Gnomish

Gnomish is the closest humanoid language to the true Fey tongue. However, whereas Fey seems to have no consistent syntax or morphology, and can only be spoken and understood through magical means, Gnomish does indeed have a system of rules--albeit a very bizarre and seemingly random one--and can be learned by intelligent non-Gnomes willing to suffer through many headaches. For example, there are 13 tenses, 11 cases, and 7 gender classifications. Thought to have originated shortly after the Disjunction of Chaos, before the Ur-Gnomes diverged into Forest Gnomes (Eivar' Shibyr) of the Feywood and the Gear Gnomes (Klicka' Tick' Kur' Tunk) of what are now the Yawney Mountains and Mt. Uh Oh, Gnomish is an ancient language, almost as old as Arenundim. Still, many non-Gnomes consider it puerile and bordering on ridiculous, and it is often included in plays and puppet shows to represent gibberish. Most Gnomes, however, know the chaotic power of their language, and often use it to confound everyone else, even the most ardent linguistic scholars. In the inimitable words of the High Elf linguist Beriliam Sha'nav, "I've been studying Gnomish for 400 years and I still can't the difference between direct and indirect objects."   Gnomish has two written forms: the Forest Gnomes use Feyscrawl, while Gear Gnomes developed their own script, Kertunk.

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