs found by the three runners, and the head on a stick. This is the only use which did not concern hobbits, so is an anomaly if we assume that the text is taken from the records of those present.
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Gandolorin
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on: May 05, 2017 11:54
tarcolan said:... Now what were we talking about? Oh yes ...

There is the phrase "dogs of war" ... hang on, Wiki tells us is stems from the highest ( ) of Enlish literature:

“In English, the dogs of war is a phrase spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war".”

Now this conjures up Orcs for me quite naturally! And then, when Frodo and Sam are in the Emyn Muil, they are tracked by a large war-Orc and a smaller “Snaga”, who appears to have quite dog-like tracking abilities by scent. But even Cesar Millan would fail in trying to (re-) socialize this kind of tracker! Image
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Elthir
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on: May 06, 2017 12:15
tarcolan said: "(...) Now what were we talking about? Oh yes. Thanks for correcting me Elthir, etext is very handy if one can use the search function. The word 'goblin' is used in narration in relation to the dead orcs found by the three runners, and the head on a stick. This is the only use which did not concern hobbits, so is an anomaly if we assume that the text is taken from the records of those present."


Thanks for the added notes, Tarcolan. More interesting stuff!

Back to goblin: if you mean (as you seem to) examples from parts of the tale in which hobbits were not present, we must also include Gamling's use of goblin-men. Also, I've heard the argument that users of the word goblin are all people whose language is mainly derived from Rhovanion.

But two things about these theories.

In the books all the Hobbits, and Gimli and Eomer [as an example of a Rohir], use orc as well. The word appears quite early in The Fellowship of the Ring even, Frodo using it in The Shadow of the Past. So I think there should be some reasoning to explain this, within the theory.

Moreover, goblin is still an English word of course, and a translation of something, and in my opinion "Tolkien as translator" tells us that the Westron word that the Hobbits used, back in their day, was orc. Not another word besides orc, translated by English goblin.

"(2) Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds). Orc is the hobbits' form of the name given at that time to these creatures, and it is not connected at all with our orc, ork, applied to sea-animals of dolphin-kind." JRRT The Hobbit, note to Third Edition


"Orc This is supposed to be the Common Speech name of these creatures at that time; it should therefore according to the system be translated to English, or the language of translation. (...)" JRRT Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings, or Nomenclature



To my mind, these characterize orc as an actual Westron word [despite being inspired by Old English externally], and spoken by Hobbits "back then" [before Old English existed] -- translated by goblin. And this all seems to me to be in accord with...

"Orcs and the Black Speech. Orc is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people, as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was orch. Related, no doubt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech..." Appendix F


Here orc is noted along with Sindarin orch and Black Speech uruk, other words actually spoken in this deep past, not translations. And this section appears in Appendix F On Languages, but before the part "On Translation".

And Tolkien explains [continued from Nomenclature above]:
"It was translated 'goblin' in The Hobbit, except in one place; but this word, and other words of similar sense in other European languages (as far as I know), are not really suitable. The orc in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, though of course partly made out of traditional features, is not really comparable in supposed origin, functions, and relation to the Elves. In any case orc seemed to me, and seems, in sound a good name for these creatures. It should be retained."


So, despite that orc "should" be translated goblin according to the system...

... it should [Tolkien wants it to] be retained for these reasons


The theory of a specific Hobbit word, is, of course, possible, given [for example]: Westron kuduk -- used by Hobbits, translated with "hobbit" [][] Westron banakil -- used by other folk, translated with "Halfling".

Which might leave us with the possibility: unknown Westron word used by Hobbits [in low speech style] -- translated with "goblin" [][] unknown Westron word used by other folk -- translated with "orc"

But, based on these relatively late characterizations, in my opinion what we ultimately have is: Westron orc -- used by Hobbits and other folk; translated "goblin" (though not all the time).

[Edited on 05/06/2017 by Elthir]
GreenhillFox
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on: May 07, 2017 07:51
Due thanks to all contributors for this in-depth visit of the topic!

PS - "Dog" in Flemish/Dutch means "hond" - same production articles, though
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Elthir
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on: May 14, 2017 10:24
Trying to avoid some laundry, I did a search and found a few statements currently on the web (my comments admittedly based on what I believe is the ultimate scenario here):

Wikipedia entry Orc (Middle-Earth)

In The Lord of the Rings, Orc is used predominantly, and goblin appears mostly in the Hobbits' speech.


Rather the word goblin appears mostly in narration, if we are going to break up instances of speech by peoples.

The second volume of the novel, The Two Towers, contains passages where "goblin" is used to describe Saruman's Uruk-hai as being different from the usual "Orc":


Without trying to untangle this statement too much, the entry cites a description from The Departure of Boromir and at least arguably suggests that "goblin" is here a term to help mark distinctions between uruks and other orcs. On a better note, the entry currently states:

Orc itself is from Rohirric[3] and the Hobbit-language,[4] which shared linguistic roots, but the term is clearly related to the older Elvish words.


Good that the word orc is being characterized as an actual word spoken "back then". I would have just said that Orc is a Westron word to cover other folk including Hobbits, though it makes sense to point out the word "appearing in" the language of the Rohirrim anyway, since that language is different from Westron.

As to the internal history of the word orc, to my knowledge Tolkien never explained it after he decided that is was a Westron term [again, before this point, externally, is another matter]. One would reasonably guess that the ultimate source is Elvish, I agree, though it's never stated outright.

Also footnote 4 refers to a secondary source. Not that I necessarily disagree with that source, but in the end it's secondary.

Tolkien WIKI Community

Does a good job overall, but by reason of trying to include information, they also include a citation [in their Nomenclature section] in which orc is a translation, from the text Quendi And Eldar. That's a late 1950s early 1960s idea, which to my mind conflicts with the later scenario.

