Відео

Beautifully said

Thank for making this video! I speak English as a second language and I work in a very international company, my bosses even being French and German. And I absolutely hate when the latter says that English is a super easy language even though he sucks at it! He keeps using German grammar, throws German pseudo anglicisms everywhere and literally does not understand what we say (but rather not ask), but we can't say anything! By the way, I love this language! And whenever someone tells me its easy I challenge their fluency! Just bc one doesn't know, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist

Yes, and thats a good thing

I am 12, I learnt English as fluent in 10 or 11 I’ve started to learn it from the age of 3,75 It’s easy Btw I’m from Ukraine

Danish soft D sounds like soft l with u

I dont understand where peoole get this idea. He didnt start it. He wasnt the biggest writer. He made it denser and "historical"

What?? Tolkien is the only major fantasy writer to you? He didnt even start it or make it big

May I ask why your accent is sometimes rhotic and sometimes not? Or maybe it's word specific? Pretty sure it isn't linking R. I never noticed this before with your other videos but a minute into this one I already can't ignore it. With other channels I'd just ignore this but since this is a channel about language I think asking you and other viewers about this is fitting. Love your videos and keep up the good work! :) <3

as a turkish person i think it is ok and is realistic to not like the dark ones .

I think the most problematic aspect concerning race is the idea that the Men of the West are the superior race and are therefore more fitting to rule. Tolkien metions their pure blood more than once in the text.

no

I don't get the last part. You spent like a third of the video going on about how we don't get information on the Haradrim because the story isn't about them, and the line you cite as 'ruining the illusion' is one that is fundamentally a reminder of the fact that yes, these people are in fact human. It seems like you're taking the story simply being written from a certain perspective as somehow being indicative of xenophobia. If you want to paint LOTR as racist, there are better arguments to be made than this.

Never before have I been so confused after seeing something explained clearly in terms that I fully understand

In czech the Netherlands are called „nizozemsko” meaning country of the lowlands or country where the land is low depending on the interpretation

You. Are looking too hard into this

Tell me why I read the thumbnail to the tune of Uptown Funk

Tolkein actually wrote an essay on the word you mention, called Sigelwara Land, in the 1930s. in it he speculates that Sigelwara Land could have originally referred to the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Muspelheim and thus the Sigelwara themselves would originally be a kind of soot-black demons, but that this original pagan understanding was obscured by Christianization and by the time the Exodus was composed in Old English, the word was understood and used more literally. he reconstructs the word as sigel ("sun") and *hearwa ("soot", "coal, "hearth", "roast") and so it could be understood as having a meaning similar to sun-burnt, and with this more literal understanding the term shifted to mean Ethiopia. however there's no widely accepted reconstruction of the second element (and unlike sigel it's unattested), and other scholars suggest other meanings such as "worshipper". regardless, the soot-black demons with flaming eyes likely influenced the Balrogs, while the word *hearwa itself likely influenced the name Harad.

I use singular they, and I love seeing the cogs in peoples brains turn when I explain it

That's interesting. A quote being taken by the author as an example of "re-humanization" of an enemy, and the other, is also an excellent example of extreme exceptionalism. No shadow of doubt in thought of Sam about the "righteousness" of his side. Only lies or threats could lead the Haradrim there, of course...

Dolgans have this too... and nivhk... chukchi.... evenk.... etc... 💀

This video is a disappointment. You should have focused on hebrew

Dude was a Franco supporter, so I’m not really sure why we still do these uncomfortable mental gymnastics to launder his character.

pluh 5:27

the fact that people can do this kind of thing amazes me.

Racist is a cheapened word inapplicable to Tolkien. To this cause I say whatever.

