"Common: A combination of Ancient Baklunish and the dialect of Old Oeridian spoken in the Great Kingdom forms the basis of this new, widely used tongue..." --- excerpted from "A guide to the World of Greyhawk", page 16(83' boxed set)
Old Oeridian would be High Oeridian on the chart, so its easy to see where Common would fit in. Also, the "d" should be dropped from "Baklundish". _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Last edited by Cebrion on Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
On the linked webpage I particularly like the break down of each language regarding its origins, complexity, where it is spoken, and what relation it has to the other languages. A very nice offering from our fellow Greyhawkers in Ahlissa(Adri). _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Last edited by Cebrion on Wed May 14, 2008 2:06 am; edited 1 time in total
Very interesting, some things I disagree with, but I divest the human languages of WoG into many, many more distinct tongues. One big thing caught my eye though: baklava. Baklava? This sweet mediterranean treat is a baklunish language? Eh? _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Sure: mostly, its that each nation has its own language - Keoland/Keoish, Ket/Ketite, Ulek/Uleki, Urnst/Urnstan, Nyrond/Nyrondese, Almor/Almorian, Ahlissa/Ahlissan, Ratik/Ratikan, etc. Each of these I run as a distinct language, not just a dialect of a handful of languages.
One thing I note; many times, in Greyhawk and other fictional works, an author will mention there are many dialects of a language, and many assume that these represent variations on a language different enough to be mutually unintelligible. A dialect is like the difference between southern American English and western American English, or American English and British English. There are differences, sure, but generally the speakers understand one another with ease. A dialect doesn't cause immense confusion. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
So you basically mean that, even though people living in different nations may speak the same language, each nation will have its own signature accent? If that is what you mean, then I'm all for that and I do the very same thing in my campaign. This does't really alter the language base though. Azato's chart is about showing the relation of distinct languages and language groups, to which regional accents do not apply. Accents and dialects are not the same thing. Accents and regional language usaully involvee variant pronunciations and the use of coloquilisms, whereas dialects will each use different words for the same common things; those different words usually having a basis in another language altogether(but not always). _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Well, I think that every country having its own language is probably too far, but the basic GH structure is overly simple. Just look at Europe. There are a few big languages "Germanic" "Latin" "Celtic" "Slavic", etc But they all have broken into distinct sublanguages over time. Latin has localized (yes, this is oversimplified) into Italian, French, Spanish, Provencal, etc. And there are regional variations of those. You can do the same with the Germanic tongues and the Celtic ones.
There should be more languages in the Flanaess than there is.
Cebrion: Essentially, yes. In a system of "few languages, many dialects" there are distinct regional accents and idioms, though speakers of the same tongue can easily understand one another. IMC, however, most nations have completely different languages, not just dialects. I was not implying that Azato's chart failed to take dialects into account; it covers major languages and language groups of the Flanaess.
Vormaerin: Yeah, its likely much, but I love complexity! In the real world, in Europe alone there are over 30 languages, and worldwide numbering (if I recall) over 300. For gameplay though, it probably is better to limit languages to just a few. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Cebrion: Essentially, yes. In a system of "few languages, many dialects" there are distinct regional accents and idioms, though speakers of the same tongue can easily understand one another.
Well, I don't know about that. Back in 2001 I was in northwestern Scotland and spoke with one very patient man who was barely understandable to me because his accent was so heavy. I recongnized the words "right" and "left". Fortuantely I was asking for directions so I was able to get back on track and to my destination(Eilean Donan Castle). Even though people might speak the same language, accents can really wreck communication somtimes.
EDIT: Also, azato's original link in the first post has been fixed. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Cebrion: Essentially, yes. In a system of "few languages, many dialects" there are distinct regional accents and idioms, though speakers of the same tongue can easily understand one another.
Well, I don't know about that. Back in 2001 I was in northwestern Scotland and spoke with one very patient man who was barely understandable to me because his accent was so heavy. I recongnized the words "right" and "left". Fortuantely I was asking for directions so I was able to get back on track and to my destination(Eilean Donan Castle). Even though people might speak the same language, accents can really wreck communication somtimes.