Tolkien Gateway


"Goblin" is an English word, whereas "Orc" is Old English, the language used by Tolkien to represent Rohirric.[9] Thus, there is no difference between Orcs and Goblins.


A weaving of correct notions, which I think ends up suggesting the wrong thing however, the wrong idea being that Old English orc is a translation and not a Westron word. The conclusion here is yet that there's no difference between orcs and goblins, a conclusion I agree with!



This sort of mist is not unexpected, since A) Tolkien did employ Old English as a translation language to represent the actual language of the Rohirrim, and B) he borrowed orc from Old English, and C) Appendix F notes that orc is the word used by the Rohirrim, as well as other folk.


Tolkien said that one of the reason of choosing "Orc" over "Goblin" was the similarity with his fictional languages.[16] Indeed most Elvish, Mannish and other words for Orc, are similar to the English word.


Keeping in mind Tolkien's note to The Hobbit which explains that orc is not an English word, Tolkien Gateway then lists the internal words of different races and includes orka (not orc) as the Westron example.

Orka hails from another source called Words, Phrases and Passages, written about the same time as Quendi And Eldar, in which the word orc itself is seemingly not yet considered a Westron word, but some kind of substitution or translation.

So I would basically say that Tolkien's changing mind -- if one looks at works he himself never published -- is for some, muddling up the scenario he did land on and publish.

Other sources of confusion might be games in which orcs and goblins are different, and recently, the Jackson films. Also, the Website Ardalambion does not currently include the word orc in its Westron wordlist. Obviously I argue that it should be included there.

[Edited on 05/15/2017 by Elthir]
tarcolan
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on: May 17, 2017 02:24
More on mutts: Gaelic also differentiates worthy and worthless pooches.
After all that has been said I am no more inclined to adhere to Tolkien's belated explanations, he was unclear from the earliest uses whether they were the same. But I've decided to assume that many in Middle Earth used different words for the same thing for a variety of reasons, (cultural, regional, context) and that although there may well have been morphological variations in orc populations they would not warrant separate words, even if some used them in such a way (Gamling).

As dog and hound aren't suitable parallels, how about snicket and alley? This is a regional and thus linguistic difference but I can't yet think of a more neutral pair. Obviously mutt and pooch would not do.
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Elthir
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on: May 17, 2017 07:08
tarcolan said: More on mutts: Gaelic also differentiates worthy and worthless pooches.


Okay, but my point is that if a translator chooses "dog" to translate a German text in which hund is found, does he or she intend to suggest a difference? I would say very probably no.

Or, if there is something going on where the translator intends a distinction between the original word in Westron, and the English word used in translation, in my opinion one must provide a reasonable, convincing pattern to illustrate this with goblin and orc.

After all that has been said I am no more inclined to adhere to Tolkien's belated explanations, he was unclear from the earliest uses whether they were the same.


Well, there are various examples of Tolkien changing his mind about a given subject over the years, and he's quite free to do so when something hasn't been published. Here, Tolkien himself published the late idea explaining the relationship between orc and goblin, as well as the detail that orc is a Westron word, no matter what notions it went through, in what are, essentially by comparison, drafts of other posthumously published sources.

But I've decided to assume that many in Middle Earth used different words for the same thing for a variety of reasons, (cultural, regional, context) and that although there may well have been morphological variations in orc populations they would not warrant separate words, even if some used them in such a way (Gamling).


As we know, Gamling does not speak English of course, and Tolkien as translator chooses "goblin-men" for Gamling ["... these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred..."], which according to the system of translation, is full English for part Westron/part English "Orc-men"

As dog and hound aren't suitable parallels, how about snicket and alley? This is a regional and thus linguistic difference but I can't yet think of a more neutral pair. Obviously mutt and pooch would not do.


But why aren't dog and hund suitable parallels? As one is a translation of the other, this is arguably why they are more suitable than regional, variant words from the same language.

Above in the thread, Gandolorin was speaking to a subjective opinion of mine, that hund "sounds bigger" than dog, but that's just my personal opinion, and doesn't invalidate the pair I've selected.

It might if Gandolorin is also claiming that German hund would be incorrectly translated with English "dog" for some reason, in a general text which uses hund -- and if so I'll choose a different pair of course [my two years of learning German were long ago, and I've forgotten most of that much], but so far, unless I've missed his point, he's noted that to a German speaker, "dog" probably "sounds bigger" than hund, or at least might be or would be associated with larger kinds.

Okay

But opinions about sound aside, as far as I know, English dog can refer to all kinds of dogs, big and small, and [so far] it still seems to be an acceptable word to translate the German word hund, where occurring generally in a German text... a text about hunde. With a quick search on the web I found a lesson including:

nom. der Hund (the dog) [plural] die Hunde


I'm guessing German can get more specific about things with various terms, but here, for example, the "dog". Thus the Orc... in full English "the goblin". No?

[Edited on 05/18/2017 by Elthir]
Gandolorin
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on: May 17, 2017 09:04
English dog and German Hund are each other’s translations for the generic term for Canis lupus familiaris or Canis familiaris. Image
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Elthir
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on: May 17, 2017 08:54
Heheh, I like the illustrated post there Gandolorin.

Just to add: Tolkien does create a translation term that means "larger goblins" as well, with English "hobgoblin", but that doesn't mean goblin doesn't still refer to all goblins. If I invented an English word "gredog" [in theory a worn down form of "great dog"] to refer to larger kinds, that wouldn't alter the general meaning of "dog".

"Alas! one conclusion is that the statement that hobgoblins were 'a larger kind' is the reverse of the original truth." JRRT, letter 319


Oh well... it's published now. It's the truth in Middle-earth!

[Edited on 05/18/2017 by Elthir]
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