A fact from Black Speech appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 December 2022 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that it was
J. R. R. Tolkien's intention for Black Speech to be "full of harsh and hideous sounds and vile words"?
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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as
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The result was: promoted by
RoySmith (
talk) 22:11, 3 December 2022 (UTC)reply
... that it was
J. R. R. Tolkien's intention for Black Speech to be "so full of harsh and hideous sounds and vile words"? Source: Tolkien, J. R. R. (1996), Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Peoples of Middle-earth, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 978-0-395-82760-4. Page 35
Newly promoted GA - long enough, neutral, well cited, free of issues. Hook is appropriate length, interesting, and cited to an offline source (AGF). QPQ done. Good to go.
Pi.1415926535 (
talk) 22:49, 30 November 2022 (UTC)reply
ergation
How do we know it's ergative? —
Tamfang (
talk) 06:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)reply
Because it's
reliably cited to a well-known
Tolkien scholar. I've not read of any other path to establishing facts in Wikipedia's voluminous policy documents.
Chiswick Chap (
talk) 08:07, 28 March 2023 (UTC)reply
Weirdly, the page cited bases the inference of ergativity only on the use of clitic object pronouns, which are hardly unknown in non-ergative languages. Oh well, I won't press the issue. —
Tamfang (
talk) 03:40, 8 April 2023 (UTC)reply
Well we could relegate it to a footnote I suppose. It'd be best if another scholar wrote a rebuttal.
Chiswick Chap (
talk) 04:05, 8 April 2023 (UTC)reply
Irish word for "ring"
"Tolkien stated that when coining the Black Speech word nazg, he might have been influenced by the Irish word for "ring", nasc (Scottish nasg)" Nasc isn't the Irish word for "ring"; it's a verb that means "to bind". Fáinne is Irish for ring.
78.152.225.141 (
talk) 22:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)reply
Many thanks. I've edited the statement.
Chiswick Chap (
talk) 12:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)reply
This gives Old Irish meanings "chain, link, tie".
Chiswick Chap (
talk) 12:51, 23 January 2024 (UTC)reply