Palladium Languages and Linguistics

[GA]

I'm currently in the process of preparing a campaign and the more i get into it the more these little annoying worldbuilding problems trouble me. I'd be better off probably building my own world, but who would want to play in it? In any event, here's my question.

Most modern languages come from certain family trees. For instance most of Western Europe comes from Latin, most of Northern Europe comes from Germanic. Modern Hindi from Sanskrit, sub Saharan African from Swahili, and China has its dialects, Japanese and Korean are largely based on them, etc etc. (I'm not really trying to get into the Indo-European level.) I am trying to apply this same kind of sense to the Palladium world. Not so much in the level of detail, (I don't need 25 different Western languages for instance), but in a general sense. The reason is for Secondary languages of NPC characters, and also for my own peace of mind.

Like for instance in the real world Spanish and Portuguese are fairly similar. So someone who speaks Spanish might be able to speak (or maybe understand anyway) someone speaking Portuguese at about say a 55% level. So I am sort of trying to base a secondary language structure kind of on that premise. Level 1 NPC Easterners would know Southern as a secondary language because the languages are related. Similarly Elvish and Western are sort of like Italian and Latin. So that's the premise.

I currently have the following setup.

All languages derived from the Old Ones. The Old Ones may have not used languages themselves being telepathic but they sort of invented them for their minions.

The three original languages (there may have been more but for the general spectrum from the main sourcebook anyway) were Gobbley/Faerie Speak (which used to be one language) Elvish and Giantese. Elvish is roughly the equivalent of Latin, Giantese a rough mixture of Sanskrit and Chinese and Gobbley is similar to low german and perhaps Slavic. The wolfen invented their language much later but modelled it on Elvish.

Dwarvish comes from old gobbley.

Modern Human Tongues come from these languages, Western from Elvish, Northern from Dwarvish, Southern and Eastern from Giantese. I picked these largely because of the regional contexts of the PF world and the general stereotypes I personally see in the various regions.

However reading some of the Palladium history it is more likely western came from Southern and i haven't really dealt with all the historical contexts i was roughly basing it on my own conceptions of this world and how they seem to compare to the Palladium World.

So reading Palladium History in the mainbook and perhaps Library of Bletherad I was wondering about some alternate versions of Linguistics that I could perhaps use.

[Reagren Wright]

Linguists was my least favorite subject while obtaining an English degree.
Looking at the history and origins of the race, you have to remember
Elf and Dragon are one and the same. So its definately one of the original
lanuages. Faerie speak as well, but its doesn't exist in a written form.
Demongorgon (language of demons/deevils) also doesn't exists in a
written form, but it would also be an original language.
Dwarven is spoken not only by dwarves and gnomes, but kobolds and
I think trogs. Gigantees is the language of trolls and giants. But
it doesn't exist as a written form. Gobbley spoken by goblins, hobgoblins,
orcs, and ogres. No written form. And finally the four humans.

So let's see only 7 languages exist as written words out of 11 languages.

I'd say Dragon/Elf probably has evolved into three forms like English.
Say Old Elf, Middle Elf, and Modern Elf. Old Elf is the original form
of the language and probably the one most spoken by dragons. By
the time of the Age of Elves different cultures have probably influenced
the language enough that its evolved some and new words have
entered in (I'm assuming elf is not like French and resistant to change
or new words), so it becomes Middle Elf. By the Age of Man, human
influence has again changed elf enough that it become what the current
form of elf is and the one spoken by human nobles, wizards, etc.

I'd say when you take Elf/Dragonese, unless your an elf you have a
-15% of knowning Middle Elf and -30% of Old. Elves can speak middle
elf without penalty but Old Elf at -15% penalty.

The same thing can be done for Dwarf as well.

Human languages probably orginated on their own. Humans exists as
barbarian tribes without elf influence so I'd say Southern is the oldest
since human first appeared in the south. Then they nearly got annihilated
in the Battle of the Gods. Those who didn't get mutated and made into
Tezcats, Headhunters, and so on migrated east, west, and north. There
different enviornments brought about different cultures, challenges, and
influences thus Southern changed into East, West, and North. Sort of
like Germananic languges evolved into Dutch, English, and French.

