Hi!
This is my first post here....stumbled across the site by pure accident but figured i'd give it a shot. anyway....
In The Hobbit, Tolkien refers to Goblins a lot, but in all his other works he uses the term Orcs.
Anyone know why this is? It niggles at me, haha. I'm thinking maybe as it was intended more as a children's book than the others?

ah well.

The Hobbit was put forward as a children's book. Now "goblin" is not a very uncommon term in kiddy fairytailes and hence the kiddies would be able to identify with "goblin" rather than the term "orc" which is a very uncommon term. The goblins and the orcs are pretty much the same thing but lets say they were more adult-ised in the Lord of the Rings as orcs.

And just for knowledge, its Morgoth who created Orcs/goblins and not Sauron.

Thats right Gwaihir. Morgoth created the orcs in the elder days, along with goblins who were their smaller, faster relatives with better noses for tracking scent. Sauron used the orcs as well, and later he developed the uruk-hai and the olog-hai. They are both stronger, more daylight resistant orcs, as big as men and fierce in combat. Saruman did not design the uruk-hai (as in the movie) that is a common misconcepcion.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Sauron did not develop the Uruk-Hai, nor had any dominion over them. It was Saruman who made them and was their master. The movies aren't wrong all the time.

Treebeard :

Goblins are just a branch of Orcs, who live in the Misty Mountains. Just like elves and men, there are lots of types of Orcs. That's perfectly normal. Hoom!

Sorry Vir, but it was Sauron who first bred the Uruk hai, around TA 2475. It was these Uruks that over-ran Ithilien and sacked Osgiliath at this time. The original Uruks were superiour orcs, who as well as being stronger were able to withstand sunlight. What Saruman did later was to cross Uruk hai with Men.

Does there are direct proof, that Goblins are not the same as Orcs? In my thoughts there is no difference between them and I remember a quote in the Letters, which I haven't at hand at the moment, that Tolkien said, that Orcs and Goblins are quite the same. That means, that there cannot be a difference with the locations. Orcs and Goblins living in the Misty Mountains and Orcs and Goblins living in Mordor. They are the same.
The only difference ist the difference between the stronger race of Uruks and Orcs/Goblins. That is explicitly mentioned, but not the other thing, I think.

It's a popular belief that Orcs from the Misty Mountains - the ones that appear in the Hobbit - are called Goblins, Orcs from Mordor are called Uruks or simply Orcs. To put it simply : LOTR-Orcs = Uruks or Orcs; Hobbit-Orcs : Goblins.

I believe Goblins are just a smaller kind of Orcs, just like the River-ppl were a smaller kind of Men.

In one of his letters JRRT seems to imply that Orcs=Goblins, though in another letter he writes that Orcs are not Goblins.

Letter #131 :


In another letter, JRRT implies that "goblin" is the translation of "orch".

Letter #141 :


Later in LOTR, JRRT translates "orch" as "orc" :

Letter #151:

Orcs and goblins are indeed the same thing. Tolkien published the following in The Hobbit ...



Thus 'goblin' is an English word used to translate an actual word spoken in Middle-earth Orc, as 'Elves' can be used to translate Elvish Quendi for example (the word 'goblin' can be used to translate Elvish words like Orch too). The explanation above is specific to The Hobbit as far as 'usually' translated, but explains the scenario of The Lord of the Rings as well: the general idea is that Orc is translated goblin a lot in The Hobbit, and sometimes translated in The Lord of the Rings.

A somewhat similar example might be if one were reading a German text that had been translated into English and the word 'hund' started to appear in the English translation because the person who did the translation liked the word hund so much he or she started using it instead of rendering English 'dog'.

ive always just seen it as Tolien used "goblin" for theHobit, because it is more 'kiddy-esque', wer as for LotR he used orc as a grown up version od goblin, but sometimes splipped into old habbits and wrote goblin xxx

Orcs and Goblins are the same thing. It can be disputed that Goblins are a Type of Orc, perhaps more hunched and adpated to tunnels etc but they are the same thing. Then there are Uruks which Sauron created as perfections on the normal scum and then there are Uruk-Hai, the greatest type of Orc 'Nearly Man high'.
'Goblin' was probably just used more often to appeal to children or perhaps Tolkien used Goblin more in the Hobbit becuase that book seems to be written from the perspective of Bilbo and hobbits would probably associate with the word 'Goblin' than 'Orc' better.

Glad I had posted "In my interpretation", then.

But the Hobbits would not have used the word 'goblin' more commonly, and Bilbo would not have used the word goblin in his story of course. Tolkien's note was published in revised editions of The Hobbit and lands right in line with Appendix F in The Return of the King on translation.

As far as Tolkien was concerned Old English Orc meant 'demon'. Thus Old English is the external source for a word used back in Frodo's day.

Perhaps to add to the confusion, in The Lord of the Rings Old English has been used to represent the language of the Rohirrim (not meant to be the actual language of the Rohirrim, but used in translation). But despite this (and Orthanc aside for the moment) the word Orc is meant to be an actual word used by the Rohirrim and the Hobbits.

As far as the translations goblin, hobgoblin: Tolkien (in The Hobbit) used hobgoblin for larger types -- and for example, 'dog' need not become a word only referring to small dogs if I were to use a compound 'greatdog' for larger kinds.

