This volume, and 
others in the series, 
are sponsored by 
Lord Blackthorn,
ever a supporter of 
understanding the 
other sentient races 
of Britannia.
#EOP
  The Orcish tongue 
may fall unpleasingly 
'pon the ear, yet it 
has within it a 
complex grammar oft 
misunderstood by 
those who merely 
hear the few broken 
#EOP
words of English 
our orcish brothers 
manage without 
education.
  These are the basic 
rules of orcish:
  Orcish has five 
tenses: present, past, 
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future imperfect, 
present interjectional, 
and prehensile.
  Examples: gugroflu, 
gugrofloog, gugrobo, 
gugroglu!, gugrogug.
  All transitive verbs 
in the prehensile 
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tense end in "ug."
  Examples: 
urgleighug, 
biggugdaghgug, 
curdakalmug.
  All present 
interjectional 
conjugations start 
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with the letter G 
unless they contain 
the third declensive 
accent of the letter U.
  Examples: 
ghothudunglug, but not 
azhbuugub.
  The past tense can 
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only refer to events 
since the last meal, 
but the prehensile 
tense can refer to 
any event within 
reach.
  The present tense 
is conjugated like the 
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future imperfect 
tense, when the 
interrogative mode is 
used by pitching the 
sound a quarter-tone 
higher.
  Orcish hath no 
concept of person, as 
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in first person, 
third person, I, we, 
etc.
  Orcish grammar 
relies upon the three 
cardinal rules of 
accretion, prefixing, 
and agglutination, in 
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addition to pitch. In 
the former, phonemes 
combine into larger 
words which may 
contain full phrasal 
significance. In the 
second, prefixing 
specific phonetic 
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sounds changes the 
subject of the 
sentence into object, 
interrogative, 
addressed individual, 
or dinner.
  Agglutination occurs 
whenever four of 
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the same letter are 
present in a word, in 
which case, any two 
of them may be 
removed or slurred.
  Pitch changes the 
phoneme value of 
individual syllables, 
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thus completely 
altering what a word 
may mean. The 
classic example is 
"Aktgluthugrot 
bigglogubuu 
dargilgaglug 
lublublub" 
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which can mean "You 
are such a pretty 
girl," "My mother ate 
your primroses," or 
"Jellyfish nose paints 
alms potato," 
depending on pitch.
  Orcish poetry often 
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relies upon repeating 
the same phrase in 
multiple pitches, 
even changing pitch 
midword. None of 
this great art is 
translatable.
  The orcish language 
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uses the following 
vowels: ab, ad, ag, akt, 
at, augh, auh, azh, e, 
i, o, oo, u, uu. The 
vowel sound a is not 
recognized as a vowel 
and does not exist in 
their alphabet.
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The orcish alphabet 
is best learned using 
the classic rhyme 
repeated at 23 
different pitches:
(A translation of the 
first pitch follows):

#EOP
Lugnog ghu blat 
  suggaroglug,
Gaghbuu dakdar ab 
  highugbo,
Gothnogbuim ad 
  gilgubbugbuilug
Bilgeaugh thurggulg 
  stuiggro!
#EOP
Eat food, the first 
  letter is ab,
Kill people, next 
  letter is ad,
I forget the rest
But augh is in there 
  somewhere!
      THE END
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