I feel like you’re really not that well versed in the greater lore of Tolkien. One thing about the men of the East and south is that although their collectively referred to as easterlings and haradrim respectively as if they were singular unified cultures, in reality they were umbrella terms used to describe the numerous peoples of those far off lands who were linguisticly and ethnically related, similar to how the Romans initially viewed the celts and Germans or how medieval Europeans collectively called all nomadic steppe tribes (turks, mongols, khazars etc) as tatars. There are several easterling cultures that appear throughout the history of middle earth such as the wainriders, a hunnic-inspired confederacy of warrior nomads who rode war chariots into battle and waged several conflicts against gondor, the balchoth, a more mongol-based culture implied to have been descended from the wainriders. However the most notable factions of easterlings were those who crossed into beleriand during the first age. These easterlings were divided between two leaders, bor and ulfang who upon arriving in beleriand, swore fealty to the elven lord caranthir who gifted them with rich lands to reside in. While bor and his people were largely satisfied with their new home, ulfang desired more and secretly allied himself with the enemy of the free peoples, morgoth who enticed him with promises more verdant lands to rule over in exchange for his loyalty. From this point on, Ulfang and his tribe acted as spies feeding the dark lord information on his enemies battle plans and strategies. Eventually when, one of caranthir’s brothers, maedhros led a massive military alliance comprised of all the armies of man, elf and dwarf alike to storm morgoth’s stronghold ulfang betrayed them and turned his forces on the elves while bor and his followers remained loyal to the end, fighting alongside their elven friends, though most of the faithful easterlings would be wiped out regardless including bor himself, who following his demise, was remembered by the elves as bor the faithful. The battle saw all the armies the free peoples had at their control completely decimated, which allowed morgoth to conquer and reign over most of beleriand. Unfortunately for the easterlings, morgoth had gone back on his back on his promise and instead gave them charge of hithlum, a cold, dreary region to the northwest of beleriand which was surrounded by several mountain ranges. It was to put it simply a prison for the easterlings as they were forbidden to leave the region by morgoth. The few faithful easterlings that remained fled beleriand , but what happened to them after that is unknown, though it is hinted that they may have been the ancestors of the men of forodwaith and even afew cultures in eriador. Another important detail to the lore of the east is that it’s actually were both the first elves and men originated, awakening in cuivienan and hildorien respectively, both of which were stated to have been on the completely opposite side of middle earth. At some point morgoth discovered early man, and disguised himself as one of them and promised them great gifts but secretly corrupted them with many coming to view him as a god and began dark worship of him. Many however did not accept the dark lord with many groups leaving hildorien and dispersing across middle earth. One of these groups would embark on a great exodus across middle earth in search of the fabled lands of the west where the great powers of the world resided. These people eventually became the Edain who would settle beleriand and fight alongside the elves. The haradrim also possess a strong hatred towards dunedain of Gondor specifically which dates back to the second age when the numenoreans (descendants of the edain and ancestors to the dunedain) who had initially been great friends with the men of middle earth and shared much knowledge with them, began colonizing places like eriador and harad. The native inhabitants of these regions would be lorded over by the numenoreans and forced to pay tribute to them, and when the numenoreans fell under the sway of Sauron and began worshipping his fallen master morgoth, they then began enslaving the men of harad, with many being taken back to the numenorean homeland to be used as human sacrifices. Even after the downfall of numenor, the haradrim would remained under the lordship of the black numenoreans (followers of Sauron who had survived the downfall) who ruled from the fortress city of umbar. When Gondor eventually conquered the city they established dominion over much of harad, with the southron kingdoms becoming vassals of Gondor, and while much less tyranical and more reasonable than the black numenoreans they still demanded tributes from them. Despite this, the lands of harad beyond the coastal regions were allowed to remain functionally independent, so long as they recognized Gondor’s authority. Unfortunately several dissident vassals launched a rebellion and captured umbar which saw the current king killed. The exact reason for this revolt is unknown its likely because umbar was a major trading hub and accumulated vast amounts of riches. Whatever the reason, the king’s successor quickly retaliated against them, reclaiming the city crushing the rebellion and in order to keep them in line, took the heirs of the dissident lords as political hostages and had them serve as wards within his court. So with the haradrim you can definitely understand why they would join Sauron, not because they actually liked him but to get revenge on their greatest enemy. Another event in the east and south were the rebellions instigated by the blue wizards against Sauron. This conflict is only mentioned briefly, but in simple terms, it saw the two blue wizards travel to the east and South respectively where they rallied the factions of easterlings and haradrim who refused to follow Sauron in a planned invasion of the west and rose up against him. Despite only being mentioned in passing, this event was actually quite crucial, as it prevented from Sauron amassing as many forces as he had initially hoped and delayed his invasion of the west a full 90 years, which allowed the elves and their Allies time to prepare for war. And addressing the whole half troll black men with red tongues, it’s stated that the Uruk hai where the result of forced breeding between orc and man ( best not to think of the disturbing implications of that) and perhaps these half trolls the result of something similar. that or their either just exaggerate misinterpretations of natives or just completely made up. So in short… tolkien was in no way bigoted, and while lotr may seem very racist when taken at face value, when you actually delve into the greater lore, themes and messages of Tolkien’s world, that is objectively inaccurate. There is no way a man who chastised the South African government for its racial policies, who was disgusted by the depiction of Japanese racial stereotypes in wartime propaganda, condemned the atrocities committed by stalin’s regime and sent an absolutely scathing letter to the nazi party in which he tore apart their entire ideology while also showing his blatantly positive views of jewish people (keep in mind that this was when the Germans had conquered most of Europe and Britain was bracing for a full on invasion) would ever support any form of racism let alone incorporate it into his work.

