You can think of some neighborhoods of ork banding together so ork grandma's can sit around and play ma'jong together while speaking ort'zet. Or elves hosting a quad-yearly festival in grand meeting hall where everyone is expected to speak Sperethiel and offer allegiance to the Queen of the Court for 24 hours. The racial language becomes a cultural connection to the people's history, but a less effective/efficient means of daily communication for kaer life. It doesn't die out - mostly due to the prideful - but it isn't spoken with such commonplace that it evolves the meanings of words or invents new ones.
Remember, the Oxford English Dictionary now acknowledges a new definition for "literally" that coincides with brain-dead valley-girl speak. ie. "He was soo hot, he like, literally, melted me with those eyes." She did not melt. The word was used figuratively... But a dictionary records our language, doesn't confine us. So a new definition was added for "literally" and now our language has evolved. Because people speak it more often...
Statistics:Posted by Fortesque — Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:48 am
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Slimcreeper wrote: ↑
I ignored this earlier, but since temporal linguistics is an interest of mine, you've got it all wrong. The thing that causes languages to change is population centers, not population diaspora. The more people you have, the more they talk, and the more they talk, the more they change. If you want to know what Elizabethan English sounded like, go to Newfoundland or the Isle of Man. The local pronunciation has barely changed in 400 years. And if you really want a good time, sing a song in medieval French. You'll need the Quebecois to teach the Parisians how to pronounce it.Thu Apr 12, 2018 1:46 pm
I assume that the racial languages are magical in nature at their core. It's the only way I can accept that all orks speak a language in common that they all understand, even with their short life spans and hundred of years spent in kaers.Throal itself, due to its size, was the Kaer most likely to leave the Scourge no longer speaking pre-Scourge Throalic.
Statistics:Posted by etherial — Thu Apr 19, 2018 10:45 am
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Slimcreeper wrote: ↑
Thu Apr 12, 2018 1:46 pm
I assume that the racial languages are magical in nature at their core. It's the only way I can accept that all orks speak a language in common that they all understand, even with their short life spans and hundred of years spent in kaers.
Oooh.I love that idea. The idea of languages being racial instead of geographic has irritated me in, well, every game ever, because it's stupid and they all do it. But if they're part of each race's Great Pattern, then... well, that could be another ridiculous D&D trope that Earthdawn actually makes sense of, which is totally a thing that Earthdawn does all the time.
That implies, then, that Thera and Throal stand out as big enough entities to have Great Patterns that can support their own national language, such that people in Thera, by virtue of being Theran, all speak Theran, and people in Barsaive.. all speak Throalic, even after all that time in kaers. Not because everyone has to take five years of it in grade school, but because Throal, by venturing out first with The Earthdawn and asserting their claim over the province, has established themselves magically. (And I'm not sure if this idea strengthens or weakens that idea in Thera that Thera's Great Pattern has been damaged by the loss of Barsaive -- but the fact that Barsaivians no longer speak Theran, then, would totally support the idea that they have lost Barsaive, in a Great-Pattern-y kind of way.)
This is awesome. I'm, like, stupidly happy about this. Thank you for throwing that thought out! That actually works.
Statistics:Posted by utsukushi — Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:58 am
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Lys wrote: ↑
A way to think about this: If Sperethiel is Latin, Theran is French, and Thoralic is English.
Damn, the plot thickens. I don't thing that actually points to Theran influencing Throalic however (although that could be the case, I guess its open to interpretation) Denizens Volume Two p.19 says; 'The language we know as modern Throalic developed from two older, related dwarf tongues spoken in the Kingdom of Scytha and the long vanished city-state of Ysdragyl. The language of the two realms were quite similar, and elements of each appear in the language of Throal'Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:25 pm
It's the other way around, Thoralic was influenced by Theran rather than the Therans adopting Thoralic. The origin of the Theran language is clarified on Pg. 163 of the Theran Empire book: "Theran, which is spoken just about everywhere in the Empire, is a radically altered variant of the Elven language Sperethiel. Characters who know Sperethiel will get the gist of a conversation in Theran, but will miss its nuances."A way to think about this: If Sperethiel is Latin, Theran is French, and Thoralic is English.
There isn't any mention of a Theran or Sperethial influence, and yet Merrox states in Theran Empire that Throalic and Theran are cousins. This could be a mistake on the author's part, an in-world misunderstanding or an intentional omission. Denizens was written by Thom Edrull so he could have had his own bias towards the subject, as could Merrox.
Facintating to talk about though, this is why I love ED.
Statistics:Posted by Geekabilly — Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:32 am
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A way to think about this: If Sperethiel is Latin, Theran is French, and Thoralic is English.