Goblins used to be faerie folk so it make sense theirs evolved from
faerie, but its kind of odd that ogres speak it as a native tongue. I'd
figure theirs be more related to Gigantees.

Look at the Land of the Damned and various servants of the Old Ones
(Minotaurs for example) they even speak Elf/Dragonese. So I believe
its safe to assume Wolfen evolved from Olf Elf.

Dwarven is the language of all underground races so surface would
languages would be influenced by it. However, it might have
originated from Demongorgon, and with dwarves mastering circle
and rune magic in the beginning this seem quite plausabible.

Finally most higher beings can speak anything (spirits of like for example)
they want so their no need to say they have their own language.

But Elf/Dragonese is definately the language of choice in Palladium.

[GA]

Well I was thinking Dwarven would be come variant of gobbley hinting that dwarves faeries and goblins were maybe all one race at some point. Maybe men were part of this group too which is why ogres still speak gobbley. However ogres came from the south like men so you would think their language would be its own or southern. (Although for the ogre kingdoms it probably is a secondary)

I hadn't thought of the demagongian, although i'm not sure i buy it. Seems all underground races (and perhaps man too) would have started out with a common tongue. Maybe its demagongian or maybe its faerie/gobbley.

So basically 3 alphabets? The dwarven (runic) one, the Elvish one, and the Wolfen one. Say all human languages are based on the Elvish alphabet? Sort of like most european's are based on the Phoenician? Or should human languages have one alphabet or one for each language?

Oh on men. The original human tongue had to be influenced by somebody, since it wasn't an orginal language, so I thought the men of the South may very well have been influenced by the old City of Baaglor and the Giants of Nimro before breaking ties with them. This is why i liked the idea of basing Southern and Eastern on Giantese and Western on Elvish, or maybe Western on Elvish and Southern sort of like English is a mixture of germanic and latin.

Alternatively the original Southern Language could have been based more on faerie speak (having a sing song quality) and/or gobbley (explaining the reason why ogres still use it) and it was the relationship with the faeires that helped the rise of the old Human Southern Kingdom, and faerie influence and protection kept them out of the affairs of Elves and Dwarves.

When the Old Southern Kingdom Fell, the migrants who went west were influenced by the Elves (southern+Elvish mix = Western) and the ones who went East were influenced by the Dwarves and perhaps the giants of Nimro (Dwarv+Southern+Giant(?)=Eastern. The shaping of the new human kingdoms were helped by elves in the west (primarily) and dwarves in the east (primarily) and the mannish languages were influenced by them. The nature of the Elf-Dwarf kingdoms makes thhis somewhat plausible.

The people of the north i just didn't see them maintaining any linguistic ties to much of anybody, which is i sort of like the idea of basing it on dwarves, who would have been there nearest neighbors. Maybe the Kingdom of Bizantium used to be an old dwarvish city that took on human help or something. Although having a language roughly similar to Eastern might make more sense, since a lot of Byzantians speak Eastern anyway and the earliest colonists were eastern, sort of like Japan is to China.

[Sentinel]

I'd be better off probably building my own world, but who would want to play in it?

Don't sell your own ideas short.
A world totally created by you will probably be more interesting than you give it credit for.

The answer to your question is, Your Players.

[Denaes]

I'd be better off probably building my own world, but who would want to play in it?

Don't sell your own ideas short.
A world totally created by you will probably be more interesting than you give it credit for.

The answer to your question is, Your Players.

I agree.

Even if the world isn't as overall "good" or "interesting" as a published world, you'll make up for it in the fact that you know it. It's your baby. You won't have to look up in books for silly things and come up with inconsistant answers nor wait for a published sourcebook to adventure in a particular style/location.

This is why I utterly love gaming with the authors of RPGs. It's just great to see them at work.

And who knows, maybe your world would end up with content as good or better than other published products, which would be even more amazing at your hands.

It's my opinion that it's better to make up your own works so that players don't have expectations than to use a published work and then change things against what players expect.

