I have always been fascinated by language. It's a large part of why I'm an English teacher today--I just enjoy passing on a love of language. And so I have wanted for years to develop full languages for each of my homebrew world's groups. It's a daunting task, though, generating enough words to really get a feel for entire languages. I couldn't really find a free site that would take my custom words and create more like them, so I just took a sample list of words that would be used to create a language and created words as a representation. I used Roll for Fantasy's Language Generator to come up with words and phrases to translate with because they're a good broad representation of common language. That means each language will have 67 words and phrases as reference points. I'm going to share the input I gave the generator to develop a baseline for the world's languages. Read on for the results.
Humans (Daltoners and Faninites):
Humans speak common, the fantasy equivalent of English for English-speaking players. The phonemes and words are the same as the ones we use, and common is functionally just the language that the game happens in. It's worth noting that a variety of the words in common are derived from other languages: some of the words in common are borrowed from the other tongues, just as English is a mashup of the many languages it's interacted with. Many have speculated on the strange odds that both Daltoners and Faninites would speak a common language despite the distance between them; the foremost theory on this matter is that the two human groups are likely to have developed their language family together and then split into two geographically distinct peoples.
One notable distinction of common is that it greatly simplifies the system of verb conjugations that every other language uses. Also worth noting is the fact that the other races settled on common as a shared language after the introduction of humans to the continent for a few reasons, most importantly the ease of learning common and cultural feelings about language--most races regard a racial language as a tool for privacy, but the human races have a more difficult time contending with new languages and assert their own instead.
Elves:
The elven language is very distinct in terms of sound: the letters L, S, and W are major components, and vowel sounds tend to be softer. Most of these words are relatively short, and few of them seem to have linguistic relationships to each other--every word is derived not by linguistic structure, but from ancient speech patterns kept alive by the elves' long lifespans. As a result of this, elven sounds very much older and more proper than other languages, which have changed more over time. Notable details are common's use of "bliss" for happiness and the similar meaning of "young" and "liddle" (little), suggesting that the word "little" comes from this elven word.
Half-Elves:
Half-elves tend to stick with common when they can, but around elves and half-elves, they often slip elven words and phrases into their communication. This is most especially true when speaking of elven cultural ideas and when communicating via adages and common sayings; the elven language is rich in figurative language and wisdom for most situations. It is considered to be a faux pas to use elven phrases with non-elves without at least translating them.
Orcs:
The orcish language is dominated by short, sharp sounds, particularly using the letters R, G, and T. Most all of these words are monosyllabic and have diphthongs (multiple sounds combined to create more complex sounds). Orcish speakers are known for speaking relatively quickly and having dense conversations with relatively few spoken syllables. Of note are a few words which reveal cultural ideas: the common word for "elf" is taken from the orcish word for "hate," a reminder of the animosity between those groups; the same word is used for both "happy" and "courage," revealing the orcish value of courage; similarly, the same word is used for both "fear" and "shame," again underscoring the cultural value; and finally, the word for "beauty" is the word used for "platinum," the prized natural resource of the orcs.
Dwarves:
The dwarven language is characterized by a high incidence of consonants, especially D, T, and R, and most every word has at least two syllables. This means that dwarven speech takes longer and tends to sound harsher to non-dwarven listeners. There are essentially no linguistic relationships between words, suggesting that dwarven developed as a language which uniquely named ideas rather than building on previously existing words. Notable words include the close relation of all words related to exchanging things (sell/buy/trade/steal are kron/krin/kran/takrin); the adaptation of dwarven words "harminy" (from "friend") becoming "harmony" and "trayter" (from "enemy) becoming "traitor"; and the combination of "morad" (good) with "erebin" (strong) to create the dwarven god Moradin.
Gnomes:
Halflings:
I made the halfling language somewhat similar to common, with words that are either very phonetically similar (is/no for yes/no) or synonyms (pilfer for steal), suggesting that these words were the basis for common and were adopted early on in the language's development. There are also many compound words, such as no (no) + ret (see) = noret (goodbye), and further, silb (have) makes noretsilb (take, but literally "goodbye have"). Halfling speech is characterized by quick speech, a variety of word lengths, and similar structure for words with similar meanings.
Draconic:
I've traditionally run a gameworld based on a 3.5 setting, but I have been lately trying to incorporate dragonborn and tieflings into my world more. To that end, I am including draconic here and developing it more for my setting. This D&D lore site shows some words used in the list I'm using, so I've borrowed or adapted from there. The rest, I have extrapolated from the patterns already established for draconic there.
*In the above image, my entry for "he/she is" was too long to appear in the box; it reads "grenyz/kynin dyhon."
Draconic is a language of difficult sounds and unique diphthongs paired with multisyllabic words, which are challenging to unfamiliar ears. It is marked by by Xs, Ys, and Zs and relatively frequent vowel pairs. Because of the density of complex sounds, draconic is typically spoken slowly. To most people in my homebrew setting, draconic is either the language that a spellcaster uses in invocations or the language that the very rare dragonborn. This language is notable for its differentiation of the why "why" from other question words in terms of structure; the lack of borrowed words in common due to the more obscure nature of the language, and the out-of-game knowledge that several of the words I filled in came from inspiration--Arthax is the name of a character that my friend and current DM (also the player who created Beor in the mystery campaign and Carric in the Eastweald campaign) created for the campaign I'm in, and he is described as especially wise and knowledgeable, so I made him name mean "clever"; this kind of inspiration makes things easier and more fun while also giving deeper significance to parts of the world. I also recognized that many of the draconic names kind of sound like prescription names and hid a few real prescription names spelled like draconic would do it.
Infernal:
Because tieflings have largely not been a part of my gameworld, I decided to use a sampling of an established infernal language. I ran the first two blocks of the words and phrases in my list (yes / no -> no problem and how -> when) through this translator, and then, because I did want to have some hand in developing the language, I created the rest from there using it as inspiration. It's important that I be very familiar with how these words are generally formed so that I can improvise the language later.
Like draconic, infernal is full of letters and sounds which are rare in common, notably Q, Y, and Z. Also like draconic, its words are mostly multisyllabic, even for simple words. To those who haven't spent a lot of time with tielflings, this language is likely to strike fear into most people, as it sounds very exotic and would only otherwise be encountered with full demons. And also like draconic, there are no words which have been borrowed by common due to its lack of public speech in Evanoch's history. But the two languages do have distinct sounds and usages; where draconic is spoken slowly and deliberately, infernal speakers tend to speak quickly and allow their words to blend together, requiring the listener to be familiar with the language to be able to separate individual words. And infernal's grammar is also quite distinct from the other languages of the region, all of which adopt a subject - predicate structure; infernal places the verb first and then follows with the subject. A notable feature of infernal from this list is the fact that the word for hatred (wyjiqar) is the basis for the word for happy (wyjiqarry), a reminder that infernal's system of linguistic meanings is based on the culture of demons.
There you have it: a guide to seven unique languages and how they are spoken in my homebrew setting. This is quite a deep detail to decide to develop for my world, but I can now use these languages in my games. When an NPC speaks another language, I don't have to say, "They say 'good morning' in elven"--I can instead have my NPC simply say, "Plintan," and then translate the short message to my players whose characters speak elven. If I were feeling really adventurous, I might even improvise a whole sentence or two using the general sounds to make something that could be one of these languages, following it with a translation. I could be a huge step for immersion, and it certainly makes me feel more in touch with the world I play in and continue to build.
That's all for now. Coming soon: the diplomatic situations of the cities in my homebrew setting, alternate rewards to traditional loot, and how to find and stick with the right group. Until next time, happy gaming!
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