Oerth Language Chart

[azato]

http://www.pbase.com/azato/image/96822689/original.jpg

Here is a conversion of the Oerth Languages. This was based on the work from http://www.dracheninsel.de/dracheninsel/add/greyhawk/language.htm

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE critique this!

[Captain Obvious]

I don't have any World of Grayhawk stuff, but I fully approve of use of Hero style language charts.

[Killer Shrike]

Very cool. My Greyhawk lore is rusty, but some of the spellings seemed off...like Tenha vs Tenhah and Bakluni vs Baklundish. However presumably you've done your research and I'm just misremembering.


And was there really a language called Baklava? Heh. That Gary, what a kidder...

[mayapuppies]

Very cool!

[azato]

Some of my spellings may be off. I am operating under a fog.

According the the document I have (given in the link), Baklava is listed as the official language of Ekbir, Zeif, Tusmit and Ket....

edit: yeah, the Tenha and Baklundi are both typos (from what I can tell).


Very cool. My Greyhawk lore is rusty, but some of the spellings seemed off...like Tenha vs Tenhah and Bakluni vs Baklundish. However presumably you've done your research and I'm just misremembering.


And was there really a language called Baklava? Heh. That Gary, what a kidder...

[MorpheousXO]

Baclava's tasty, so I wonder how this language feels on the tongue...


And there's really that few languages on the whole planet? :eek:

[Captain Obvious]

And there's really that few languages on the whole planet? :eek:

Considering that in D&D you could only speak up to a maximum of 3 extra languages, that's a lot...

[mayapuppies]

Considering that in D&D you could only speak up to a maximum of 3 extra languages, that's a lot...
I'm surprised there's more than one since everyone speaks Esperan...erm, Common.

[Markdoc]

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE critique this!

Seriously, are you telling us they have languages called Frutz, Flan and Baklava? :smoke:

cheers, Mark

[Cargus10]

Frutz should be Fruzti, I think - what the Frost, Snow, and Ice Barbarians speak, a variation of Suoise. Flan is correct, the "native" peoples were the Flan, thus the region being called the "Flanaess". Baklava I'm not so sure of. Baklunish is the "base" language (no "d" notice). And yes, "Tenhah" shuld be "Tenha". Some of the others I've not heard of, but then, I certainly don't have everything Greyhawk! But I don't recognize Spaenhah or Schwanah or Yachokh or Alad. Unless...is Schwanah what is spoken in parts of Perrenland and up into the Tiger & Wolf Nomad country (well, former Nomad country, since Iuz kind of took all that...)

[azato]

Check the link I provided. Perhaps the the guy who wrote it was a crank.

Seriously, are you telling us they have languages called Frutz, Flan and Baklava? :smoke:

cheers, Mark

[azato]

Actually, I was not giving the correct title. These are human languages in (I guess it is called) the Flanaess (sp) portion of Oerth.




And there's really that few languages on the whole planet? :eek:

[azato]

From the web document





Fruz

Speakers: about 1 million.
Official language of Schnai, Cruzki and Fruztii. Some speakers in Ratik and the Hold of Stonefist.
Complexity: Complex
Closely related to: Ancient Suloise
Distantly related to: Ancient Flan.
Script: Suloise Pictograms




Frutz should be Fruzti, I think - what the Frost, Snow, and Ice Barbarians speak, a variation of Suoise.

[azato]

Well, it is no different from the funny sounding names that some of the immigrants have at my place of employment ... Mikshit (he goes by Mick), Kaushik, and Naveed (pronounced Nah-Weed).



Seriously, are you telling us they have languages called Frutz, Flan and Baklava? :smoke:

cheers, Mark

[Cargus10]

Yeah - I think the web document, though, has some flat made-up stuff that may or may not line up with "canon" Greyhawk...though who is to say what "canon" is now anyway? Regardless, it's a neat document, and GH has long needed more language expansion.