Because they are translations, words in languages 'of the future' that no Hobbit would use or understand ('Hobbit' represents kuduk for example). 'Goblin' could (in theory) represent some word for Orcs peculiar to Hobbits, but it is said to represent Orc in any case (not some other word used by Hobbits), though as noted, it also is used in translation for Elvish orch, conveniently, because yrch are Orcs are 'goblins'.

Well the Hobbits spoke a form of Westron (which is not English), thus 'goblin, hobgoblin' are not words in their language. These are translations rather.

The Hobbit-word for these creatures is Orc -- the translation is 'goblin'. Two different words, yes, both denoting the same thing. Hobbits (Westron speakers, speaking their own variety of it) did not say 'goblin', they said Orc. Yes, orch (pl. yrch), orc, and goblin are different words in different languages, the last being a word in a modern language (can be used to translate the others).

I hope I'm not confusing things with the German analogy

I like it also because Orcs and dogs come in different sizes

Yes but I don't know the German word for carrot! Actually I think hund 'sounds bigger' than dog sometimes. If you know what I mean.

Moving on....

In short Orcs and Goblins are the same thing. Here it is in simple terms:

Orc = Goblin
Uruk = Hobgoblin
Uruk-Hai = no transalation to my knowledge.

Though as I said it can be disputed that Goblins were a Type of Orc and not a mere translation for the mountain Orc types that may have adapted specifically to there tunneling lives.

Why was the word 'Goblin' used in The Hobbit, whilst 'Orcs' in LOTR? I can only see 2 possibilities:
1. The Hobbit was written from Bilbo's perspective, thus Goblin was used more than Orc, where as LOTR was written from a writer (Tolkien's) perspective, thus Orc would be used.
2. Goblins are a type of Orc, thus considering only the tunneling type of Orc (goblin) was used in The Hobbit, they would not use 'Orc' - refering to the types that were in Mordor and other more open places...

Note: I said it could be disputed - thats not to say I dispute it.

Galin wrote:


I generally can't be bothered to do that with most things Tolkien but when I do bother they are scarecely repelled...

In this case I can see why someone COULD dispute the point, though I myself reserve judgment. Just becuase you understand a point of view, doesn't mean you have sided with it.

In the department of information and computing sciences I found this explanation which fits bits and pieces I think of what I read in the Tolkien Letters:

What was the relationship between Orcs and Goblins?

They are different names for the same race of creatures. Of the two,
"Orc" is the correct one. This has been a matter of widespread debate and
misunderstanding, mostly resulting from the usage in _The Hobbit_ (Tolkien
had changed his mind about it by LotR but the confusion in the earlier book
was made worse by inconsistant backwards modifications). There are a couple
of statements in _The Hobbit_ which, if taken literally, suggest that Orcs
are a subset of goblins. If we are to believe the indications from all other
areas of Tolkien's writing, this is not correct. These are: some fairly
clear statements in letters, the evolution of his standard terminology (see
next paragraph), and the actual usage in LotR, all of which suggest that
"Orc" was the true name of the race. (The pedigrees in _Tolkien: The
Illustrated Encyclopedia_ are thoroughly innaccurate and undependable.)

What happened was this. The creatures so referred to were invented along
with the rest of Tolkien's subcreation during the writing of the Book of Lost
Tales (the "pre-Silmarillion"). His usage in the early writing is somewhat
varied but the movement is away from "goblin" and towards "orc". It was part
of a general trend away from the terminology of traditional folklore (he felt
that the familiar words would call up the wrong associations in the readers'
minds, since his creations were quite different in specific ways). For the
same general reasons he began calling the Deep Elves "Noldor" rather than
"Gnomes", and avoided "Faerie" altogether. (On the other hand, he was stuck
with "Wizards", an "imperfect" translation of Istari ('the Wise'), "Elves",
and "Dwarves"; he did say once that he would have preferred "dwarrow", which,
so he said, was more historically and linguistically correct, if he'd thought
of it in time ...)

In _The Hobbit_, which originally was unconnected with the Silmarillion,
he used the familiar term "goblin" for the benefit of modern readers. By the
time of LotR, however, he'd decided that "goblin" wouldn't do -- Orcs were
not storybook goblins (see above). (No doubt he also felt that "goblin",
being Romance-derived, had no place in a work based so much on Anglo-Saxon
and Northern traditions in general.) Thus, in LotR, the proper name of the
race is "Orcs" (capital "O"), and that name is found in the index along with
Ents, Men, etc., while "goblin" is not in the index at all. There are a
handful of examples of "goblin" being used (always with a small "g") but it
seems in these cases to be a kind of slang for Orcs.

Tolkien's explanation inside the story was that the "true" name of the
creatures was Orc (an anglicized version of Sindarin *Orch* , pl. *Yrch*).
As the "translator" of the ancient manuscripts, he "substituted" "Goblin" for
"Orch" when he translated Bilbo's diary, but for The Red Book he reverted to
a form of the ancient word.

[The actual source of the word "orc" is Beowulf: "orc-nass", translated
as "death-corpses". It has nothing to do with cetaceans.]

-----

Thank you

It's basically what I have been saying all along (the evidence of early texts might confuse the matter, so I have been leaving this out). However I disagree with one detail, as Orc itself is a Westron word (as opposed to merely an anglicization of Elvish orch) in my opinion, still translated by English in accordance with the general ideas set out in On Translation.



Part of JRRT's note, with my emphasis on the time the form of the name was given.

I don't think that was directed at you LeeLee

yay! I don't have to flee back to Rivendell and hide away for a month or so.
But really I should stick to beading my elf shoes, a lot safer I think than giving my little so so opinions.