Alongside the piece on newspapers (or 'broadsides'), this one, on languages spoken across Immoren, was very fun to research and write-up. Sure, a lot of gameplay mechanics in IKRPG are handwaved when it comes to language because it obviously has to be, so it's a pity that the quirks of linguistics and etymology can't play that much of a part except in such things as this: lore for the sake of lore, not that I mind. In fairness, this affects all games featuring fictional languages, including video games, such is the lot of RPG developers who find such matters fascinating.
Welcome to Immoren - From One Denizen to Another, uploaded 16th September 2020
Original script link - (Google doc)
The oldest languages of Immoren
that have established histories are undoubtedly those of the elves and dwarves.
The Empire of Lyoss used an archaic but intelligible version of Shyr that has
changed very little to this day and it is highly likely that the elves of Ios
and their earliest ancestors would be able to communicate with each other with
relative ease. This is largely due to the constancy of their gods, who remained
in continual communication to their people via the priesthoods and then
directly when they dwelled upon Caen for some three thousand or so years.
Within the language of Shyr are many grammatical rules and aspects not found in
other languages of Immoren, making it a surprise when non-Iosans are
encountered who speak it, given not only how the elves guard their language but
also how complicated it is. However, after the Rivening and the migration of
the Nyss away from the Iosan heartlands, a new elven language evolved, and
Aeric is the language of the northern elves named for their Prophet, and though
it is not mutually unintelligible with Iosan, the two are different enough that
they may be considered separate languages, as opposed to merely dialects.
Indeed, their scripts prove them to be different languages. Where Shyr and
Aeric can be spoken with some level of understanding, written Shyr and written
Aeric may as well belong to two different races entirely.
Shyr is written in
logographic form with symbols of varying complexity, whose content does not
imply any specific pronunciation while Aeric possesses an intricate alphabet
which came about from the adaptation of religious runes. Culturally, the two
languages hold disparate places within their native speaking populations, as
well. The Iosans consider Shyr to be merely a functional part of their daily
lives while to the Nyss, the use of Aeric, especially written Aeric is of great
religious importance. Given how the average Nyss is generally illiterate and
most texts that use written Aeric are associated with the Fane of Nyssor and
gathered Nyss lore, it explains why literacy is limited to the priesthood and
those who adopt the sorcerous traditions. More relevant to the modern era,
though, written Aeric is preserved by what few Priests of Nyssor remain alive,
now reunited with their southern cousins. Meanwhile, the actual predominant
form of written Aeric is that used by the Blighted Nyss sorcerers and
Everblight’s other minions. It has seen the language corrupted by the
influences of draconic rituals and sigils, an effect that continues at the dragon’s
encouragement, turning Blighted Aeric into something even further desecrated
than it already is. While likely existing as something akin to a dialect
continuum across the Shards, Aeric has few varieties beyond those used by
Blighted and non-Blighted Nyss, not least because the total population of the winter
elves was never especially large and outsiders’ necessity or requirement to
learn it was always minimal, most Nyss speaking Khardic or a local Skirovi
dialect. Unique to Aeric though, is that it even has a Blighted counterpart,
for no other language has been so wilfully defiled in its use. Shyr, on the
other hand, was spared such influence by Everblight when he undermined Issyrah.
Today, Shyr has regional variations with a major dialect for each of the ithyls
that is still well populated as well as at the border fortresses, where the
Shyr spoken by the populations that dwell there are quite far removed from the
urban centres of the nation. Individual great houses have and use slight
differences in vocabulary, but these would be difficult to classify as dialects
of their own, more a local vernacular. Ithyls such as Ayisthyl, Nyssothyl and
Nyrrothyl have no real dialect to call their own any more, being sparsely
populated at best, the first was levelled to the ground when Everblight tried
his hand in Ios, the second being the original home of the Nyss as one would
expect from such a name, and the last having never recovered from the actions
of the Cult of Nyrro in the aftermath of the great heresy they perpetrated. The
prestige dialect of Shyr is undoubtedly that of Lacyrthyl, logically, as Ios’
capital takes its name from the language of its people and indeed, speakers of
the capital variety make up the largest proportion of the Shyr-speaking
demographic. Similar to Aeric, though, few outsiders know or even consider
learning Shyr, especially if there is no ulterior motive to do so. With the
Retribution at large, not many have earned enough respect among Iosans to be
able to learn and speak Shyr without causing offence.
