Talk:Black Speech

RFD discussion: September–October 2022
One of the fictional languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien for his legendarium, where it was spoken in the evil realm of Mordor.

Goes against WT:FICTION. Theknightwho (talk) 17:02, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Might need to RFV first, since some fictional universe conlangs (e.g. ) have moved into the language. Most have not and as far as I am aware this has not, but an RFV feels like the right first step to find out. - TheDaveRoss  18:03, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep. It exists as an, even if it's extremely fragmentary, and only used in adaptations of Tolkien's work. We have other conlangs that are mainly used for creating dialogue in film and television productions . The sole Black Speech devised by Tolkien himself was the One Ring inscription and a few scattered words. Tolkien as much as admitted he was more interested in creating the aesthetic of an "ugly" language than a functional conlang on par with Quenya or Sindarin. But it was expanded for the films to the point that there are entire scenes of it in the Hobbit films. Also worth noting there's Category:English terms derived from Black Speech. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 04:45, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with having an entry for it as a ConLang, but the definition will need reworking in that case. Theknightwho (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per WordyAndNerdy. Binarystep (talk) 05:25, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * My inclination is "weak keep", but other than the fact that Tolkien's languages see some real use (this one less than others), it's hard to say why. Does people bringing the referent into the real world make a term that originated in fiction includable? But people make "real" examples of virtually any fictional thing (for cosplays, for Halloween costumes, for the aesthetic / fannish home decor, etc) : sometimes these are nonfunctional (a cosplayer's sonic screwdriver can't do what the Doctor's can do), but sometimes they're just as functional (e.g., in Doctor Who, prayer leaves are little trinkets sewn out of cloth with a name sewn on, and real-world ones are...also that). People like the YouTuber "Hacksmith" even make working examples of things like the Halo energy sword, Wolverine claws, Batarangs, etc. Are terms for languages that come to see real-world use more includable? Lots of other fictional languages seem limited real use, e.g. Draconic (but perhaps that means we should add them). - -sche (discuss) 18:53, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It is a fuzzy line, my hunch is that Black Speech is on the not-dictionary-material side and should reside in an encyclopedia instead, and perhaps in an appendix. If you contrast Klingon and Black Speech I think the differences are apparent, there are Klingon dictionaries and classes, even people who are not fans of Star Trek may say or understand a phrase along the lines of "She is such a nerd, she probably speaks fluent Klingon!" The other examples you mention do demonstrate that it is a tough place to draw clear lines. - TheDaveRoss  12:38, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * A fan-made extension of the Black Speech has been floating around the Internet for quite some time now, intended to help people talk about things that weren't relevant to the books. It is more often called Orcish however, perhaps out of respect for Tolkien and to prevent confusion.  — Soap — 00:52, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * RFV. WT:FICTION hinges on the nature of the citations. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 15:48, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Has no use outside the specific area of Tolkien's fiction. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:12, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The above user has less than 50 edits in content spaces: 14 edits. In our votes, they would be ineligible, although RFD has no such rules. They also said elsewhere that dictionaries do not contain proper nouns, obviously untrue. I ask the closer to discount the above in so far as permissible. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:43, 17 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Moved to RFV. - TheDaveRoss  14:48, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: October–November 2022
Moving from Requests_for_deletion/English, possibly for both a conlang sense and the fictional language from LOTR. - TheDaveRoss  14:49, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I added three quotations discussing Black Speech as a conlang, though the sense might need to be reworded. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 23:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I left a bit longer than stipulated since the RFD was somewhat controversial, but since nobody is challenging the quotations I'll say RFV-passed. I also reworded the sense a week or two ago to be conlang-specific. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 16:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)