The Tongues of Elshore
Elshore's linguistic landscape is shaped by a single ancestral family, the Arram Language Old Arram Old Arram is the first naturally evolved language in the history of Elshore, arising from the continuous cultural development of the Iru. line, and one wholly alien interloper. Old Arram, the first naturally evolved language, gave rise to New Arram Language New Arram New Arram is the living lingua franca of Elshore, spoken by every sapient people on the planet., the world's shared tongue, while the extinct Ati'inim branched independently from the same Proto-Arram root on a separate continent. Standing apart from all of these is Waihy Language Waihy Waihy is the living language of the Meir, brought to Elshore with the Vaparium and maintained without compromise or borrowing from any planetborn tongue., the Meir People Meir The only people of Elshore not born of it. language, which arrived from off-world and shares no ancestor with any planetborn speech. New Arram is the common tongue all sapient peoples of Elshore hold in common, and its written form uses the Ilso Script descended from Old Arram's ancient writing system. The Meir alone write in a distinct system, the Waihy Glyphage.
Key traits
- The Arram language family has two main branches: Old Arram (ancestral, now extinct as a living tongue) and New Arram (the current world lingua franca).
- Ati'inim evolved independently from Proto-Arram among the Iru People Iru The progenitors, and the only naturally evolved people of Elshore. of the southern continent Khaldaara Place Khaldaara The southern continent of Elshore, called Southland in common speech, where forests give way to sands and then to stonebound frost at the world's edge. and is also extinct; its address system survives in Erg communities.
- Waihy, the Meir language, has no relation to the Arram family and cannot be fully spoken or learned by any planetborn species.
- New Arram is spoken by all sapient peoples, Iru, Maan People Maan The most numerous people of Elshore and the baseline cultural reference of the age., Bar People Bar Towering, massively built, and engineered for high-load work and vertical terrain, the Bar are the strength line., Annil People Annil Small, scaled, and easy to overlook, the Annil were the earliest of the engineered lines, made as household aides and keepers of the systems that kept the world running., Erg, and others, and serves as the universal written and spoken standard.
- The Ilso Script, originally developed for Old Arram, underlies the primary writing tradition of Elshore.
- Annil are taught a limited form of Waihy as a cultural remnant of an earlier era when the Iru attempted to use them as translators between species.
- Relics of Old Arram survive in Isist liturgy, honorifics, and poetic formulas among the Iru, Bar, and Annil; the Meir maintain no inheritance from the Arram family.
Almost every tongue spoken on Elshore traces back to a single root. The Iru, the first and only naturally evolved people of the world, developed Old Arram, and from a still older ancestor, Proto-Arram, two lines descended. One became Old Arram itself, the wellspring of the present age. The other, Ati'inim, arose far to the south among the Iru of Khaldaara and ran its own course before dying out, leaving its mark only in the borrowed address forms of the Erg. The two are siblings rather than parent and child, branches of one stock grown on separate continents.
From Old Arram came New Arram, the living lingua franca of the present age. It is the tongue all sapient peoples hold in common, Iru, Maan, Bar, Annil, Erg, and the rest, shaped over generations into a form that many different bodies could speak and hear. Where Old Arram survives at all, it survives in the older registers: Isist liturgy, honorifics, and the poetic formulas kept alive among the Iru, Bar, and Annil. Both lines, old and new, are written in the Ilso Script, the grid-disciplined writing system first devised for Old Arram, and Ati'inim used a script of the same family.
Apart from this entire lineage stands Waihy, the language of the Meir. It did not evolve on Elshore at all but arrived from off-world with the Vaparium Place Vaparium The Sovereign Arcology of Vaparium, the Meir homeland in the south and the most technologically advanced structure on Elshore., and it shares no ancestor, root, or structure with the Arram family. Carried in harmonic pulses and pressure rather than ordinary sound, Waihy cannot be fully spoken by any planetborn species, and the Meir alone write it, in their own notation, the Waihy Glyphage. The Annil are the single partial exception: taught a limited survival form of Waihy as a remnant of an earlier age when the Iru tried to use them as translators between peoples, they understand far more of it than they can ever speak.
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