Conversely, the dwarves are
certainly not the only population who freely speak the Rhulic language. Their
ogrun neighbours and fellow clanfolk are almost all fluent in Rhulic to some
degree, though not all are capable of writing it. In addition, the ogrun also
speak their own native language, a variant of Molgur: Molgur-Og. However,
because of the level of integration of the ogrun communities among the dwarven
clans, Molgur-Og is becoming a marginalised language, reserved only for intimate
and family matters, while they will speak in Rhulic in public, even amongst fellow
ogrun. Rhulic and its dwarven lore written counterpart Rhul-Runic are descended
from Dohl-Rhul, the original language of the Great Fathers, but is no longer
spoken by the dwarves of the modern era. Alone among the major languages of
Immoren, Rhulic has two accepted written forms, the aforementioned Rhul-Runic
for ritual and formal stone engraving work, and conventional Rhulic script for
daily use, correspondence and other mundane affairs. Rhul-Runic is a complex
written form based on patterns of geometric shapes, while daily Rhulic has a
much more flowing form. And while both are alphabetised, runes of one do not
necessarily equate to letters in the other. Variations of spoken Rhulic exist
with the most distinct being those spoken to the north away from the great
cities or the areas around the dwarven fortifications, but most notable dialect
is Miner Rhulic, which is spoken by those who have worked away from their
homeland for a long time, starting with the Rhulic workers who settled in the
Iron Kingdoms in the aftermath of the Rebellion era, starting off in the mines,
hence giving rise to the dialect’s name. Hundreds of years and a few
generations have led to a mildly divergent form of Rhulic that is nonetheless
fully intelligible with native Rhulic.
As noted, the ogrun generally
speak a descendent language from ancient Molgur. The other Dhunian races all
speak their own variants of Molgur, as do many cults of the Devourer Wurm. But
while the Molgur languages share common ancestry, they are nonetheless highly
divergent insomuch that the written forms vary from non-existent, as in the
case of the ogrun’s Molgur-Og, to extremely flexible and expressive, as in the
case of the Trollkin’s Molgur-Trul. When more civilised speakers of Molgur
languages wish to codify one thing or another but lack a writing system, they
generally borrow from another local language. For example, written Molgur-Og in
Rhul uses the Rhulic alphabet, while urban born and raised Trollkin generally
use the Cygnaran alphabet out of convenience, it being more prosaic than the
Trollkin’s more poetic native runes, considering its use on the sacred
krielstones. Unlike both Og and Trul variants of Molgur, followers of the
Devourer Wurm, the Tharn in particular, speak a Molgur much more closely
related to its predecessor. Aside from a great deal of appropriated terminology,
mostly from Khurzic languages, comparatively little separates the tuaths’
Molgur-Tharn from ancient Molgur. On a much different note is Gobberish, though
anyone with intellectual inclinations would hesitate to call Gobberish a
language. A Molgur derived… method of speaking, shall we say, used by the
Gobbers, as the name would suggest, Gobberish is a largely unwritten creole
that integrates a great deal of local vocabulary, the most common being
Cygnaran, given that the largest populations of Gobbers can be found there.
Often used as a source of mischief as much as communication, Gobbers’ human
neighbours have difficulty learning Gobberish not only because of the
unfamiliar Molgur roots, but also because Gobbers delight in speaking at speeds
designed to bewilder or even annoy their listeners. They revert to Cygnaran
when they’ve had their fill of fun. Sharing a similar background to Molgur is
Quor. Like Molgur, the Quor language itself is dead, but aspects live on in the
descendant but still closely related Quor-Og and Quor-Gar languages, spoken by
the Bog-Trogs and Gatormen respectively.
Surprising to most who encounter
them is the lingual flexibility of the Farrow. While they have their own
language, Grun, it is a relatively young language by comparison with the others
spoken in Immoren, due in large part to the youth of the Farrow as a race, one
hesitates to say ‘civilised race’. Because of the Farrow propensity for
abnormally rapid evolution, they adapted to using language both quickly and
easily. Farrow physiology restricting their ability to replicate certain sounds
notwithstanding, many Farrow have a competent grasp of multiple languages. As
for Grun itself, it is a result of the Farrow’s own background, with the
largest populations around Cygnaran lands, and their biology, thus giving rise
to a combination of Cygnaran vocabulary adapted for the Farrow voice and
distinctly porcine phonemes, if you wish to be charitable. It has no written
form, but the more intellectually inclined among the Farrow use the Caspian
alphabet or borrow liberally from Molgur runes.
Moving further east, only one
widely spoken language is of any real note to linguists. The Giants are known
to have their own language, but they number so few and are insular to the
extreme, allowing no opportunity for outsiders to study it, and consequently,
nothing is codified about the Giants’ language. The Efaarit also have their own
language, about which we at least know its name: Blaati, but like the Giants,
the nomadic Efaarit are highly insular, even towards each other, and learning
their language from them is next to impossible due to the very alien nature of
their culture and their attitudes towards outsiders.
This leaves the language of the
Skorne. Strongly linked to the Skorne ethnicities, there are three broad
dialects though many regional, if minor, variations exist. The politically dominant
group of dialects is the Havaati variant, which is spoken by urban and western
Skorne, while the other two, Kadesh and Soresh, are divided among the rural,
nomadic and eastern populations. Soresh is peculiar for being a closely related
but linguistically rustic and scholastically vulgar form of Havaati. Havaati is
named for the first individual who made a concerted effort to formalise the
core aspects of the Skorne vocabulary, syntax and grammatical conventions used
by those who were literate. It took the form of an epic retelling of the War of
the Exalted. The five major Skorne ethnicities utilise one or more dialects in
some combination that is particular to them. Without a doubt the Havaati spoken
by the Malzash ethnic group is the prestige dialect among the Skorne, given
that the leaders of most of the Great Houses are Malzash. Almost without
exception, the Malzash look down on the other dialects and their speakers. More
conciliatory with respect to language are the Kademesh of the southeast, the
most populous of the Skorne ethnic groups. The Kademesh generally speak both
Havaati and Kadesh as is common in the east, doing so with notable languidness.
