# How could Frodo and Sam undertand the Orcs?



## Phenix (Jul 21, 2002)

*question about...*

in the return of the king, Frodo and sam dress like orcs and then a group of real orcs come and tell the hoobits to follow them right. 

whel my quetion is how could Frodo and sam understand the orcs, they don't speak the same languish, right???


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## YayGollum (Jul 21, 2002)

It was because these orcs had all come from different areas and they all had different dialects, so they all used that one language.

Deserters.


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## YayGollum (Jul 21, 2002)

Well, yeah. I know how to spell supercalafraja...well, never mind. Yes, I'm sure about deserters.


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## GtG (Jul 21, 2002)

Even if the orcs could speak Common, they must be really stupid. I mean, how could they not recognize that Frodo and Sam weren't really orcs? They're both 3 or 4 feet tall, if even.


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## My_Precious (Jul 21, 2002)

Some orks were the same height as Frodo and Sam. There were tall orks and there were smaller orks. Plus, I don't think that they would care what height Frodo and Sam were, they had a war ahead. Plus, they are characters, and Tolkien wrote that they didn't care or notice the height difference. Otherwise the book would have another ending.


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## aragil (Jul 22, 2002)

I believe that most Orcs were fairly short- Hobbits would still be below average, but even the tallest Orcs (my beloved Uruk-hai) were more convenient opponents for Gimli the Dwarf than the Men who were at Helm's Deep. Also, remember the Goblins of the Misty Mountains- Gollum was regularly able to strangle them. That would be quite a feat for a Hobbit if the Orcs were large.
Regarding the language- Tolkien tortured himself to write it so that the Hobbits could understand the Orcs of Mordor (and subsequently be able to record what they heard in The Red Book of Westmarch). His solutions were as follows:
1)Sam overhearing conversation between Gorbab and Shagrat while in Shelob's cave- Sam was wearing the Ring, and so able to 'understand' the Black Speech (the language Sauron invented, which would have been what the two Orc Captains were speaking).
2)Sam overhearing conversation between Shagrat and Snaga- here we have an Uruk (Shagrat) and a lesser Orc (Snaga) conversing. As these two were different strain of Orcs, they would not have understood eachother's Orcish dialect (as per Confusticated's suggestion). Shagrat would have spoken Black Speech, which would have been about the equivalent of an Orc Latin. Snaga would have been speaking a derivative dialect, which would have been more equivalent to a Spanish or Italian. In order for the two to be able to communicate with eachother, the two would have been speaking Westron (the common tongue), which Sam could understand. This is a little embarrasing for me as an American- even Tolkien's Orcs were bilingual, but we here in the US only learn one language as standard.
3)Sam and Frodo overhearing conversation between tracker and soldier- here again we have a Uruk (the soldier) and a lesser orc speaking, so they were resorting to Westron.
4)Sam and Frodo being caught up with the Durthang Orc column- the Orc which addresses the Hobbits is a large Uruk. He assumes that Frodo and Sam are lesser Orcs because of their size, so he addresses them in Westron. Had the leader been a lesser Orc, he probably would have assumed that Frodo and Sam could understand his own Orc dialect, and would have addressed them in it. However, even then there was a large variety of lesser Orcs, and each of them had their own dialect, so the Hobbits were probably OK.

Once upon a time I started a thread to discuss how similar Orcs must look to the children of Illuvatar in order for all the mistaken identities to work out. Remember- Turin mistakes Beleg for an Orc, Eomer and his men momentarily think the Three Hunters might be Orcs, Treebeard thinks Merry and Pippin are Orcs until he hears them, and of course Frodo and Sam dress as Orcs and fully expect to be mistaken for them.
Here's the link:
http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3194


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## Phenix (Jul 22, 2002)

well thanks.


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