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A short introduction to the Goblin tongue
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By Baron Healwiss Sitopsynholle-Oerkakkerlak
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An essential handbook on the language of the breed
of goblins for the practical use of traders, slavers
and agents of His Imperial Majesties.
This is little book is meant to be a practical
introduction to the languages spoken by the goblins,
so it will be of help to Imperial officers, traders
and slavers in times of war or peace. To compile it
my faithful elven slaves and myself have interviewed
goblin slaves extracted from mines for this purpose,
at great cost.
Furthermore, we also interviewed traders and those
who have survived under their captivity to confirm
our findings, as, of course, you can never place your
trust on a such ignoble race.
=== Part I On Huubliins ==============================
--- The deficient tongue of an idle race -------------
Huubliini is the plural of the word Goblins use to
refer to themselves, goblins being a corruption of
their name, with a more, I believe, feminine
connotation.
The first thing you have to learn is this: Huubliin
is a language that flows from a goblin putrid soul:
if you understand the language you'll understand and,
control, them.
--- Orcs and goblins ---------------------------------
I shall be clear ---against the common wisdom--- orcs
and huubliins don't share the same language. Indeed,
they are very different creatures: orcs are blood-thirsty
beasts with brains focused on violence. They wish nothing
but war and destruction, prefer such to honest work.
Goblins are much more indolent. For them, trickery is
better than sweat. However, they aretoo cowardly to
resist the determined strength of a wise human Lord,
so they make fine workers, as long as you keep under a
stern hand and a quick wit.
However, bear in mind that both goblins and orcs
steal words from each other's language and any other,
so you might use the most common human words with
them and expect to be understood. If you encounter
difficulty at such, try to distort human words to
the goblin ways you are about to learn in this book.
--- Goblins and their failings
Huubliini, that is to say, goblins are the most
diverse of all the races the Empire has ever had
the misfortune to encounter. There's only a few
characteristics they all share.
Firstly their appearance. Almost all are of short
stature, say of a twelve years old boy, of pale,
unnatural, almost sickly complexion. Yet fear
not, they are of a hardy stock, able to withstand
cold and hard labor with little food and almost no
care. However, you are advised not to employ them in
tasks which require to be exposed to intense heat,
as you will shorten their years.
They never accept neither Lords or Law unless under
duress. They value wealth but not so much for their
practical value but for the prestige associated to
it. Make a goblin feel proud before his own and you'll
get three times as much for your money.
--- One drop of goblin blood one goblin makes ---------
The last thing that bounds all goblins together is their
lack of restrain for unnatural mating with any other
race, seeing nothing wrong in having children with,
let's say a human, orc, halflings, even elves. They'd got
butterflies if such thing were possible.
So much as we civilized humans find it abhorrent ---I
tremble with disgust as I force myself to write---
these huubliins do not hesitate to lay with any other
race. Believe it or not there are families made with,
let's say, proper huubliins and halflings, or humans.
Do not assume their degenerate offspring are the
pitiful result of forced marriage or worse. Indeed
there are humans who, wisdom blurred by their lowly
passions, willing offer their flesh and souls to these
disgusting critters. The children of those couples
might at first glance look less dreadful than, lets
say, purebred goblins but make no mistake goblins
consider them nothing but goblins and you should do
the same. Trust them not! Enslave them!
=== Part 2 How to speak Huubliin
--- Syllables ----------------------------------------
As Huubliin syllables deviate from proper
Imperial rules, these are marked in this book with
slashes, as in Huu/bliin being made of two syllables.
--- Accent -------------------------------------------
There is so much variation in it, and the goblins treat
it with such indifference that we will make no attempt
to address it deeply.
Suffice it to say that the stress of a word is carried
usually by the last syllable. But don't expect goblins
to conform to their own rules.
As you may know, Goblins make these exasperating clicks
with their lips and tongues when they speak. These are
unnecessary for the understanding of the tongue. Any
clicking sound will do, even a snap of fingers.
In these book these will be marked with an apostrophe
like in aa'/oo/blin meaning female human
--- Short and long vowels ----------------------------
Huubliins have ten vowels, five short and five long
ones. The five short ones are easy, for you must only
remember the rule of pat, pet, pit, pot, put.
Every of these short vowels, are always and at all times
pronounced like in those syllabels.
For the long ones I propose to write them in
doubles as in: paat, peet, piit, poot and, puut but
pronouncing them not as you would with a proper human
tounge. Instead, simply enlogate the corresponding
short vowel, keeping its sound twice as much in your
mouth, should I say.
Huubliin have a smaller catalogue of consonants than
any of the Imperial tongues. This is to be expected
of such a dim and lazy race. Their consonant set ,
transcribed to the common alphabet includes but:
b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, and, t.
