Perhaps the most important setting element of Lloegyr are the languages... while your intrepid ST is no linguist like Tolkien, he still considers language to be the center of the story (and really, this is a tale of languages displacing other tongues, and diverging). While no one would suggest an actual study of linguistics in Anglo-Saxon England, a general awareness of the similarity in, say, the Kraki and Heorot tongue (or the Heorot, Kraki and Guth languages in general) would be noted by someone with the Well-Travelled merit.
All of this begs the question... what are the languages of Lloegyr? Further, how do they relate? A brief discussion might reveal clues as to the history of the island and the metaplot.
First and foremost, there are four languages spoken as native tongues: Heorot, Aelic, Wahlan and Vendol. Vendol is a language of no relation to the others, while Aelic and Wahlan is closely related. While Heorot has some similarities to Aelic and Wahlan (suggesting that the Aels are not in fact native to Lloegyr, but migrated from the mainland themselves in pre-historic times), it is far closer to the Northern Tongues (the Tiberians call them the Barbarian Tongues) of the Kraki and Guth.
It is of note that there are dozens of Barbarian Tongues, and its difficult to keep an accurate count. Kraki and Guth, due to their geographic proximity and history of trade, are almost mutually intelligible: they share most of the same vocabulary, and the same basic grammar. Indeed, a native Kraki speaker might able to muddle through a Guth text with some labor. However, the spoken words would be very difficult to comprehend: the accents are virtual incomprehensible. The same situation exists with the smaller tribes that the Kraki have absorbed: really, Hessan, Thar, and Tet are collections of similar dialects than easily categorized languages. However, if one groups the predominant dialects: Heorot, Kraki, and Guth, as well as Hessan, That, Tet, and Lom, one has covered most Northern languages, save Burgess.
Burgess is an interesting case, because it straddles the divide between the Tiberian languages (which include all dialects of Merovian) and the Northern Languages. The Merovian dialects are close enough you can muddle through them if you are a native speaker of one, at least in writing, but only the most skilled linguist could converse in, say Cutanian if you speak Vincian. The exception is Burgess, which has a lost several grammatical elements and a gained a significant number of Northern loanwords, such that Burgess is a relatively unique language.
In any case, every northern language uses the Tiberian alphabet, for literacy was an invention of the Tiberians (as far as the North is concerned), and virtually everyone who learns their letters learns them first in Tiberian, and then in their native (or adopted tongues), essentially transliterating sounds into the Tiberian alphabet.
So, to catalogue the languages of Lloegyr, there are:
One unusual language: Vendol
Two tongues of Lloegyr: Aelic and Wahlan
Seven Northern languages: Guth, Heorot, Hessan, Kraki, Tet, Thar, and Lom
Four Merovian Dialects: Burgess, Cutanian, Naevic, and Vincian
A single literate language: Tiberian
All of this begs the question... what are the languages of Lloegyr? Further, how do they relate? A brief discussion might reveal clues as to the history of the island and the metaplot.
First and foremost, there are four languages spoken as native tongues: Heorot, Aelic, Wahlan and Vendol. Vendol is a language of no relation to the others, while Aelic and Wahlan is closely related. While Heorot has some similarities to Aelic and Wahlan (suggesting that the Aels are not in fact native to Lloegyr, but migrated from the mainland themselves in pre-historic times), it is far closer to the Northern Tongues (the Tiberians call them the Barbarian Tongues) of the Kraki and Guth.
It is of note that there are dozens of Barbarian Tongues, and its difficult to keep an accurate count. Kraki and Guth, due to their geographic proximity and history of trade, are almost mutually intelligible: they share most of the same vocabulary, and the same basic grammar. Indeed, a native Kraki speaker might able to muddle through a Guth text with some labor. However, the spoken words would be very difficult to comprehend: the accents are virtual incomprehensible. The same situation exists with the smaller tribes that the Kraki have absorbed: really, Hessan, Thar, and Tet are collections of similar dialects than easily categorized languages. However, if one groups the predominant dialects: Heorot, Kraki, and Guth, as well as Hessan, That, Tet, and Lom, one has covered most Northern languages, save Burgess.
Burgess is an interesting case, because it straddles the divide between the Tiberian languages (which include all dialects of Merovian) and the Northern Languages. The Merovian dialects are close enough you can muddle through them if you are a native speaker of one, at least in writing, but only the most skilled linguist could converse in, say Cutanian if you speak Vincian. The exception is Burgess, which has a lost several grammatical elements and a gained a significant number of Northern loanwords, such that Burgess is a relatively unique language.
In any case, every northern language uses the Tiberian alphabet, for literacy was an invention of the Tiberians (as far as the North is concerned), and virtually everyone who learns their letters learns them first in Tiberian, and then in their native (or adopted tongues), essentially transliterating sounds into the Tiberian alphabet.
So, to catalogue the languages of Lloegyr, there are:
One unusual language: Vendol
Two tongues of Lloegyr: Aelic and Wahlan
Seven Northern languages: Guth, Heorot, Hessan, Kraki, Tet, Thar, and Lom
Four Merovian Dialects: Burgess, Cutanian, Naevic, and Vincian
A single literate language: Tiberian
No comments:
Post a Comment