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:

/ʃ:/ > /ʃ/* 

/tʃ/ > /θ/

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

but then…

my mind worked again…