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Author Topic: Common Language  (Read 524 times)

EdTheKet

Common Language
« on: October 24, 2007, 01:55:03 pm »
There are a myriad of languages spoken on Layonara. Nearly each race has its own language, and that does not even start to mention the dialects of many.
With books still being written and copied by hand those who study languages and master more than one or two are relatively rare, unless they are long-lived to have the time to study, or are rich enough to afford schooling or tutoring.
Across the world however, there is one language that one can commonly use, the Common language.

Common
The Common language was born with the first traders. Some time around 5000 before Cataclysm, shortly after many of their dragon masters had perished, the humanoid races began interacting more and trade soon followed. The Common language started as hand gestures, as simple as pointing out trade goods and counting with fingers to express value and prices. But even these simple gestures helped to intermingle the races.

The race wars during these early times contributed as well. Scouts and spies served to further the language as they passed information back and forth. Negotiations between leaders often involved bits and pieces of the Common tongue.

As trade expanded and became more common place, a set of common words began to develop between traders of different races. Frequently these words were combinations and bastardizations of several, some times even three or four tongues. As traders traveled these new common words traveled, spreading across lands, and races.

As trade markets grew, more and more individuals were exposed to the Common language. In the trade market stalls foreign traders interacted with the commoners spreading the language even more. The small child sent to the market to purchase things for their mother began to learn the Common phrases used by the merchants.

The words of the Common language are marked by certain languages holding sway over certain portions of Common. Ores and minerals frequently have a gnomish or dwarven sound to them. Words associated with forests, animals and magic have a great tie in with elvish. Weapons frequently have a tinge of the dialect that invented them and used them the most. The terms for food items frequently contained bits of the dialect from where the goods were harvested.

Religious words developed along the same lines. As people of faith traveled the lands looking for converts they spread the language of their gods and goddesses to others. Words revolving around a diety contain many words that are similar to the native language that the majority of their followers used. Other races picked up these words and phrases through the teachings of the clerics and monks of the land.

Bards also helped spread the Common language. Frequently traveling with missionaries or traders they picked up the Common language as well. Spreading its knowledge through their plays and poems in the taverns, markets and at religious sites.

The language was finally codified, written down, at the command of Raklin "The True" Diamionar around the year 500 A.C. (after cataclysm). As trade grew, and the world seemed to grow smaller, he realized the need to teach his subjects the Common language. Scribes spent better than ten years traveling and compiling the different words and fixing them into one uniform text. Raklin then used the wealth of his realm for the good of the people and hired many scribes, so that hundreds of text books were distributed to the temples, monasteries, commoners, and schools across the land.
A scribing exercise of that magnitude has never been equaled again in the history of Layonara.

The finalized language became the most spoken one in the world. Legal matters, warfare, romance, trials, and most business matters became spoken in the Common tongue, especially when conducted between peoples of different races.

The old languages still were spoken at home and in their natural lands, being treasured by their peoples, but when venturing forth, most learned the Common tongue before setting out. Some of the less linguistically skilled mastered only a few words, but they were the words they needed to survive.
 
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