In turn, their southern cousins of the Kajar, who are perhaps the furthest from
the Malzash both in terms of culture and bloodlines, are the almost forgotten
speakers of Kadesh, though their significant presence around Mirketh Lake means
most speak at least passable Havaati. Soresh is the dialect of the Sortaani and
their cousins, the Kasortaan. Both have nomadic roots and while the Sortaani
have remained nomadic, the Kasortaan became a splinter ethnicity that settled
in and around the rather inhospitable Valley of Kornash. Stereotyped by Malzash
nobility as rural to the point of being a sign of boorishness, Soresh is
intelligible with Havaati, provided the Soresh speaker slows down sufficiently,
upon which the differences become clear. It is a sharper language when spoken with
a simpler alphabet when written, and for the Sortaani, speaking Soresh is a
point of honour and solidarity, usually in spite of knowing urban Havaati. The
Kasortaan, when they split from the Sortaani, lost much of their antagonism
with and knowledge of Havaati, except among the senior castes.
The descendants of the people of
Urus are unique as far as language is concerned, due to their capacity and
preference for using telepathy to communicate. In most cases, they lack the
inclination, or even basic knowledge of how to utilise what may be considered a
voice, and they have had a long history of using mind to mind transfer of
information, which apparently uses a semblance of linguistic convention, but it
is impossible for us to codify. This was one of the many evolutionary steps
borne from the development of cephalomek, the biomechanical science practised
by these Cephalyx. The high-caste Cephalyx have evolved to such a state that,
for the majority, physically speaking is tremendously difficult without
suitable external means to facilitate audible speech. Instead, normal practise
when speaking to non-Cephalyx is to blend their psychic power with their
correspondent’s own interpretation of the relayed concepts to psychically mimic
the presentation of spoken language. Thus, any apparent lingual quirks are a
result of the individual Cephalyx’s mental predilections, rather than any
ignorance of the target language, given that they probably do not know said
language at all.
Concerning ignorance for
opposite reasons, a language that most would hesitate to profess any knowledge
of is Tkra, which is spoken by Toruk, the Dragonfather, and his most senior
servants, the Lich Lords. It is the language shared by the dragons and the Tkra
speaking demographic is, predictably, extremely small, in terms of numbers,
that is, not the physical size of its speakers. While it has a glyph and rune-based
script, civilised scholars understandably avoid discussion of Tkra, given its
direct and intimate association with the dragons and few, if any, go out of
their way to learn it, not least because they would struggle to find either a
suitable teacher or much lore written in it that its owners, dead or otherwise,
would be willing to share. For the rank and file of the Cryxians though, most
speak distorted southern dialects of Molgur-Og, Molgur-Trul, Satyxi or some
form of Scharde Tongue, each reflecting their racial backgrounds as Black
Ogrun, Blighted Trollkin, Satyxis or human respectively. It should be
mentioned, however, that the Molgur-Trul of the Blighted Trollkin is not
analogous to Blighted Aeric, since it is simply an evolved variant that came
about to better suit Blighted physiology and temperament, rather than to imbue
a script with draconic corruption to serve as a superior outlet for the dragon’s
power. Satyxi and Scharde Tongue are related to Cygnaran, albeit in different
ways, and are otherwise very different languages. Where Satyxi is pleasant to
listen to compared to Cygnaran and its distinct alphabet shares some similarities
with Caspian, Scharde Tongue is derived from the sailors’ vernacular of
Cygnaran with innumerable influences from virtually every other major language
spoken by humans in Western Immoren. One should clarify, though, these languages
apply to the living rank and file of the Nightmare Empire. The undead, on the
other hand, have their own method of speech, such as it is, necessary thanks to
their lack of lips or other vocal apparatus, or sufficiently functioning brain
as the case may be. Consequently, the unimaginatively named Thrallspeak, also
used by the Lich Lords and Iron Liches when dealing with their undead
underlings instead of their master, is abominable to listen to, difficult for
non-Cryxians and even many living Cryxians to understand and virtually
impossible for the living to mimic without using some form of magic. From the
nature of its users, though, scholars infer that, perhaps related in some small
way to Tkra, it is a simple language with a small vocabulary and
straightforward grammar, such that knowledge of it can be easily implanted into
thralls upon raising them, or summoning them, as is the case for the Bane
castes. Despite there being Thrall Runes, these do not relate at all to Thrallspeak,
which does not have any known written form. Instead, Thrall Runes are inscribed
orders or necromantic templates used by the Nightmare Empire’s sorcerers to
magically control, command or raise Thralls.
Irksome though it is,
Thrallspeak is perhaps the one language capable of uniting all the common races
of Immoren, even if it isn’t the kind of unification any but Cryxian
necromancers would welcome.
