Sarzaz

1. Phonology & Orthography

• No silent letters, no capitalization rules (goblins like speed).
• A breathy /h/ whisper may be added to the end of any word. It is optional and never written.
• Root shape. Roots are short: one syllable, two at most. Anything longer is a compound of roots and affixes joined by hyphens (ar-zaz-kot).
• Endings. Most roots end in a consonant or a consonant cluster (sarz, gak, xortz, gluz). Only a few short old roots and pronouns end in a vowel (ara, ga, xura, qeko, xa, zo).
• Vowels. Two vowels never stand side by side, except in graffiti mockery (eeelaz).
• Stress. Stress falls on the first syllable of a root, and a compound is stressed on its first root. An acute accent (á, é) marks stress that falls elsewhere: emphatic reduplication (xura-xurá), elf-derived vowels (élaz), and the past-tense ending -án (ekán, xil-án). A word carries at most one accent mark.

Registers

• Whisper register (raids, vents, ship corridors): voiced z g b d j are sounded voiceless, as s k p t q. Spelling never changes.
• Graffiti register: vowels are tripled to mock elf-derived speech (eeelaz). It is written only, never used in careful speech.

2. Morphosyntax

• Typology: agglutinative, SOV word order.
• No grammatical gender; plurality and cases are shown with suffix chains.
• Suffix order: root – plural -tz – determiner -ot – case (gubz-tz-ot-n “the goblins”, ergative).
• Determiner: -ot “the”, on the last word of the noun phrase, before any case ending.
• Plural: add -tz immediately after the root, before case endings: gubz-tz-n “goblins (ergative)”.
• Adjectives come before the noun they describe (biz barz “swift ship”); case endings go on the last word of the phrase.
• Demonstratives: tix “this”, tuz “that”; with the locative they give tix-re “here”, tuz-re “there”.

Cases

Core cases attach to the last word of the noun phrase.

Pronouns (absolutive forms)

Pronouns take the same case endings as nouns: niz-n “I (ergative)”, zo-ta “to you”, xa-zug “his, her, their”.

Verbs

• Verbs are cited with the suffix -ux (xil-ux “to kill”). The citation form also serves as the present tense.
• A few verbs are bare roots with no -ux: eg “do, make”, ikz “see”, joz “go”, xis “whisper”, zel “greet”, and compounds built on them (jiq-eg, gluz-ikz, xil-joz). They add tense endings directly to the root.
• ekán “gave” is the irregular past of ek-ux “to give”.
• Verbs do not change for person or number.

• To be: tiz-ux. In the present it is usually dropped: xa gubz “he is a goblin”.
• Modal verbs follow the main verb’s root: pilk doz-ux “can pilot”, terz tarb-ux “must get out”.

Negation

• ezk “no, not” stands next to the word it negates, before or after it (ezk bel-ot, gak ezk).
• Placed before a verb as a compound element, ezk reverses the action: ezk-akz-ux “to deactivate”, ezk-qubz-ux “to unlock”, ezk-nemz-ux “to wake up”.

Questions

• Question words start with n-: nuz who, nek what, nir where, noz when, nub why, nol how, nimz how many, nerk which. They take the place of the questioned word.
• Yes/no questions end with the particle niq.

Comparison

• Comparative -ab, superlative -abz. “Than” is the ablative -zik: urk-zik xan-ab “bigger than an orc”. ozk “very” comes before an adjective.

Conjunctions

• tob and, urb or, bruk but, zim if, tozk because, tebz then. They stand between the words or clauses they join.

Sample sentences

3. Word Formation

• Compounds join roots with hyphens; each root keeps its own spelling (gluz-tzek-rak “energy tapping tool”). The modifier usually comes first and the head last (gubz-karkaz “goblin ship hull”, zirk-kez “nebula”).
• Noun to verb: adding -ux to a noun or adjective root makes a verb meaning “to do, use or become it” (surz fire → surz-ux to burn; goz up → goz-ux to climb).
• Verb to noun or adjective: drop -ux and add -rok, -kot, -rak, -dix or -griz (erz-ux to attack → erz-rok raider, erz-kot raid, erz-griz aggressive).
• “Nothing” compounds: xutz after a root means “without it” (bel-xutz fearless, lin-xutz empty-headed).
• Size: kinz “small” placed before a noun means literally small (kinz-bolg “moon”); placed after, it is an affectionate diminutive (lorz-kinz, otz-kinz “finger”). xan “big” before a noun means big or chief (xan-zag “warlord”).
• Again: renk “again” before a verb root repeats the action (renk-krag-ux “to reload”, renk-joz-ux “to go again”).
• Nouns: -kot on a noun means a row or series of it (gak-kot “row of traps”); -rok means one who works with it (durk-rok); -griz means full of it or like it (kez-griz “smoky”); -xen on a word for a person or creature means the state of being one (gubz-xen “goblinhood”).
• Adjectives: -griz softens an adjective to “somewhat, -ish” (bolz-griz); -dix names a place with that quality (bolz-dix “a black place”); -rok names someone with that quality (zorz-rok “a crazy one”); -ux means “to make or become” it (zorz-ux).
• Verbs: -lek on a verb root means “while doing it” (kurr-lek “while running”).
• Material, owner and color compounds put the material, owner or color first (durk-kuq “metal box”, gubz-barz “goblin ship”, gurr-xirr “red rock”).
• Reduplication (partial) adds emphasis or sarcasm: xura-xurá “real shadow, suuuuper shady”.
• Expand with the derivational rules: gak-rak “trap device”, xura-rok “shadow-mancer (scout who uses darkness)”.

4. Numbers

• Addition: tens first, then units: xam-tak 11, bik-xam-lok 24.
• Multiplication: the multiplier comes before: bik-xam 20, xir-unz 300, boz-milz 5,000.
• Ordinals: add -dun: tak-dun first, xam-dun tenth. zeb means “half”.

5. Basic Phrases & Idioms

6. Names

• A goblin takes a two-root name, usually a trait plus a noun, written as a compound (biz-qez “Quick-Thief”, xura-daz “Shadow-Claw”).
• A clan name follows, built with gruk “clan” (biz-qez gruk-surz “Quick-Thief of the Fire clan”).
• Ships are named with a root before barz (zar-barz “Radiation Ship”).

7. Flavor & Cultural Notes

• Sound aesthetic: lots of sharp tz/q clicks and hissy fricatives let goblins signal each other softly while remaining hard to localize — perfect for ship corridors or nebular hideouts.
• Writing system: they carve straight slashes and chevrons onto metal tiles or scratch them with laser-etch pens. The script is compact; each letter fits in a 3×3 grid so messages can be hidden in maintenance tags.
• Loanwords: because goblins mutated from elves, a few elf-derived vowels occasionally slip in — e.g., élaz “old stealth style”. Goblins often mock this with doubled vowels (eeelaz) in graffiti.
• Slang:
  • qak-qak = literally “click-click”, means “hurry!”
  • zuz gax! = “total mess, chaotic jackpot” (celebrating mayhem)
  • lorz-kinz = affectionate term for fellow pirates siding with goblins

8. Lexicon

Many words are presented as roots (e.g., bel) from which derived forms (e.g., bel-griz) are built. Verbs are generally presented with their -ux citation form.