I agree with Cerbrion on the fact that a strong accent can make communication extremely difficult. It depends upon the person speaking and how well we listen to them. At my job I have the opportunity to work with many (as in 100+) non-english speaking folks. Of these people, most do not speak the english language at all or well enough to allow a truly successful communciation. Those that do know the language are very difficult to understand because of their accent (with the expection of 1-2 individuals). I'll pick up one out of every 5-10 words when talking with the people that know english but have a very thick accent. To assist in communication we gesture with hands a lot and repeat ourselves in hopes that we are getting across to the other. Most of this lack of communication is a result of the accent and our ear not being trained to listen to it, it isn't because of a limited english vocabulary. The more we train our ears, the easier it becomes to understand a thick accent, thus communication increases significantly. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
"Common: A combination of Ancient Baklunish and the dialect of Old Oeridian spoken in the Great Kingdom forms the basis of this new, wildy used tongue..." --- excerpted from "A guide to the World of Greyhawk", page 16(83' boxed set)
Lenard Lakofka, in Dragon #52, said Common was "a mixture of Suloise and Oeridian tongues with some Baklunish admixture," which makes more sense to me than Gygax's later claim that it was just Baklunish and Aerdi, given that Common is supposed to be a "universal" tongue that virtually any human language can be fairly easily translated into - essentially Esperanto, but better. It also makes sense that, given the history and geography of the Flanaess, it would be primarily Oeridian and Suloise with Baklunish as a somewhat lesser influence.
I'd like to point everyone to the Greyhawk languages article on the Greyhawk wiki, which is mostly the stuff in the LGG plus The Scarlet Brotherhood plus a Roger Moore article in Dragon plus some 3rd edition stuff on nonhuman languages, but I think the really useful part of it (if I do say myself) is the bibliography, which points to some really good articles on fantasy languages in Dragon #66 (which unfortunately I couldn't incorporate into the article itself, since they really weren't Greyhawk-specific and back then everything not Gygax-approved was couched in all sorts of qualifiers). One interesting bit from Dragon #66 was a graph charting the influence of the Elven tongue on other languages. It makes a lot of sense to me that nonhuman languages would have some influence on Common (and other human tongues) as well; after all, traders have to trade with Celene and the Uleks as well as the Baklunish nations.
The link on the bottom to Rob Bastard's language page is also useful.
Anyway, as most of us know, "Baklava" = Low Baklunish, "Yachokh" = Ordai, "Uli" = Ulagha.
That also makes more sense as it was the Suel and Oeridians that spread all across the area where Common is, well, the common tongue, and both had contact with the Baklunish. It is kind of odd that there is no Flan admixture though, as most of the Flanaess was their land at one time and they still have a notable presence in it(more or less) after the migrations. Once again the poor Flan get short shrift. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
There should be more languages in the Flanaess than there is.
That's where I point out that the dialects and sublanguages section in the LGG calls them "Dialects and sublanguages worthy of note..." I'm not sure what they meant by sublanguages since Olman isn't really related to anything else. Probably just "not a widely spoken language." So that leaves the door open for plenty of additional languages and dialects for the individual DM to make up.
That makes sense to me as well; with the migration of the Suel people, it would be difficult to believe that Common did not have at least some roots from this source.
We may also need to realize that Common may not only be a case of a passive mixture and evolution of languages, but also the fact that as trade increased between nations and regions, Common may have been also actively refined and sought as a solution to ease business dealings. In this scenario, regional dialects would be spoken by locals. Any locals that had reason to communicate for trade beyond open borders would know Common (citizens in cities as well as royalty, merchants, and the like would use the Common language) but further out into more rural settings, regional dialects would become more of a factor. Out in the far backwaters there may be villages where everyone speaks the regional dialect alone except for the persons who have direct communication with trade caravans.
So that leaves the door open for plenty of additional languages and dialects for the individual DM to make up.
Sure, but you rarely see much actually done with this. Primarily because people don't like dealing with language barriers in games generally, though if handled appropriately it can add a lot.
This may sound masochistic but... it would be interesting to see the same treatment of humanoid tongues as was given to the human (well maybe not to this detail). It seems silly that they would be unified in language.
