Orcish language

Orcish is the language of the Orcs, spoken by the Orcish tribes, as well as the Goblin and Ogre populations of Brutang, although the latter two may also speak the Kobold language.

Evolution from Middle Orcish

 * The voicing distinction is replaced by an aspiration distinction, in other words...
 * The voiceless stops become aspirated  when followed by a vowel (they remain unaspirated if there is no vowel following them)
 * The voiced stops lose their voicing word-initially and word-finally, becoming . They remain voiced word-medially.
 * The voicing distinction is preserved for fricatives.
 * The high vowels develop the allophones  after the uvular sounds.
 * The short high vowels lax to
 * The diphthongs monophthongize to . The diphthongs  shift to.

Consonants

 * only exists in loanwords
 * The coda nasal had the following allophones
 * labial before
 * alveolar before
 * palatal before
 * velar before
 * uvular before
 * Both and  only exist as parts of the word-initial cluster
 * are allophones of after aspirated consonants. For example,  is pronounced.

Vowels
The language also has two diphthongs:.

Northwestern Brutangi / Hro'z

 * The postalveolar are retroflexed.
 * The vowels are more centralized  or even fully central

Southwestern Brutangi / Kro'm

 * The distinctions between uvular and velar stops are no longer held - the uvular stops are merged with the velar stops.
 * The clusters is replaced by.
 * The coronal rhotic is usually realized as an alveolar trill, but still distinct from the uvular rhotic.
 * The uvular rhotic is pronounced as a velar fricative, except after aspirated stops: the clusters  are realized as . The cluster  is realized as a consistently voiced.

Northeastern Brutangi / Bru'k

 * The medial allophones of the lenis dorsal stops are fricatives  rather than stops like in the other dialects.
 * The aspirated dorsal stops are realized as affricates . In the coda-position, rather than losing their aspiration like in other dialects, they spirantize .nn
 * Some speakers merge and  into a single phoneme, realized as a trill, either alveolar  or uvular.

Southeastern Brutangi / Pri'd

 * The vowel colours following coda-position consonants by palatalizing them. Uvular consonants are unaffected. For example,  (the clan's name) is realized as  instead of the expected  that other dialects would have.

Goblin accents
Even though those Goblins who live in Brutang still speak their own language, being under Orcish rule forced them to learn the language of their new masters, which resulted in almost ubiquitous billingualism in Brutang. Nevertheless, most Goblins speak Orcish with a noticeable accent:
 * The uvular stops are usually replaced with their velar equivalents.
 * The unaspirated stops are always realized as voiced.
 * are typically realized as . The cluster ends up being realized as,  or.
 * Difficulties with the voiced fricatives, they are usually turned into affricates or just devoiced.
 * The vowels are theoretically reinterpreted as, but most Goblins don't maintain length distinction at all, and end up having only , respectively realized as , just like in Kobold.

Ogre accents
Those Ogres living in Brutang are typically bilingual in Kobold and Orcish, and usually have Orcish as their native language. Despite this, they still speak Orcish with noticeable accents:
 * The dipthtonhgs are simplified to a monophthong
 * The dorsal aspirates are replaced by affricates
 * The unaspirated stops are always realized as voiced.
 * The rhotics are realized as alveolar trills of different length .  is realized as just a long voiceless trill.
 * The original orcish vowel length distinctions of versus  fall apart, as all vowels - except  - become short  in final syllables and in closed syllables before unvoiced consonants, long  in non-final open syllables and before voiced consonants.