[Natalya]

I'd be better off probably building my own world, but who would want to play in it?

Don't sell your own ideas short.
A world totally created by you will probably be more interesting than you give it credit for.

The answer to your question is, Your Players.

I agree.

Even if the world isn't as overall "good" or "interesting" as a published world, you'll make up for it in the fact that you know it. It's your baby. You won't have to look up in books for silly things and come up with inconsistant answers nor wait for a published sourcebook to adventure in a particular style/location.

This is why I utterly love gaming with the authors of RPGs. It's just great to see them at work.

And who knows, maybe your world would end up with content as good or better than other published products, which would be even more amazing at your hands.

It's my opinion that it's better to make up your own works so that players don't have expectations than to use a published work and then change things against what players expect.

Okay, I'm thirding this. While there is a lot I take from the published PF material, I put it all in a blender for my own setting. And my players love it.

They don't care about the lameness of the concept of PF's southern continent having very, very powerful mages who strengthen the black barrier to keep the northerns out, simply because every time they say "Well, maybe they're not so blood-thirsty anymore" and weaken the barrier enough for people to slip through, something always goes horribly wrong (got caught up in the Elf-Dwarf war, several innocent villages were slaughtered during the height of the Changeling Inquisition for harboring changelings, etc).

What the players care about is the ground action. Are the local villians believable? Is the immediate plot interesting? Is there consistency in what I say (probably the hardest part of world building)? Most of them have never thumbed through any of the sourcebooks, so they didn't bat an eye when I put a tribe of Danzi in a desert. They think it's cool that one of the local languages is a dialect of Chinese, and the characters who are from a modern world are trying to figure out if it's parallel development or proof that there has been travel between the two dimensions in the past.

If you want your own world, go for it.

[GA]

Yeah, elves and dragons i thought of too. I personally don't think the Old Ones created dragons which is why i like the idea that elves learned dragonese from dragons and it is essentially an alien tongue.

I am personally leaning toward most other races being mutants of goblins. Faeries, dwarves, men orcs, ogres and all tongues pretty much coming from the original gobbely tongue, just as the races themselves did. Naturally there would be exceptions to this....Giants being the most notable, which leaves the question to where giants got their tongue. It could've been an original tongue although maybe it came from demongogian or maybe from the dragons (although different than dragonese) i don't know.

My personal idea is that in the beginning the old ones gave all their minions one language, and most of their minions were goblins, cause hell they are easy enough to torture. From the goblins arose the mutants of man faerie dwrf gnome, etc. Pretty much genetic deficiencies like the goblin cobbler and/or related to Old One experimentation/torture on goblins. The rise of men actually happened LONG after the old ones were put to sleep, but still it could still have been the result of Old One abuse that just took awhile to manifest itself. Or possibly dragon tampering. And as men rose from goblin...when the fall of the southern kingdom came so did ogres come from man (or possibly a different species of ogre) along with many of the other races of Yin-Sloth.

Elves, and perhaps changleings and giants, were minions of dragons who opposed the old ones from the beginning, being the only force in the megaverse who could challenge them and so spoke an entirely different language than the minions of the Old Ones. Elves may have been created by the dragons themselves, or possibly won over by the dragons from the old ones (as their saviours) but the idea of giantese being related to elvish/dragonese doesn't exactly feel right to me, nor does it feel like its an original tongue.... if it was related to anything i would think it would be demongogian. The old ones basically having 2 languages one for its demons and devils and one for its mortals....the giants being a cross between the demon races and the mortal ones originally spoke demongogian but as they began to ally with dragons the tongue changed and became giantese. So that's where i am now, but i am not too satisfied with that explanation...regarding giants anyway.

Well plus i am not sure i like the ideas of demons and devils first coming from the old ones. Maybe the old ones themselves were origiinally demons and devils who became extremely powerful, possible through the use of circle magic. I don't know if i like this theory, but I REALLY don't like the idea of the old ones creating more than one original tongue, mainly because there are so few existing on the planet today. Languages usually increase over time, not decrease. Hence, the idea of one tongue, especially where god like beings are concerned.