Thick rounded boxes allow for understanding but at a lower level...
-There was something like your "understanding at a lower level" in an old Dragon article (low 50s; it had a Boris painting of some naked chick sitting on a dragon egg, watching a dragonwith insect wings fly around); I use the concept.
EileenProphetofIstus wrote:
...I agree with Cerbrion on the fact that a strong accent can make communication extremely difficult. It depends upon the person speaking and how well we listen to them. At my job I have the opportunity to work with many (as in 100+) non-english speaking folks. Of these people, most do not speak the english language at all or well enough to allow a truly successful communciation. Those that do know the language are very difficult to understand because of their accent...
...Which is why I use skills points for "Speak Language" in my D&D 3.5e campaign. Anyone who says (as the 3.5 PHG does, IIRC), that "you either know a language, or you don't", has clearly never learned a foreign language, used a foreign language, or tried to communicate with someone who had English as a Second Language (ESL)...
Lenard Lakofka, in Dragon #52, said Common was "a mixture of Suloise and Oeridian tongues with some Baklunish admixture," which makes more sense to me than Gygax's later claim that it was just Baklunish and Aerdi, given that Common is supposed to be a "universal" tongue that virtually any human language can be fairly easily translated into - essentially Esperanto, but better. It also makes sense that, given the history and geography of the Flanaess, it would be primarily Oeridian and Suloise with Baklunish as a somewhat lesser influence.
It doesn't make sense to me at all that Common is a blending of Suloise and Oeridian. I'll have to go with EGG on this one, and not simply because it is EGG. Common developed formatively in the Baklunish lands and the West, which is where the Oeridians came from, so the languages of the two would have blended on a wide scale for centuries if not millenia before the Oeridians ever came to the Flanaess. These two groups lived among each other in close proximity for a long time. This is not so with the Oeridians and the Suloise, at least to such an extent that an entirely new language would develop that was a blend of the two. This would mostly be due to the mountainous barriers surrounding the Suel basin, such that the only language bleed over would be from travelers and traders. That is much less likely to spawn a Common tongue than the instance of two groups of people with different languages living together in clsoe proximity for an extended period of time, as is the case with the Oeridians and the Baklunish. Surely there has been a little bit more bleed over of Suloise into the Common tongue since both groups have blended so freely and for so long in the Flanaess, but it happens after the fact. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Common developed formatively in the Baklunish lands and the West, which is where the Oeridians came from, so the languages of the two would have blended on a wide scale for centuries if not millenia before the Oeridians ever came to the Flanaess. These two groups lived among each other in close proximity for a long time.
If that's the case, I wouldn't expect there to even be an Old Oeridian tongue by the time of the Great Migrations (except perhaps as a dead tongue retained for ceremonial purposes) - only a long-established Oeridian-Baklunish fusion. And Keoish would likely be descended from Common as well, instead of from Old Oeridian as described.
My reading of the way the modern languages of the Flanaess formed is that Common developed in the centuries after the Aerdi settled on the shores of the Solnor as a way for merchants to trade across their vast empire, and at the time of the Migrations the Old Oeridian spoken by the Aerdi had few outside influences.
The Oeridians originated on the plains beyond the Tyurzi Mountains, separated from the Baklunish by a mountain range that looks if anything taller than the Crystalmists. When they were temporarily dwelling in Ull around the time of the Suel-Baklunish Wars, there were more opportunities for them to adopt Baklunish words, but I don't think, per canon, that they did so.
"A young language, Oeridian took in few outside influences until a few centuries ago." - LGG, 12.
Right. Common is "A combination of Ancient Baklunish and the dialect of Old Oeridian spoken in the Great Kingdom." From that it seems pretty clear that Common developed sometime during the expansion of the GK.
The mysterious part is why is it a combination of Aerdian Old Oeridian with Ancient Baklunish? Suloise or Flan makes more sense, given that the Aerdi were ruling over conquered populations of those people. That's why I stick by my theory of Common having been developed as a trader's tongue by clans of ethnic Baklunish merchants living in the east among the post-migrations Oeridian Kingdoms, eventually being adopted by the GK as an administrative language when these Baklunish clans were taken on as bureaucrats by its expanding empire. In its final form, it became widely spoken by most everyone in the former GK, and as a trade language in Keoland and the Baklunish West.
