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Sylrae
Learned Scribe
Canada
313 Posts |
 Posted - 18 Sep 2014 : 23:42:56
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So; I know there are some dictionaries of words that have shown up in the novels; but is there anywhere that has detailed the actual language, rather than just a haphazard list of words?
I'm thinking of something along the lines of Quenya, Sindarin, Dothraki, Valyrian, Castithan, Na'avi, Klingon, and the like.
I'd be particularly interested in seeing a full-blown language writeup of Elven, Drow, Seldruin/Ilithruin(Ancient Drow), and Draconic, complete with grammar and rules and whatnot. I'd love to have in-language writings I can just pass to my players.
Were I to "Just Make Something Up", I would probably try to base Faerunian Elven Languages on Tolkien's Elvish - Common-Telerin, if possible, as the basis for Seldruin/Ilithruin, and then split off Faerunian Elven and Drow from there, using the elven and drow words from the books. But that's largely based on it just being a detailed elven themed language from the start, not any sort of studied linguistic similarity.
Have any CK scribes done any ebooks or articles on Faerunian Language?
Aside
As I've read comments from Markustay, the notion that the Drow would speak recognizable Elven is somewhat absurd - the descent was 25000 years ago. Elves/Drow have a lifespan of about 700 years (Races of Faerun > D&D 3.5 PHB). Cormanthyr Empire of Elves pegs it at averages of Sun Elf: 800, Moon Elf: 700, Green Elf: 650, Aquatic Elf: 550, Drow: 500. IIRC some more recent source (and the FR wiki) gives the average drow a lifespan of 700 - it also gave elves a lifespan of 200 - which is really weird considering an age of maturity of 120 - that's equivalent to humans having an average lifespan of 30. Humans (in first world nations, today - as well as according to D&D3.5) have a lifespan of around 80 years, though the average worldwide is closer to 60; for calculation's sake, let's say we use 80, as that matches the human lifespan in faerun - magic makes a big difference in terms of death by disease.
To do this by generations we'd need to know at approximately what age Sun Elves have children, which is information I'm not familiar with. So, by a conservative estimate:
25000/800 - 31.25 Classic Sun Elven Lifespans
25000/700 - 35.71 Newagey Expanded Drow Lifespans
25000/500 - 50 Classic Drow Lifespans
Assuming a similar rate of change to human languages;
31.25 Human Lifespans is 2500 years.
35.71 Human Lifespans is 2857 years.
50 Human Lifespans is 4000 years.
This means that Elven and Drow have grown apart (with no intermingling to have them grow in similar directions) for at best, the equivalent of 5357 years, and probably more like 6500 years. Since drow takes words from undercommon and other underdark languages, that would be exacerbated even further.
I would expect to see *Maybe* some similar grammatical structure, and a handful of close-ish sounding words; but not much beyond that.
On the other hand, both continue to use Seldruin and Ilithruin respectively for magic and priestly work, so that might slow down the rate of change from the common ancestor, at least a bit, but with the time period described, it still seems unlikely that they would have much in common.
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Sylrae's Forgotten Realms Fan-Lore Index, with public commenting access to make for easier improvement (WIP) |
Edited by - Sylrae on 18 Sep 2014 23:44:12
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Darkheyr
Learned Scribe
264 Posts |
Posted - 19 Sep 2014 : 00:33:54
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Remember that those cultures have been keeping written records for that entire time period, that the vast majority of them are literate, and that they are, all in all, relatively stagnant - they didn't from illiterate barbarians just finding out about the wheel to flying to the moon, they are more or less the same. By means of magic they are also not necessarily as isolated from each other as our own more primitive predecessors would have been.
Either way, I've always handled Drow to be difficult to understand unless they actually try to make it easy on the surface elf - especially for that tendency to switch to Undercommon mid-sentence and back again, the whispering, low-voice, and so on. |
silm.pw - A Neverwinter Nights Persistent World |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7969 Posts |
Posted - 19 Sep 2014 : 01:14:55
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Elvenkind (including drow) may have deliberately selected language usage to clearly set them apart from each other. What gold elf would wanna speak like an accursed drow?
