Languages
Jun 18, 2015 16:56:23 GMT -6
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Jun 18, 2015 16:56:23 GMT -6
Languages of Elibe
The subject of languages is a fairly moot point in most of Elibe outside of certain scholarly circles. Most people don't even know the 'official' term for human language since there's nothing to compare it to in everyday life. Still, well-informed savants of history may know somewhat more of the alternatives, and all dragons are, by necessity, fluent in all three.
Common
The default tongue of humanity - while there are many dialects, all fall under the general umbrella of Common, and all humans can speak some version of it.
Sounds like: some version of English, most commonly modern or medieval.
Low Draconic
Also commonly known as Dragontongue among dragons. A 'compromise' between High Draconic and Common, it is effectively a romanization of the natural dragon tongue into syllables that can be pronounced by humans and humanform dragons alike. Before the Scouring it was as common as Common, and many historical and scientific texts were originally written in it even by human savants, but as far as humanity is concerned is is now a dead language. Very few human speakers exist, though since many surviving pre-Scouring texts are written in it, like modern Latin, knowing how to read it is 'merely' uncommon among scholars.
Most dragon family names were once known in both High and Low Draconic, but since the Scouring the distinction has fallen on hard times and many modern dragons have simply assumed names in Common.
Sounds like: Arcadian dragons almost exclusively use the equivalent to modern Arabic and consider it the 'official' dialect, but dragons from elsewhere vary significantly in what dialect they prefer, and to human ears they may sound entirely different. Examples include Skyrim's dragon language. Since all Low Draconic is simply different methods to transform High Draconic into human-pronounceable sounds, anyone fluent in High Draconic can generally understand very different dialects of Low Draconic regardless of origin.
Human PCs should have excellent backstory explanation for knowing Low Draconic on any level, especially fluent speaking.
High Draconic
The natural tongue of transformed dragons, also commonly known as Old Draconic or Old Realm. It relies heavily on the vocal chords of that form, consisting mostly of what sounds like growls, roars, and heavy words in an alien language to mortals. Similar to Low Draconic, there are different dialects based on origin, but it is more a racial ability than a constructed language and is thus universally available and understandable to all dragons.
Humans, and even humanform dragons, are simply not capable of forming the sounds necessary to speak High Draconic. Humanform dragons are capable of understanding it, but no living human besides Athos himself can do so.
Sounds like: heavy metal