The tiny grammar of the Goblin Language of the RuneScape
Within the game of RuneScape, there exists a race called goblins. Goblins came to the main world of RuneScape – Gielinor – from a plane called Yu’biusk, due to a warlord Bandos needing them in the God Wars. The goblins became divided into twelve tribes, with a lot of in-fighting, one moved to live under the ground… it is a whole complex history. These tribes are called:
Dorgeshuun – Goblins of the Strong Spears
Drogokishuun – Goblins of the Fierce Blades
Ekeleshuun – Goblins of the East
Garagorshuun – Goblins of the Sea
Horogothar – Eaters of human flesh
Huzamogaarb – Live-Flesh Eater of the Chaos God
Idithuun – Goblins of the South
Naragoshuun – Goblins of the West
Rekeshuun – Goblins of the North
Saragorgak – Footsoldiers of the Holy Wrath
Thorobshuun – Goblins of the Hills
Yurgolgokh – The Flatulent
These names can be analysed to produce a little bit of grammar. Firstly, the ending shuun clearly means goblin. This assuming the “Goblins of [term]” is interchangeable with “[term]goblins”. This is thrown off by Idithuun, but this is most likely caused by a phonological rule where:
/tʃ/ > /θ/
In addition to the lack of affricates, there also would appear to be no native sound /w/ in the language, from what I have seen. This is further implied by the fact that the goblin babies in the Dorgesh-Kaan nursery are called “young ‘uns” not “young ones”.
Now onto the terms saragorgak and huzamogaarb. Notice how there is a <g> after both sara and zamo (which refer to the gods Saradomin and Zamorak respectively)? I hypothesize that this is a genitive marker, giving us the terms orkak and aarb. Orkak evidently means “footsoldiers”, but aarb is less clear. For the purposes of this discussion let us assume that huzamogaarb breaks down into hu|zamo|g|aarb, where aarb means “flesh eaters”, hence zamogaarb mean “flesh eaters of Zamorak”, where hu- is a prefix that means “alive”.
From this, we can easily analyze horogothgar, to get horo, human flesh, and othgar, eater.
We also know a few other words that have not yet been mentioned. Arrav is an exclamation that is used as a war cry. Arrav was the name of a great warrior in Gielinor after whom the city of Varrock is named, so the name is unlikely to be of goblin origin. Further, it is apparent that the prefix ur- is added to the names of high ranking officials in Dorgesh-Kaan, so it probably is some sort of a title. And once were on that topic, kaan most likely means “city”, since Dorgesh-Kaan is the capital of the Dorgeshuun tribe.
Resulting grammar
Phonological rules
If two words are used to form a compound, where following mutations happen:
Syntax
In the goblin language attributes precede the word they describe, as exemplified by countless translated goblin names and even the given tribe names.
Possession is marked with the genitive marker -g, (e.g. Sarag, Saradomin’s).
Derived vocabulary
aarb – flesh-eater
arrav – a battle-cry
dorgesh* – strong spears
drogoki – fierce blades
ekele – east
garagor – sea
horo – human flesh
horogothgar – human flesh eaters, i.e. anthropophags
hu- – prefix meaning living, alive
idit – south
kaan – city
narago – west
orkak – footsoldiers
othgar – eater
reke – north
shuun – goblins, tribe
thorob – hills
ur– – high rank prefix in Dorgesh-Kaan
yurgolgokh – the flatulent
* – As exemplified by the city-name Dorgesh-Kaan vs the tribe name Dorgeshuun. This implies a phonological rule /ʃ:/ > /ʃ/
discoholicmusic
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
dededos
vaporwave
origamiaround
romaincrisis