5:27 jsyk, this is because those words-“can”, “would”, “must”- are modal verbs. many modals don’t get negated the way most other verbs do

Thing racist and racism bad because people said so

Me, a Lovecraft fan: “First time?”

2:24 Japhanees

Very good video about an interesting subject. The racism card has been used and abused in media and pop culture way too much for some years now. And although I agree with the video's conclusion, I m not sure it aims at the right direction. I m not a Tolkien expert, I m just a fan of Tolkien's books (and Jackson's amazing trilogy of course). But from what I ve read, his perceived "racism" wasn't mainly against black or brown people, but against the "easterners". The classic division in Tolkien's work that you touched on in the video, the good-evil and light-dark duality, geograpihcally and culturally isn't translated in West vs South or North vs South, but in West vs East. That is a very important distinction for many reasons. Yes, Haradrim specifically are a broad representation of Africans or Middle Eastern people compared to the good westerners, but I would argue that Orcs who are the main "evil race" in Tolkien's universe are much more of a representation of east Slavs or Mongols of the real world. The great threat from the East, a concept deep embeded in the western mind, psyche and folklore: the barbarian eastern hordes, the emperor warlords and tyrants that want to invade, conquer and subjugate the good peaceful and civilised West (Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, the Ottomans etc). Those that have nothing in common with us (they speak different tongues, they worship different gods, they are the nomadic people of the steppes, they re not farmers like the Shire and Gondor, or woodland dwellers like the Elves etc). It's no coincidence of course that the orc languages and the Black Speech (the languages of evil) don't derive from african lagnuages but from eastern languages like the Hurrian language (mesopotamian). And of course in contrast the "good" languages like the Westron (English) is part of the germanic language family and the Elven languages (Sindarin, Quenya etc) derive from celtic languages like Welsh, or from Finnish (although ironically Finnish is closer to the mongolian language family than to the germanic). Also many people tend to view Orcs as black, but they re not. The Uruk-hai are depicted as black. Orcs are mostly shown as pale grey skinned, a colour that is neither white nor black, but in fact is closer to white. It's almost like they are a sick and twisted version of white, which fits perfectly with their origin story: they were elves and men who where taken by the dark powers and tortured, altered etc to make an "evil" race loyal to the dark lord, be it Morgoth or later Sauron.

If true we need more of that.

Black/white symbolism of good/evil had been used for, i dunno, millenia from europe to asia. It's called black & white dualism.

Nowadays there are many writings about how Tolkien actually meant Mongols and Chinese by orcs and goblins. However, according to Tolkien himself, the purpose of the orcs and goblins was to criticize the N-Germans.

New letter "oi" Example:Øl(Oil)

Use backwards "Ø" for /th/ I have no IPA symbols😂😂😂

I'm sure Klein has already heard about this, but that study which showed different speakers of different gendered languages using more "feminine/masculine" adjectives has been seriously called into question recently. Different experiments have failed to replicate it, and some words were counted as both masculine and feminine depending on the language, so it should at the very least be taken with a huge pinch of salt, even if you don't wanna dismiss it outright.

He didn’t even talk about the impossible to pronounce rhotic vowels, and just the English /r/ in general

Your accent seems a little different in this video, more northern English somehow?

1:43 someone gonna clip that and take it out of context 😂

People wondering about everyone and everything whether it's "racist", are themselves tragic.

Ok fair warning, REALLY long comment coming up! See, I love Tolkien's work dearly, but have often struggled with let's say, our differnt political and ideological views. Now, let's start: -It is downright silly to expect an Englishman born and rasied in colonial South Africa , and deeply indoctinated in christianity, to conform to 2024 standards of political correctness and sensibilities -Tolkien often makes a point about "clean bloodlines" eg Aragorn's impeccable pedigree, but, at the same time, in the Gondor civil war I think his sympathies were clearly against the Castamiri who wanted a pure-blooded Numenorian on the throne -There is absolutely no mention of the lineage of men who first turn to Morgoth being black or anything like that -The Southrons only turned to Sauron because of the threat of numenorian colonialism, which brings us to the next point... -Tolkien wrote of his dislike of both the Roman and the British empires. By the standards of his day, such an anti-imperialist view was almost extreme! I think he deeply belive in the "civilising mission" of colonialism, that is first and foremost the spread of Christianity and maybe some basic infrastructure. He was deeply suspicious of technological progress, so I don't think he believed Africa missed out out on anything by not having any factories etc. -His descriptions of other nations is more "exotic" or "orientalist" than racist. Of course hte first time you saw a black person you would be shocked, just as much as a black person would be shocked upon encountering white skinned, blue-eyed European for the first time. There is nothing wrong with admitting that we cannot understand everyone and everything -While racism takes many forms as time progresses (divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book), race as we understand it nowadays only appeared as late as the 16th century, as a justification for colonialism. Check out the History of England podcast, ep. 301 "Black Tudors" for some very intresting details