Statistics:Posted by Lys — Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:25 pm
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etherial wrote: ↑
I was surprised too. I've been re-reading Theran Empire in preparation for my Vasgothia campaign and our group (we've been playing ED for nearly 20 years) have always presented Theran as a Sperethial dialect. I've looked a little deeper and Denizens Volume Two p.19 explains that 'Modern Throalic first began to spread across Barsaive during the Imperial period, when the dwarfs of Throal administrated Barsaive for the Therans'Thu Apr 12, 2018 3:52 pm
Fascinating. We've always played with Theran as a Creole of Human and Sperethiel.Geekabilly wrote: ↑Thu Apr 12, 2018 10:32 amJust to add a little bit more to the mix; p.25 of Theran Empire states that 'The Throalic language is a distant cousin of the Theran tongue'. It would appear that Theran is in fact related to the Dwarven family of languages as opposed to Sperethial. Denizens of Earthdawn Volume One also has a small paragraph on Sperethial on p.23 and clearly states that the construction of Sperethial is different than that of Throalic so I don't believe think those two languages are closely related themselves.
Depending on how much cultural exchange and assimilation happened between Thera and Throal, along with possible large amounts of Barsaivian immigration into Thera and its provinces, I can see how Throalic may have influenced and been adopted by the empire. I think its clear from the setting material that Throalic was relatively simple for other Namegivers and cultures to adopt, resulting in its current status as the lingua franca of Barsaive. Perhaps its simplicity appealed to the Therans and they assimilated a lot of its structure and vocabulary into whatever they were speaking before, perhaps a mixture of Rugarian and Sperethial, who knows?
Statistics:Posted by Geekabilly — Thu Apr 12, 2018 4:32 pm
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Geekabilly wrote: ↑
Fascinating. We've always played with Theran as a Creole of Human and Sperethiel.Thu Apr 12, 2018 10:32 am
Just to add a little bit more to the mix; p.25 of Theran Empire states that 'The Throalic language is a distant cousin of the Theran tongue'. It would appear that Theran is in fact related to the Dwarven family of languages as opposed to Sperethial. Denizens of Earthdawn Volume One also has a small paragraph on Sperethial on p.23 and clearly states that the construction of Sperethial is different than that of Throalic so I don't believe think those two languages are closely related themselves.Statistics:Posted by etherial — Thu Apr 12, 2018 3:52 pm
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Slimcreeper wrote: ↑
That's one way of looking at it, and in a setting like Earthdawn, where magic plays a huge role, it wouldn't surprise me. Also, if you take the Shadowrun/Earthdawn links into account, the idea that language is a magical phenomenon is an easy one to agree with.Thu Apr 12, 2018 1:46 pm
I assume that the racial languages are magical in nature at their core. It's the only way I can accept that all orks speak a language in common that they all understand, even with their short life spans and hundred of years spent in kaers.Statistics:Posted by Geekabilly — Thu Apr 12, 2018 2:17 pm
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Statistics:Posted by Geekabilly — Thu Apr 12, 2018 10:32 am
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The Undying wrote: ↑
Not necessarilythe case. Languages are weird, and there's not a clear line. (Which, of course, can make it hard to make game rules about it.)Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:33 am
One is not derived from the other in the sense that most romance languages are derived from Latin and yet they are so inherently different... that knowing one doesn't really help you speak or understand the other in a meaningful way. I'm decently fluent reading French and, with a little acclimation, can understand spoken French (though not as well). (Sidebar: Back in my youth I was a lot more fluent, having lived in France for a year when I was 11 while my mom was getting her Masters. I took a trip to Quebec City about ten years ago and after a couple days, my brain was pulling up all sorts of stuff it hadn't used in a while. My spoken French is still atrocious, largely through atrophied vocabulary.) This fluency does allow me to understand the gist of written Spanish or Italian. Less so Portuguese.
Statistics:Posted by Mataxes — Mon Mar 27, 2017 3:23 pm
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There are a lot of regional accents in the US, but they're accents - they change pronunciation but not vocabulary (or grammar). As long as you can get past the weird sound, there isn't a problem with communication. Some require more ear-training that others, but they're still accents.
Separate from that, American English could be seen as a dialect of British English (or, at least, originally was). There are pronunciation differences, but far more importantly, there are actual word differences and occasional structural differences. One is not derived from the other in the sense that most romance languages are derived from Latin and yet they are so inherently different (both between parent and child and between siblings) that knowing one doesn't really help you speak or understand the other in a meaningful way. With American/British English, the heart of the language is the same, and you can almost always get the gist of things even if the specifics aren't there. However, there's enough vocabulary difference, some that seem connected (flashlight = torch) and some that aren't (bathroom = loo [sp]), that there are occasions that require rephrasing before two dialects can communicate.
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:33 am
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It does have a framework in game terms though. "Throalic" is a dialect of the dwarf racial language, as would Scythan. If you found a kaer where the residents spoke the latter, you could speak to them in the former but there would be a difficulty modifier for any rolls to understand each other. Same goes for or'zet and or'zat (both ork dialects).
By the rules though, Theran and Sperethiel do not have this relationship (despite the former being based on the latter).
Statistics:Posted by Mataxes — Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:33 pm
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