An original tongue, from the Old Ones, on the palladium world. seems it would either have being demongogian or gobbely. If the old ones themselves spoke demongogian once upon a time i sort of have a way out in which they did just create one tongue....gobbely but demongogian was around long before...course that leads to the question of who created the old ones then, well that and what exactly was the original tongue of the megaverse. It probably was telepathy but was the telepathy in dragonese or demagogian or something else? Do languages even apply? Maybe not. In that case you have evil and good evil speaking (or creating) demagogian and good speaking dragonese, ignoring other languages (if any) for the moment. The true original tongue, such as it were, would be telepathy.

As for the creator of the old ones and dragons, well I actually like that idea, even if it may (although not necessarily) seem to go against canon, however even if it did, it never stopped the authors of palladium books so I am not sure why I should be bound to the same laws. Still, given the mysterious origin of dragons, I don't think the idea that the Old Ones were not first is so far off canon, in fact it seems to agree with it. So, the same person (power) who created dragons and the megaverse, WERE not the Old Ones, contrary to the opinion of most Palladium scholars and theologians. The true power of the megaverse is a powerful creature called Kevin Sembieda. LOL. (Although I may have read too much of the Dark Tower series-talk about a sucky ending. Can you imagine if Tolkeen had ended the Lord of the Rings the way Stephen King ended his series?).

Or, better for the 'verse anyway, other than Kevin (or maybe its still him just no one knows his name)...a mysterious creature no one knows about...well maybe the monk scholars do but its not like they would ever tell anybody.... created dragons, demons and deevils, the old ones and possibly some other superpowers, including gods. The original communication being telepathy, but as thoughts diverged between the superpowers these thought communications eventually became demagogian for evil and dragonese for good. As far as the first true mortals of palladium, which was some sort of goblin (or perhaps a goblin faerie cross), who was most likely evil and magical in nature, they spoke a new language called, well I don't know what it was called, but it was essentially the true gobbley/faerie speak which was created by the Old Ones. Giants however spoke demagogian which eventually became giantese, due to the fact they were no longer in a spiritual plane. Giant races were forms of lesser devils who took an earthly form. Naturally the language changed as they switched from one plane of existence to another, just as a sea or mountain range eventually changes mannish language over time, so does different planes of existence do for those who were once spiiritual.

Ok that's probably as good as i'm going to get but I am a little unsatisfied as where to Giantese came from, and where Giants actually came from. I want to base it on demagogian, well just because that makes more sense to me than Dragonese, although I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe because most Giants have a natural disposition more toward evil than good (regardless of the reasons why), or maybe to help explain the Giganteses and how and why they occur-maybe that is the original form of all Giant races and it is the others who have mutated. Course, giants could have come from another world brought here by dragons, but i think I prefer giants to have been created, or at least similar in original form to the Old Ones which is why they spoke demagogian.

One other theory I can think of is that Giants were failed, or early, attempts by the true creator (creators?) of the megaverse to create gods. This would make Giantese the original language, before dragonese and demagogian, but it would also suggest that the natural language (other than telepathy) of all gods is Giantese. I don't particularly like this theory, the demagogian appeals to me more, still it would explain why all gods are naturally giant sized. Accepting this theory you woulds say the true creator created giants first (including other giant sized races across the megaverse such as Ramen), then devils and demons, then gods, then dragons, his pinnacle achievement. However through the use of circle magic the powerful demon lords became the Old Ones surpassing the might of all others, save the creator (?) (They took 'ol Kevvy boy to a rune circle where he became Kevin again but only a puny human on earth who although he created the megaverse again he only had a small fraction of his power as...oh nevermind). Following this theory the natural language of all giant and divine languages would be Giantese, although only the Giants of Palladium are true to this fact. I like the fact that i came up with this theory and its probably good for some good conversation, but I'm not real convinced of it. Well actually I like elements but I think it expands on the canon a little more than I originally intended and more so than my other theories. Course I haven't looked in Dragons and Gods or Pantheons in awhile so maybe not.

Still, I'd appreciate any views on any or all of these matters, or alternate theories. Just try to stick to the language issue, although in a lot of ways language and creation are pretty similar, where there's one there's usually the other. Well thanks.