The real answer to all of this hinges on when did Common develop? If it developed before the Great Migrations, then it should be a Bakluni-Oeridian mix, if well after, an Oeridian-Suloise-Bakluni mix. Likewise, if it coincided with the rise of the GK (which makes sense), Common should have a base in Old Aerdi. Just my two coppers... _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
If that's the case, I wouldn't expect there to even be an Old Oeridian tongue by the time of the Great Migrations (except perhaps as a dead tongue retained for ceremonial purposes) - only a long-established Oeridian-Baklunish fusion.
I subscribe to this supposition. In our own world, this applies.
One of the complaints made by many Native American tribes today is that their young people can no longer speak their native language. They grow up speaking, reading and writing American English. They've now instituted measures to teach Native American children their own native tongue within their schools. And it took less than 150 years for this to really happen.
I subscribe to this supposition. In our own world, this applies.
One of the complaints made by many Native American tribes today is that their young people can no longer speak their native language. They grow up speaking, reading and writing American English. They've now instituted measures to teach Native American children their own native tongue within their schools. And it took less than 150 years for this to really happen.
It would be that much more believable an occurence given the centuries that have passed since the Great Migrations.
This is good evidence for the idea that languages can die out, and for the idea that Old Oeridian has died out since the Great Migrations, but I'm not sure why it's evidence that Old Oeridian must have died out before the Great Migrations. Given the quote you chose, however, that would seem to be the supposition you're supporting.
Very interesting, some things I disagree with, but I divest the human languages of WoG into many, many more distinct tongues. One big thing caught my eye though: baklava. Baklava? This sweet mediterranean treat is a baklunish language? Eh?
Man. You beat me to it. ;-) I'll have to change that in my campaign or I'll never hear the end of it from the players...
A strong cultural identity(mixed with a little bit of xenophobia perhaps) will ensure that the Oeridian and Baklunish languages simply don't blend into one language. That and a somewhat defined territorial boundary. In this way the original languages of each are pretty much maintained as is, but as the languages are so different to begin with the development of a common tongue, whether it grew out of a trade language or whatever, is plausible. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I'm not sure why it's evidence that Old Oeridian must have died out before the Great Migrations. Given the quote you chose, however, that would seem to be the supposition you're supporting.
Actually, I was simply trying to show how much of a possibility it was for a language -- in the real world case of Native Americans, more than one -- to die out in a relatively short time.
Before the Great Migrations, the Oeridians were heavily used during the Suel/Baklunish War. I don't know how much either the Suel, or the Baklunish, were the Oeridian's masters, per se, -- though some canon material certainly lends itself to that interpretation -- but they were certainly the dominant party(ies) in the relationship and would have excerted a strong linguistic influence.
And, as I showed, it would not take all that long for the Oeridians to begin losing their linguistic identity.
The Native Americans had developed a sign language between themselves -- long before the advent of the white man -- in order to communicate for trade and other purposes. The French and English quickly adapted to this sign language.
Oerth's Common language can be viewed in much the same way and could easily have begun with the Oeridians, through their need to communicate with both the Baklunish and Suel and, eventually, the Flan.
...Common developed formatively in the Baklunish lands and the West, which is where the Oeridians came from, so the languages of the two would have blended on a wide scale for centuries if not millenia before the Oeridians ever came to the Flanaess...
-I thought I remember reading somewhere that Common developed long after the ROCF/ID, when the Bakluni lands bumped up against the old Great Kingdom (in trade & war); the meeting points would have been Ket-Perrenland-Bissel.
Cebrion also quoted from the Guide in the '83 box set, the following:
Cebrion wrote:
"Common: A combination of Ancient Baklunish and the dialect of Old Oeridian spoken in the Great Kingdom forms the basis of this new, widely used tongue..." --- excerpted from "A guide to the World of Greyhawk", page 16(83' boxed set).
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