Racism suggests malice towards other groups. Something which is categorically NOT present in tolkein's work. However, it certainly does revere European culture & mythology. In an attempt to repair what tolkein believed the English people had lost through the years. It is a work of LOVE for his group. NOT an attack on other groups.

You can apply this kind of woke deduction to a lot of things....try the bible, you will find all kinds of bigotry there. Hollywood and Disney are a goldmines.....you can stay indignant for years.

except Anglo-Saxon writers didn’t call dark-skinned Africans “half trolls with white eyes and red tongues” they just commented on their skin being black and speculated it was from the heat of the sun. the idea of that implying immorality or ugliness or an inherent ontological opposition to a ‘White’ Europe isnt really from that period, it comes much more from early modern colonialism, and in a way came to a head with the events and thinking of the mid-20th century which Tolkien was also very heavily inspired by. Tolkien is as much trapped in his own present as we are, and as the Anglo-Saxons were

2:14 That analysis doesn't work because it's inaccurate and too reductive. Aside from the struggle to be good being more fleshed out in the story than you give it credit here, The Lord of the Rings is not a story of fair, valiant, imposing men proving themselves as heroes but of those living in the shadow of such figures, common folk who happen to be tasked with a mission that asks of them not to be honourful warriors but perseverance. Their most important virtue is to endure and not give up, not to gather mythic armies and slay the evil hordes. We cannot see the perspective of the foreign peoples because the story starts with and is about people who have barely ever heard of such peoples existing. This insight isn't missing either because the story is not about finding brotherhood across nation lines but the divine challenge the protagonists face.

How modern is that empathetic look at other people really? Does Samwise actually stand out from ancient people or just from the other characters around him who, unlike him, are very directly facing epic challenges posed specifically to them? As such they have to be heroes to some extent. Samwise, on the other hand, is there by his own volition, his own good heart. I doubt that such peaceful inclinations are actually modern. It seems more likely that whenever different people(s) interacted there were always times when the people involved chose welcoming, the kind of human exchange that we nowadays call humane. (If that was really modern, whence exactly should this idea have come and when?) Such events may not have shaped the course of history but you have to realise that history is shaped by material conditions and, for example, enslaving a mass of other people under the circumstances of colonial empires radically changes those conditions in a way that historically was self-reinforcing: the economic advantages of that practice incentivised its continuation until they didn't anymore. Slavery was only done away with as these advantages started to diminish and doing something else than continuing to operate as such a colonial empire became more profitable. As you point out, this brief excerpt of the world as Samwise sees it is a break from the prosaic storytelling that inspired Tolkien but while this way to write of people may be modern, the concrete perspective expressed therein doesn't have to be. This instance is just a moment where Tolkien, if he actually intended to not write such a novel, fails to stick to this plan: his own outlook driven by his own experiences breaks through and he writes (briefly) as the modern man that he is. Though, I don't think that's the only time. We often follow the perspectives of individual characters as we would in a novel. Overall, The Lord of the Rings doesn't focus on the heroism of war but on the deeds of common folk. The characters whose perspectives we're following do not engage in monumental battles and prove themselves as heroes; if they happen to be involved in such, they seek to simply survive and often take flight.

Lord of the rings isnt racist this is clickbait. You are racist for conflating these fantasy descriptions with real life 'black' and 'white' people. 👍

A lot of my family were miners, before my time but my Grandparents would tell stories. Anyway I always thought of the Orcs and Goblins as miners, skin black from coal, everything else (mouth, teeth, eyes) thrown into contrast. When I saw the representation of demons in Indian and other eastern religions as black skinned, that seemed to match Tolkien.

English already moved from singular "thy" to "you" and is gradually moving from "he/she" to "they", it's only logical, that in a hundred years, English will have only 3 pronouns: 3. "they" for 3rd person (even for inanimate objects) 2. "you" for 2nd person 1. "we" for 1st person, because communism