These are read more or less as you'd expect, except
that there's quite an allowance of variation. For
example: a corresponding d or th sound in the
Imperial tongue will be all the same for a Huubliin,
due to their natural sloth. This is both a benefit
and a curse, you'll be more easily understood by
these critters but, equally, you will have to make
allowances by some dumb goblin using a d where a
b should go, or trading a long vowel for a short
one. It's all sloth, certainly.
This is also a further impediment for these sorry
creatures to learn a proper language and a wise master
shouldn't waste his time trying to perfect a goblin's
pronunciation. If you deem necessary for them to learn
our language, simply accept their shortcomings and
don't push them beyond what would be essential for
the simple tasks you impose on them. Your overseers
will thank you and your servants will be more
productive.
--- Sentence Order -----------------------------------
There is little to say as of to Huubliin sentence order
and structure. Suffice to say the core of it is made by
the amalgamation of subject + verb root + tense + object.
Everything else --- usually --- goes before that. This
is such a mess that goblins often end their sentences
with two quick clicks, as a kind of spoken period.
A/nu/m'ii si/e pii/mi/li'gabee''
Which literally means: "Today happily
I-eat-now sheep", though a better translation should
be "I am gladly eating sheep today".
Goblins lack a concept for true adverbs. Instead, any
word can be turned into one by adding either a short
or long /e/ to the root. Hence "de", strong, turns
into "dee", strongly.
Huubliins only add gender marker when it's necessary
to avoid confusion. And they have but three simple
rules.
.. Everything is neuter by default ..................
Huubliins, being careless like that, will call a child
"ui", irrespective of being it a "aa'ui/blin" (boy) or
"uu'ui/blin" (girl).
In your dealings with them, you may certainly ignore
the gender marks and save yourself the headaches of
this dreadful language.
.. Aa is male, Uu is female .........................
Their first rule is to prefix a word with a long /aa/
to mark the masculine gender or a long /uu/ to mark
the feminine.
Thus "El/bliin" meaning an Elf, irrespective
of gender, turns into "Aa'el/bliin" to mean
a female elf and "Uu'el/bliin" to mean a
male elf. Please note that goblins may insert a
click of the tongue after the gender marker as in
breaking the first syllable, but this is neither
normative nor universal.
Remember!
Aa-maan and a Uu-woman got married.
This rule will be understood even if the second rule
was meant to be used, so you can be excused to skip
the second rule for casual trading with these beasts.
Their second rule, while can be of more interest
to scholars, is certainly harder to remember and
use correctly. It consists of changing of some
initial consonants of a word to their male or female
equivalent.
---------------------------
male -- neutral -- female
...........................
j -- h -- g
k -- t -- d
b -- m -- n
p -- b -- d
p -- r -- l
---------------------------
So "Guu/bliin", whence goblin probably came
from actually means female goblin.
"Ga/bliin" having the precise meaning of "one
enslaved by foreigners" has been proposed by other
scholars, by I don't follow such opinion as it's
unlikely that goblins would have introduced themselves
in such way.
Note that ga/bliin (literally thing-person) is not
female in this case, and it can be applied to any
foreign owned slave, not necessarily goblins.
Your own merchandise will probably refer to themselves
as ga/bliin.
1. Add any long vowel to a word. Hence
Blii/naa, bliin/ee, Bli/nii Bly/noo
and bliin/uu all mean the plural of
person. (Note the the syllabic division)
2. Add a click to any word which ends with a
long vowel in its singular form, or
3. Add a short /i/ to any word.
--- Personal Pronouns --------------------------------
Note the neutral or genderless form is by far the
most commonly used. Goblins, surely for being lazy,
are laid back in this regard, but you might find the
odd case when a goblin refers herself as "lii"
instead of the neutral "pii" to stress her gender to
you.
---------------------------------------------------
-- male -- neutral -- female
..................................................
"I" -- rii -- pii -- lii
"You" -- ruu -- puu -- luu
"He/she/it" -- raa -- paa -- laa
..................................................
"We" -- ri -- pi -- li
"We*" -- re -- pe -- le
"You" -- ru -- pu -- lu
"They" -- ras -- pas -- las
---------------------------------------------------
* This is an "inclusive we" meaning the recipient is
included, so pâ/si/ru meaning "we are going to a
party, you included" while pi/si/ru means "we are
going to a party, but not you". Be aware.
Huubliin lacks true verb. However, any word can be made
into a verb by prefixing a personal pronoun and adding
a tense mark. Simple and lazy! Sometimes, this botchery
results in verbs which are hard to translate. For
example --- Pii/oor/kluu "(?) I'm turning into an enemy
or I'm fed up"(?) Who may know?!
--- Major Tenses -------------------------------------
Huubliin only uses three main tenses: present, past
and future marked as i, di and u respectively.
