Khazgrun

When the Sundering War ended and the scattered dwôrven clans came together to build the Eastern Dwôrven Republic, they brought with them different dialects, different rhythms, different histories. Khazgrun emerged from that convergence — the living descendant of the ancient Durinkhâld, reshaped by inclusion, labor, and political will.

Where Durinkhâld carried the weight of stone, craft, and ancestral reverence, Khazgrun carries the weight of working together. Its vocabulary is dense with the language of industry, collective action, and the particular tensions of a multi-species republic navigating capitalism, inequality, and the question of who the work is really for. The slang is blunt. The oaths are blunter.

As the language of diplomacy and trade across the EDR, Khazgrun is how the dwôrven people talk to the world. As the language of the workshop floor and the union hall, it's how they talk to each other.

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Grammar

Sentence Structure: Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). Khazgrun retains the verb-final structure of its Durinkhâld ancestor. When a dwôrf speaks, the action lands last — a holdover from desert-era precision that labor organizing found useful for different reasons. Emphasis falls naturally on the verb, which is now most often an imperative.

Articles

Khazgrun has one definite article, dorin, but it is actively falling out of use. Old-guard dwôrves and clan elders still say it. Union organizers and modern EDR speakers drop it as archaic. A Khazgrun speaker who uses dorin in a political speech is signaling which side of the generational divide they stand on — deliberately or not. The phrase Rûvolûn na dorin zarîn ("Revolution brings change") keeps it because the proverb predates the shift.

Pronouns

Khadul (we) shares its root with khadan (union). The solidarity principle is baked into the first-person plural — to say "we" in Khazgrun is to invoke the collective.

Numbers

Khazgrun numbers descend directly from Durinkhâld. The evolution shows in what stayed and what softened: core numerals (1, 7, 8, 10) carried forward unchanged, while others lost their formal diacritics or shifted vowels as the language left desert ceremony and entered the workshop floor.

Noun Cases

Khazgrun retains Durinkhâld's four-case system, shown here on khadan (union) — the most politically loaded word in the language.

Verbs

Verb conjugation on farûn (to fight for, to seize). Where Durinkhâld's verb system carried nine aspect-tense combinations, Khazgrun collapses them. Modern EDR speech prioritizes the imperative — the language of the workshop floor and the picket line needs commands more than it needs continuous aspects.

Proverbs & Idioms

• "Khûg na duron" (Strength in community) — The foundational Khazgrun proverb. Spoken at the start of union meetings, at births, and at funerals. Strength isn't individual — it's structural.
• "Farûn dûrmât na shâr" (When in doubt, go left) — Political maxim and practical advice in equal measure. In the EDR, "left" means toward the workers.
• "Khatâr na ranor" (Honor your word) — The binding principle of all EDR contracts and agreements. A Khazgrun who breaks their word is Zarîdûn — a sellout — and that name follows them.