[Slag]

I'm currently in the process of preparing a campaign and the more i get into it the more these little annoying worldbuilding problems trouble me. I'd be better off probably building my own world, but who would want to play in it?

GA, if you put as much well-spent time and thought in that world as you have on this language project I'd sure as hell play it.

Seriously...have you thought about the Rifter?

[GA]

Um...no...Thanks for the compliment though.

At the risk of tangenting off on numerous topics, I won't waste this chance....you guys who do write for palladium might want to pay more attention to how geography affects cultures and languages. Timiro and South Winds should have their own tongues. Maybe one for both nations or maybe 1 for each land. Now I can maybe make it work anyway..I mean I sort of have to... but it really strains credibility to have a land as isolated as TImiro is to share the same tongue as its Northern Eastern Neighbor(s). The Old Kingdom mountains and the sea should have seperated those tongues long ago. I understand you can't have too many tongues in a game world for fear of making it unplayable but you can have more than four human tongues. I won't even get into how there should be different forms of Elvish and others for the same reasons. People don't like altering elvish, and i can sort of understand why....mainly for playability.

The same thing goes with weapons and soldiers, etc. Not all armies are going to fight the same way or have all the same equipment. The idea of all soldier OCCs having the same exact weapon skills...irrespective of geography is just stupid. Not all soldiers are going to learn to fight with a shield. I don't think the ancient Chinese fought with shields. And the Japanese definitely didn't. Plenty of others probably not either. Stuff like the availability of wood and metal and techniques in the forging of weapons have got to affect which cultures can only make wood weapons, which can make short steel or iron weapons, and which can make longswords and who can make katanas. (ONLY the Western empire in my opinion).

Why would the Northern barbarians be swinging Claymores? Its not likely they would know how to make them. If anything it seems they would be carrying clubs and quarterstaffs. In fact its likely that living in the woods such as they do they wouldn't be barbarians at all they would be druids or rangers. Barbarians and fighters come from mountainous regions where its hard to make a living, hard to grow food. You aren't as likely to raid your neighbor when there's plenty of food around, and people in a forest as vast as the Northern Hinterlands are going to know how to get food.

Similarly not all knights should know the way of the lance. The Knights of the eastern territory probably should since they seem closest to the old German Knights, but knights from western empire should be sword and shield fightiing from horseback-give them paired weapons instead, and the ones from timiro swing giant heavy halberds like the ancient Chinese knights used to do-give them a bonus with polearms. No variation in fighting styles helps make for a very generic world.

One other thing for now....Palladium has like zero appreciation for tectonic plates. Why in the hell is the Palladium World shaped the way it is? Continents are supposed to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. You want a one continent world fine but you have got to draw in islands or provide explanations on why there is a big hole in the sea of scarlet waters where something should fit inside....most likely an island, or at the very least one or both of the sides of the opposite shore. Same thing with Atlantis in Rifts, you want to ignore that Atlantis is really Crete that was hit by a tidal wave that killed the civilization and go with the old New continent bit....fine...but at least shape it so it fits into the contours of the existing continents. Drawing a triangle shaped mass shows a real lack of paying attention to detail.

[Goliath Strongarm]

One other thing for now....Palladium has like zero appreciation for tectonic plates. Why in the hell is the Palladium World shaped the way it is? Continents are supposed to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. You want a one continent world fine but you have got to draw in islands or provide explanations on why there is a big hole in the sea of scarlet waters where something should fit inside....most likely an island, or at the very least one or both of the sides of the opposite shore.

Actually, if you go back and look.. theres a giant black wall that encircles the known world. There is NOTHING known about what's on the other side. For all any of us know, there could very well BE the other continents, which fit very nicely with the way the world sits.

Now, on top of THAT little tidbit... look at hawaii. Volcanic formed. They don't fit into any continent. They don't have to. We know there are volcano's in PF. (4 was my last count, but I might be missing some... 2 in nimro region, 2 on bleth/y-oda...hrmm.. were there some in LoD?)

Those can help explain SOME of the geography problems you seem to be having.