Note that "i" and "u" turn to long vowels if the word
made into a verb ends in a short "i" or "u". To amelliorate
the confusion of this dreadful system, huubliins and
indeed any speaker can use the word diki and uku to denote
past and future.
--- The imperative -----------------------------------
Simple add a "he", or "heke" for added emphasis. The
polite version is "he" while "heke" is commonly used
to assert dominion on lesser beings. When dealing with
your "gauii", your own property, you'll always want to
use "heke", obviously.
-------------------------------------------------------
-- Past -- Present -- Future -- Imperative
......................................................
Formal -- di -- i -- u -- he
Same vowel -- di -- ii -- uu -- hee
Alternative -- diki -- 'ii -- uku -- heke
-------------------------------------------------------
--- Examples From the word "Mi" (food) ---------------
meaning "Food", we can form:
Pi/mii - "We are eating / We eat" (but not you)
Pii/midi - "I was eating/ I ate / I have eaten"
Pii/miu - "I will be eating / I will eat"
Ui/'ga Ku/mi/he/ke - "You, child-thing eat!"
Note that many tribes or individuals deviate from
these norms seemingly at random. Good luck.
--- The "ga" -----------------------------------------
To indicate the object of the action, ga, sometimes
prefixed with a click of the tongue (marked as ') is
added to the verb.
So "Pii/mi/u'ga/pu" means I will eat all of you
Raa/ejeu/ku'ga/puu means He's speaking about you
"Easy!", but not the syllable distribution.
The "'ga" can also be used in the imperative to mark the
addressed as a slave. So ui child, turns into ui'ga if
you mean a slave kid.
--- A short catalogue of words --------------------------
Goblins lack the number zero, using "niik" meaning "nothing"
for this purpose. Their numbering system uses base 12, the
following being their natural numbers.
1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6 -- 7 -- 8 -- 9 -- 10 -- 11 -- 12
a -- e -- i -- o -- u -- da -- aa -- ee -- ii -- oo -- uu -- daa
To go beyond twelve you add, subtract and
multiply to your liking, using "pro" (plus), "ti/ti" (minus)
and "mo" (multiply).
For example, 13 is often daa/pro/a (12+1) but it can also
be aa/mo/e/ti/ti/a, (7*2)-1. Obviously, the simpler forms
are usually preferred by this lazy kin.
* red - red
* blue - bu
* white - kuk
* yellow - ku
* yellow and blue - ku/ni/a
(not green, but a greenish yellow)
* green - eko
* brown - too/pa/mi
* gray - fen/pe (literally "ash")
.. Other words ......................................
* able - ka
* add - pro
* accident - ak/sy/den
* acceptence - oo/ji
* adult - poo
* against - kun
* air - ees
* attack - ky
* ax - oo/ki
* boring - oo
* boy - aa'ui/bliin
* belly - saa
* child - ui/bliin
* clear - spra
* dwarf - Deb/liin (strong person)
* enemy - oork
* day - anum
* dead - fen/bliin also fen/ui/blin or even
fen/ui'ga
* do - pronoun-ga-tense
* elf - elbliin (also means "haughty person")
* family - sisir
* fat - sysaan
* fool - sy
* fear - rek
* food - mi
* good - O
* ga - object, thing, slave --see also verbs
* girl - uu'ui/bliin
* goblin - hw/bliin, but use ui'ga with your slaves!
* halfling - sy/bliin (happy, cheerful and/or fool
person, so right!)
* happy - sy
* high - oo also tall
* human - oo/bliin (Boring person, yes, sorry)
* hungry - tijisaa
* kick - tru
* law - louu (they took this word from us,
surely)
* lazy - deje
* lord - Oo/bliin
* loot - du/kii (also captive, ui/du/ki is used
to refer to kidnapped human kids which
they consider valuable)
* low, small - ja
* mosquito - pik (alos any similar biting bug)
* multiply - mo
* new - pii
* now - 'ii
* orc - oork, sometimes O/bliin
* party - siir
* person - Huu/bliin, bliin
* poor - jaa (also naked, barefoot, jaa/ui can
mean captive)
* proud - El
* rebel - oo'/uu/bliin
* slave - ga/bliin (also ga,ja/bliin, ja/ui, ui,
ui/du/ki, duki, ti/jui, tij/ga)
* sadness - tij
* sickness - tat
* smile - si
* spear - hw (also ki)
from that hwbliin may literally mean
spear-people
* speak - e/je
* steal - ra/pus
* strong - de
* subtract - ti/ti
* surrender - ru/ki/'ga
* sword - ru/ki
* today - a/num'ii
* weapon - ki (also spear)
* water - Huu (Huubliins consider themselves the
children of water, and they trace
their origins to their mythical "Wild
Marshes", nonsense!
* word - e/je
* work - luti
* young - juu/pii (also ui)
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Please don't take this seriously at all. Goblins are
great persons that should always be respected and...
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