Each clade of elvenkind also has an emphasis on certain intrinsic affinities, which may have led them to develop more sophisticated language for the things they like to talk about and disuse vocabulary about things which hardly interest them. Sylvan elves discuss woodlands and animals and weather, drow discuss things like Underdark monsters, betrayal, intrigue, and slavery. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Sylrae
Learned Scribe
Canada
313 Posts |
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Zireael
Master of Realmslore
Poland
1190 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2014 : 11:03:13
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| The best you can do for Drow is take DDGtU word list and head over to Elaine's thread, I believe she mentioned something about Drow language there once. |
SiNafay Vrinn, the daughter of Lloth, from Ched Nasad!
http://zireael07.wordpress.com/ |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2014 : 12:42:59
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Tom Costa wrote an article for Dragon Magazine annual #4 entitled, "Speaking in Tongues" on the languages of Faerūn.
The article needs a good update (because we have some history now that messes with his language families), but otherwise it still holds-up fairly well.
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"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 30 Sep 2014 12:43:25 |
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Sylrae
Learned Scribe
Canada
313 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2014 : 02:44:39
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@Markustay: Is this an article on how various Faerunian languages are related? (thats what it sounds like)
Has anything been written detailing Elven grammar systems or the like? How3 about Draconic, or Dwarven? If I want to pass my players a physical note with a bunch of text that is in a Faerunian language ,is there enough stuff available for me to do that? or would I have to just make it up?
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Sylrae's Forgotten Realms Fan-Lore Index, with public commenting access to make for easier improvement (WIP) |
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Zireael
Master of Realmslore
Poland
1190 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2014 : 13:14:12
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| A bunch of simple text would be doable in Drow and doable in Elven if you mix FR canon elven with Tolkienian Elven. As for the others, I'm afraid not. |
SiNafay Vrinn, the daughter of Lloth, from Ched Nasad!
http://zireael07.wordpress.com/ |
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Mapolq
Senior Scribe
Brazil
466 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2014 : 18:22:11
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Quenya and Sindarin are soundly built, but they lack a robust corpus (Tolkien created the grammar entirely but added vocabulary as he went, apparently - not an expert here). For homebrew, though, that presents a good opportunity to take the FR elven corpus and simply tack it into Quenya or Sindarin, with some alterations to preserve word structure and pronunciation, perhaps, like Zireael said.
We have the fully functional Tolkien languages without enough vocabulary, and then we have random FR vocabulary with very little or no grammar at all (some can be inferred from a few words, but it's a guessing game, and a very hard one), so it does make sense to mix the two if you want to enrich the setting. Purists, please don't kill me. |
Never sleep under the jackfruit tree.
Tales of Moonsea - A Neverwinter Nights 2 Persistent World. Check out our website at http://www.talesofmoonsea.com and our video trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am304WqOAAo&feature=youtu.be, as well as our thread here at Candlekeep: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12955
My campaign thread: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16447 |
Edited by - Mapolq on 02 Oct 2014 18:24:40 |
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Sylrae
Learned Scribe
Canada
313 Posts |
Posted - 03 Oct 2014 : 07:45:57
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Hmm.
Alright Zireael, Mapolq. That's about what I figured. Not what I was hoping for, but what I figured. I guess if I write any Drow or Elven text for my games, I'll be using Quenya/Sindarin combined with various Faerunian Elven dictionaries to make it happen.
If I'm going to do that for Elven, I may as well do similar for the other languages (at least where doing so is possible). Use Middle or Shakespearean english as Thorass, Use Skyrim Dragon for Draconic (Either Alphabet), and then for Dwarven, I dunno. Some kind of Russian, Scottish, German, or Norse language, I imagine. Maybe Netherese can be Valyrian. Not sure what I would use for Orc. Maybe Irathient, if I can find an Irath document. Or Dothraki. Find a way to work in Casti somewhere as well, maybe. :P
And there's also The Witcher's Elder Speech, which is actually a fictional dialogue mashup of various british isles celtic languages with some changes to suit the creators' whims.
At some point maybe I'll do up a drow/elven language document based on the existing words & phrases and Sindarin/Quenya. Don't take this as any kind of a promise. If I do such a thing, I will share it here, but I make no promise of getting around to it/finishing it.
On the plus side; Cursive Tengwar looks prettier and more elven than Espruar does, anyways.
If I'm going to use other people's fantasy languages, why not look at sources besides Tolkien! |
Sylrae's Forgotten Realms Fan-Lore Index, with public commenting access to make for easier improvement (WIP) |
Edited by - Sylrae on 03 Oct 2014 08:00:35 |
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Mapolq
Senior Scribe
Brazil
466 Posts |
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Faerunian Languages