I also shudder at the "Elvish". "Dwarvish" etc. languages in D&D in general. That's like saying you speak "Humanish".

[azato]

Actually I was wrong about being wrong

The Baklunic Languages

The Baklunish states of the far west, remnants of the ancient Bakluna empire, speak Baklava, a direct descendant of Ancient Baklunish that is referred to as Central Baklunish among eastern scholars. The claim made by Gaxyg that Ancient Baklunish remains uncorrupted among certain Paynim tribes is another demonstration of his inadequate grasp of this field and his reliance upon hearsay. Serious study of the Baklunic languages has been practically non-existant in the Great Kingdom, but such is to be expected of the ivory-tower mentality of Aerdi sages. Baklava is spoken by at least three million people. Non-Baklava dialects of Central Baklunish also occur in the Plains of the Paynims.
The continuous intermingling of populations in Ket presents an interesting field of study, and while the Ketite dialect of Central Baklunish can be understood by Baklava speakers, some scholars maintain that there are sufficient differences (most notably the absence of the ablative case) for it to be considered a separate language.
The nomadic peoples created by the fusion of Oerid and Baklunish refugee groups combined Ancient Baklunish with Low Oeridian (see above). Following the patterns established by their subsequent settlement, this language group falls naturally into two subgroups, North and South Baklunish.
North Baklunish is represented by Yachokh, the common language of the Wolf and Tiger nomads (numbering somewhere under 1 million). Dialectic differentiation has taken place between the two groups, but Yachokh is still considered a single language, pending field studies in the region.
Several South Baklunish dialects exist among the Paynim tribes, but the most important is Uli, the language of Ull, boasting at least 0.5 million speakers.




Some of my spellings may be off. I am operating under a fog.

According the the document I have (given in the link), Baklava is listed as the official language of Ekbir, Zeif, Tusmit and Ket....

edit: yeah, the Tenha and Baklundi are both typos (from what I can tell).

[Kristopher]

Yeah - I think the web document, though, has some flat made-up stuff that may or may not line up with "canon" Greyhawk...though who is to say what "canon" is now anyway? Regardless, it's a neat document, and GH has long needed more language expansion.

I also shudder at the "Elvish". "Dwarvish" etc. languages in D&D in general. That's like saying you speak "Humanish".

Elves, for example, should probably have a word in their language that they call their language. Depending on the setting, they might have more than one language, or just multiple dialects, or...

If they don't interact all the time with humans, then the humans might call the language they speak "Elvish" or "Elven" -- even if there's another language that the elves who live 500 miles away speak, the humans in a particular place don't know that, necessarily.

So while D&D grossly oversimplifies it, it's not necessarily a bad thing if you hear peasants in a human village refering to "Elvish".

[azato]

I missed you response.

Yeah, I know it isn't canon, but it seems reasonably logical AND I want language to play a part in my campaign AND it is set in Greyhawk.

Yeah - I think the web document, though, has some flat made-up stuff that may or may not line up with "canon" Greyhawk...though who is to say what "canon" is now anyway? Regardless, it's a neat document, and GH has long needed more language expansion.

[Mike W]

Yeah - I think the web document, though, has some flat made-up stuff that may or may not line up with "canon" Greyhawk...though who is to say what "canon" is now anyway? Regardless, it's a neat document, and GH has long needed more language expansion.

I also shudder at the "Elvish". "Dwarvish" etc. languages in D&D in general. That's like saying you speak "Humanish".

Not necessarily. Aside from the fact that some D&D worlds do have "humanish" they just call it "common" for simplicity, there are a number of fantasy worlds that tend to push all the elves, for example, into one or two corners, so having one language for all the elves is much more realistic. In Krynn, for example, they basically had 3 areas of elves, two of which, Qualinost and Silvanost, kept in pretty regular contact. So one "elvish" language was really enough.

Also, the elves in many campaigns tend to be very long lived and very isolationist - which is a combination ripe for cultural/linguistic stagnation.