Friday, April 19, 2019

Languages Part Two

My friend Oliver at Graven Utterance was kind enough to give me a call back on their blog as well as shed some Linguistic Wisdom on me. If you haven’t yet, I really do recommend visiting their website and reading it, as both their depth and breadth of knowledge exceeds mine. I was especially happy with their much more positive outlooks on Common as a trade-language and lasting stamp of multicultural unity and strength. 

The following is a list of languages I started writing even before my last post, and is by no means complete. I’ve broken my own rules here (note that I have elf languages, yuck), but also some fun ones, including one contagious one. You can probably tell I googled “magic languages” at least once while working on these. I may revisit some later, as I’m operating on very little sleep currently.

Fantastic Languages:

Oneiric: Which is the language used in dreams. Anyone asleep speaks oneiric, so long as they are asleep and dreaming. It is also the language of the Fey.

Spore: Language that Myconids naturally speak. People can learn Spore via contracting it as “psychic lichenification” of the skin. If someone takes over 20 damage from fire, or receives “Cure Disease”, they forget how to speak Spore until it is recontracted.

Gorgonite: The common language of monsters, a kind of Lingua-Franca that grew to include terms useful for defending against intrepid explorers and adventurers. Most non-extraplanar monsters (and a few crafty adventurers) speak some Gorgonite.

Thieves’ Cant: An odd mix of slang, codified phrases, and a smattering of Dungeon Hobo only recognized by those who frequently find themselves either on the wrong side of the law or the right place at the right time. 

High-Lyric: language of the oldest elves, largely considered a dead language except in elven spell-casting, or major religious holidays. Shares some phonetic similarities with Oneiric, but elves don’t sleep, so how would they know?

New-Lyric: Modern, in-vogue constructed language of the younger elves. Has a frustrating focus on politeness, cleanliness, beauty, and euphemisms and metaphors to keep it that way. 

Thrush: Language of the Birds, occasionally known but never spoken aloud by witches and sorcerers, for to do so is a sin against the Queen of Aeries and the Hawklord, thus making you an enemy of all birds forever.

Zaumlang: Written language used to transcribe the six-tongue sounds wizards must make in order to cast their spells. It is a necessity to read or write state-sanctioned magic.  

Far-flung: Language of Eldritch things and alien abominations from beyond the stars. May be several languages, or psychically enhanced.

Lethe: Language of the tormented dead. Ghosts and other miserably damned forget their old languages and only speak Lethe.

Ephemeral Dictum: The language used to speak with spirits, especially familiars. Has no written form.

Regional Languages:

Aurelian: Language predominantly spoken within the kingdom of Aurelia. As Aurelia was founded relatively recently, the language is still referred to as “Yswil” sometimes. Guaranteed to be one language amongst players in my homebrew world. 

Gotherese: Language used within the broken Empire of Gotheria, especially among those loyal to or old-soldiers of their exiled Empress. A common belief is that she will live so long as it is spoken. 

Vellish: Language used by the people of Vell, a pidgin language consisting of Old Vell, Dorgen (Which was consumed by Vellish), and Vaeresian. Has a costal dialect that abandons the Old Vellish grammar in favor of Dorgenian.

Rusal: Language of the northern Rusalkin, common among cold-water sailors and explorers. Rumored to have been magically stolen somehow from other beings.

Vaeresian: Language common among the Vaerese Penninsula, written in top to bottom, left to right.  

Yurthic: Language common among taiga dairy farmers and steppe nations, has no unified written form, but a strong oral tradition. The introduction of the printing press has seen several communities adopt other alphabets or invent their own.

Reggrimi: Language family of the Reggrim Forest dwellers consisting of a familial language, a language for use in public, and one for hunting.

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