Today I’d like to talk a little about uruk humor. Here, I have translated three jokes in the Uruk language. The first is a simple pun:

Mat sharasnaga baaku?

Sharasnaga bagu!

“Why is the manslave humiliated?”

“He is covered in excrement!”

This joke is quite unusual in that is a pun. In general, uruk humor is driven by ambiguities, or story-based, as homonyms and homophones in Uruk are rather rare. The pun here relies on the words baaku, or humiliated, and bagu, or excrement. The words for humiliated and excrement are very phonetically similar.

It’s important to note that often, in day-to-day language, most uruk do not necessarily to use the word kul, or “to be.” Thus, this joke literally translates to

“Why manslave humiliated?”

“Manslave shitty!”

When native uruk speakers learn the common creole of man as a second language, they often forget to use the word “to be,” and are mocked for being stupid. This is a cultural misunderstanding. After all, aren’t most sentences understood perfectly, despite the lack of “to be?”

In general, if a word can be omitted in everyday speech, it is. Uruk believe that the listeners must take a more active role in listening, and to use some words is to insult the listener’s intelligence.

Here’s another joke:

Golm shakgrîg sharadorr shapat maukur-ûr

shatûp-izg kârtab ânghâsh-ir!

I offer to make the manswine a sword to duel with

So I crush his head on the anvil!

Uruk jokes and speech tend to be told in the present tense, unlike human stories and things, which are told in the past. This belies an interesting cultural perception of time, where everything is always in the process of happening now.

Uruk is also much more “stripped” as a language. Because it is designed to be rather vague (while the listener fills in the spaces), this means that the vast majority of uruk jokes rely on ambiguities.

Here is the literal translation of the joke, for linguistic understanding’s sake:

Offer-i forge manswine sword duel-with

Crush-i head-its anvil-on!

The third joke is something of a story in three parts. Here is the first part of the story in uruk, a translation in the common tongue, and then a more literal syntax:

Uruk skât utot-golog-u.

Uruk gashn, “Thrak âps izish-u!”

Golog gashn, “Nar-brus-izgu âps!”

Uruk tram golog, ghâsh utot, skât.

An uruk goes to elven village

The uruk says “Bring meat to me!”

The elves say “We have no meat!”

The uruk rapes the elves, burns their village, and leaves.

Uruk goes village-elves-to.

Uruk says, “Bring meat me-to!”

Elves say, “No-have-we meat!”

Uruk rapes elves, burns village, leaves.

This joke plays on the cultural enmity between uruk and the elves. In the same way that human jokes may pick on a particular ethnicity, or class, or religion, or group of people with a similar hair color, the favorite cultural punching bag for uruk is the elven race. This joke paints elves as spineless, helpless vegetarians.

Ârshu uruk skât utot-golog-u.

Uruk gashn, “Thrak âps izish-u!”

Golog gashn, “Nar-brus-izgu âps!”

Uruk tram golog, ghâsh utot, skât.

The next day, uruk goes to elven village

Uruk says “Bring meat to me!”

Elves say “We have no meat!”

Uruk rapes elves, burns the village, leaves.

Days, uruk goes village-elves-to.

Uruk says, “Bring meat me-to!”

Elves say, “No-have-we meat!”

Uruk rapes elves, burns village, leaves.

Note that in this second part begins with “Days.” Ârsh means “day,” and the –u suffix pluralizes it. The literal translation is “Days,” but many uruk use this word to mean “tomorrow.”

This joke in uruk follows the rule of three that jokes across many cultures follow. Obviously, the first step of the joke establishes a story, the second part of the joke establishes a pattern, and the third part of the joke breaks that pattern in a surprising way:

Ârshu uruk skât utot-golog-u.

Golog gashn, “Brus-izgu âps zârsh!”

Uruk gashn, “Utot-golog-naga thrak âps izish-u. Thrak grog izish-u!”

The next day, the uruk goes to the elven village.

The elves say, “We have meat today!”

The uruk says, “The other elven village brought meat to me. Bring me grog!”

Days, uruk goes village-elves-to.

Elves say, “Have-we meat today!”

Uruk says, “Village-elves-other bring meat me-to. Bring grog me-to!”

The uruk favor violence in their stories and humor. I once asked Agon Ashtu why uruk have this cultural obsession with violence, and, in true uruk fashion, he answered in a myth.

“Uruk made ash-of, smoke-of. Father is fire and shadow. Fire eats, consumes, spreads. So does uruk.”