Quick and Easy Goblin Language

[the_brazenburn]

I often have players try to negotiate with goblins, and I RP them as not understanding the common tongue very well. As such, they often lapse into their own language in the middle of a sentence, and so I have developed a sort of on-the-spot way to put words in their mouths.

The system revolves around a few key nouns, and adds adjectives to make the meaning more specific.

For instance, ork means orc in Goblin. If you wanted to reference an orog, you'd add the adjective hob, meaning "smart" to the beginning. So an orog is h'bork. (This is also where hobgoblins get their names, literally "smart goblin".)

Want to have your goblins talk about an orc war chief? They'd call it a bugork: bug meaning big. (This means that a bugbear, or bugblin is a big goblin.)

Goblins don't distinguish between types of magic, right? To them, all magic is yahg, and a mage is booyahg. So a magic wand is taryahg from tar meaning stick and yahg being magic. So a wand is a magic stick.

WIP and PEACH, please.

By the way, this is not meant to be an actual guide to the goblin language. Please do not come yelling at me because the actual word for something I posted is different.

[KorvinStarmast]

Bree yark.

[Ventruenox]

Dakakhuur Maagaan

[the_brazenburn]

Bree yark.

From breen meaning battle and yark meaning end. Thus Bree-yark! means "to end battle" or to surrender.

See what I'm getting at here?

[carrdrivesyou]

Try these:

Ka: awesome or strong
Frick: fire
Nick: hurt or injury
Hop: Horse
Doge: dog
Me-me: Meat
kirk: small or weak
jip-jip: bad deal
yup-yup: good deal
biko: ogre or troll
goff: dead or near death
melk: healthy


Hope this helps

[Luccan]

kirk: small or weak

I've always been more of a Picard guy, but that's just rude.

[hymer]

Blaart.

Edit: To be clear, the goblins from Phoebe and her Unicorn speak in variations of 'blart'. Here, e.g., is the traditional goblin opera Blaart:

[the_brazenburn]

Try these:

Ka: awesome or strong
Frick: fire
Nick: hurt or injury
Hop: Horse
Doge: dog
Me-me: Meat
kirk: small or weak
jip-jip: bad deal
yup-yup: good deal
biko: ogre or troll
goff: dead or near death
melk: healthy


Hope this helps

So a nightmare is frickhop meaning fire-horse?

[carrdrivesyou]

I've always been more of a Picard guy, but that's just rude.

Picard always has been, and always will be the best captain! At least in my opinion...

So a nightmare is frickhop meaning fire-horse?

That is correct. That is also to say that a hellhound would be a frickdoge.

[sithlordnergal]

Picard always has been, and always will be the best captain! At least in my opinion...

What about Janeway?

and this is really neat, I will have to keep this topic saved for future use

[SkipSandwich]

This reminds me, there was a pretty nice post a year or so ago regarding racial dialects used instead of accents. Like all elves speak in flowery metaphores, gnomes tend to replace verbs with descriptive otomonopea, especially when excited, dwarves have a stone pun for EVERY occasion(and a love of puns in general) and orcs are basicly klingons in the way that they have a whole wealth of cultural idioms relating to war and battle.

[carrdrivesyou]

What about Janeway?

and this is really neat, I will have to keep this topic saved for future use

I never really watched her. She just couldn't hold my interest for some reason.

[2D8HP]

Kirk: small or weak

I've always been more of a Picard guy, but that's just rude.

Picard always has been, and always will be the best captain! At least in my opinion...

What about Janeway?

I never really watched her. She just couldn't hold my interest for some reason.

.
Sisko was the best Star Trek Captain.

Oh, and the OP's goblin language is neat.

[the_brazenburn]

Here's the Goblin numerical system:

En: one
Dut: two
Tris: three
Fur: four
Viv: five
Zik: six
Sep: seven
Out: eight
Nin: nine
Des: ten

To create a two-digit number, simply string the different numerals together. When adding, the ones digit goes after the tens digit, but when multiplying, it comes before.

This is confusing, I'll give an example.

40 in goblin is furdes (four tens). Fourteen, on the other hand, would be desfur (ten and four).

Hope you like this!

[JeenLeen]

Here's the Goblin numerical system:

En: one
Dut: two
Tris: three
Fur: four
Viv: five
Zik: six
Sep: seven
Out: eight
Nin: nine
Des: ten

To create a two-digit number, simply string the different numerals together. When adding, the ones digit goes after the tens digit, but when multiplying, it comes before.

This is confusing, I'll give an example.

40 in goblin is furdes (four tens). Fourteen, on the other hand, would be desfur (ten and four).

Hope you like this!

Wouldn't entfur make more sense for 14, instead of 10-4? Or does the number system continue, so there are words for 20, 30, 40, etc. but no oddities like English's 'eleven', 'twelve', etc. not following the more simple twenty-one, twenty-two, etc.

IF words for 20, 30 don't exist:
How would you distinguish if vivviv meant 5*5=25 or 55?
I could see it being that, linguistically, the two are identical, but by common usage one knows which is meant because it is only used one way. Goblins wouldn't say "5 5s", they would say

Or -- as seems potentially fitting for goblins if you want their language to betray a low intelligence or sophistication -- maybe multiplication only happens on set numbers like 10, and they round greatly, so 44, 43 all become 40. Any huge number is desdes, since 10*10 is about the biggest number their system represents.
Though that might make sense for normal parlance for goblins, it doesn't seem to reflect the military logistics one would expect hobgoblins to utilize, so probably a bad idea.

[the_brazenburn]

Wouldn't entfur make more sense for 14, instead of 10-4? Or does the number system continue, so there are words for 20, 30, 40, etc. but no oddities like English's 'eleven', 'twelve', etc. not following the more simple twenty-one, twenty-two, etc.

IF words for 20, 30 don't exist:
How would you distinguish if vivviv meant 5*5=25 or 55?
I could see it being that, linguistically, the two are identical, but by common usage one knows which is meant because it is only used one way. Goblins wouldn't say "5 5s", they would say

Or -- as seems potentially fitting for goblins if you want their language to betray a low intelligence or sophistication -- maybe multiplication only happens on set numbers like 10, and they round greatly, so 44, 43 all become 40. Any huge number is desdes, since 10*10 is about the biggest number their system represents.
Though that might make sense for normal parlance for goblins, it doesn't seem to reflect the military logistics one would expect hobgoblins to utilize, so probably a bad idea.

1. Yes, the number system simply continues. There's no eleven, just ten-one.
2. I didn't actually mean multiplication, I meant the number of tens. So vivviv is 55, while 25 is dutviv.
3. I've got two words for you: dialectic quirks. If you are in Britain, people call running shoes "trainers", while Irish call them "runners" and the Americans across the sea call them "sneakers", despite all speaking the same language. In the same way, goblins might not distinguish between large numbers, but hobgoblins most definitely will. So to a goblin, 500 is just desdes, while hobgoblins correctly recognize it as vivde'des.