半兽人
Orc/Ork(半兽人)此字是由拉丁文Orcus，一位神祇的称号“阴间之王”(Pluto)转变而来；Pluto在之后被直接用以称呼阴间。后来，在德文中此字以去掉原本拉丁文字尾的形态出现，成为较接近Orc的字型。
Orc曾经在托尔金(J. R. R. Tolkien)所创造的架空世界“中土世界 (Middle-Earth)”中发生的故事 - 魔戒里头被使用，用来称呼某常被邪恶势力支配，用以组成士兵的种族。
中文的半兽人(Orc/Ork)有时也被称为兽人，这是由于他们的外型会让人联想到野兽、野蛮的性格。
“半兽人”(Orc)这个名字的起源
In Beowulf, ll: 112, the undead Grendel's race is described as Orc-néas, which seems to mean "corpses of Orcus." Orcus, in Roman mythology, was an alternative name for Pluto, Hades, or Dis Pater, god of the land of the dead. The name "Orcus" seems to have been given to his evil and punishing side, as the god who tormented evildoers in the afterlife. Like the name Hades (or the Norse Hel, for that matter), "Orcus" could also mean the land of the dead. Tolkien derived his 'Orcs' from a passage in Beowulf. (See "Tolkien's Orcs" below.) Grendel and his kin were described as being half man and half monster, hunting by night, and having an underwater lair (and therefore being amphibious by nature).
Notably, the word "orc" had long existed in English as the name of a type of sea monster. This derives ultimately from Pliny the Elder's description of the orca, modulated through the long tradition of Medieval Bestiaries. In his Natural History, Pliny described a creature that was "so monstrous and aggressive a whale, that no words are adequate to describe it, except as a huge mass of flesh armed with menacing teeth." Historia Naturalis 9.v.12
According to one medieval source, Charlemagne encountered and destroyed an orc that attacked his ship in the Mediterranean. In Orlando Furioso, an epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto, the name of "orc" was given to a sea monster that captured the damsel Angelica, and was fought by the hero Rogero riding a hippogriff. This orc was huge, scaly, tusked, pig-nosed, and bristled.
A land-dwelling orc also appears in Orlando Furioso, XVII: 29. This "land orc" is a blind giant with a long nose and tusks jutting out like a savage swine. The land orc is a cannibal who holds king Norandino and his men captive in a cave. The story is reminiscent of the tale of Polyphemus. It should be noted that, in Italian, "orca" means a killer whale while "orco" means an ogre, a humanoid creature.
From this usage, the word "orc" was popularized in English through Michael Drayton's Polyolbion, an epic poem about Brutus the Trojan, the mythical founder of Britain. It later appears in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost.
Blake笔下的半兽人
See main article Orc (William Blake)
Orc (a proper name) is also one of the characters in the complex mythology of William Blake. Unlike the medieval sea beast, or Tolkien's humanoid monster, his Orc is a positive figure, the embodiment of creative passion and energy, Orc being an anagram of Cor, heart.
托尔金笔下的半兽人
The humanoid, non-maritime race of Orcs are Tolkien's invention. The term "Orc" is usually capitalised in Tolkien's writing, but not necessarily in other sources. In Tolkien's writing, Orcs are described as humanoid, but smaller than Men, ugly, and filthy. Although not dim-witted, they are portrayed as dull and miserable beings, who are only able to destroy, not to create. Tolkien also describes them as bow-legged and very clumsy. They do not move well in combat but fight with ferocity. In some works of Tolkien, Orcs are mainly described as battle fodder, as seen in The Battles of the Fords of Isen. Orcs are used as soldiers by both the greater and lesser villains of The Lord of the Rings — Sauron and Saruman.
In The Hobbit, Tolkien used the word "goblin" for Orcs, because he had not yet identified the world of The Hobbit with Middle-earth (which he first created several decades before The Hobbit, in early writings which later became The Silmarillion). Though Tolkien uses the term orcs in The Hobbit as Gandalf describes the Grey Mountains as being “simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs of the worst description”. Fortunately, Tolkien included some references to his mythology in The Hobbit, which later let him identify the lands of The Hobbit with his Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings, "Orc" is used predominantly, and "goblin" mostly in the Hobbits' speech.
Before Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, he seems to have decided that Middle-earth history ended at the end of the Second Age, and that the fall of Númenor changed the world into the prehistoric real world.
'...the word is as far as I am concerned actually derived from Old English orc "demon", but only because of its phonetic suitability...' The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien No 144, dated 1953
It is also rumoured that Tolkien labelled them in an attack against his least favourite team- the Oxford Rugby Club.
For more information on Tolkien's Orcs see: Orc (Middle-earth).
半兽人在其它奇幻文学的作品
当托尔金所写的魔戒出版之后，半兽人成了奇幻文学和角色扮演游戏中必然会出现的种族。在这些小说以及游戏当下，半兽人和高扁常常被想像成是distinct races of goblinoids.他们常常会被描述成有著猪鼻子外表的生物，即使在托尔金的作品里并没有这样子的描述。而这可能是因为在爱尔兰，Orc这个字有著 “猪”的意思的关系。
An alternative theory is that they were often depicted as pig-like due to the "pig-nosed" descriptions of both the water and land based "orcs" in Orlando Furioso, an epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto (see "Sources of the name Orc" above).
