#also nothing but respect for pidgin languages in this home. it's two different cultures building bridges between them the best that they ca

[rustedleopard]

Headcanon: Starlo does know some Japanese from being friends with Ceroba and hanging around her/being taught by her. He's definitely not as good as Ceroba is at it (and even Ceroba's Japanese isn't all that spectacular because monsterkind being trapped underground for who knows how many centuries has caused information like foreign languages to be lost to time. She's conversationally fluent). Unfortunately, Starlo understands it better than he speaks/reads it and his pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired. The best way to put it is that it sounds pretty similar to Yokohama Pidgin Japanese.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Elves: Language/s

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index[tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. There's a lot of lore; I don't know everything. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest. Frankly these posts may get updated now and then. etc]

Physiology and quirks | Names & Clans and Houses || Pan-Cultural things: Social life | Time and 'Growing Up an Elf' | Homes | Language | Art | Entertainment | Technology || Elven 'Subraces' still a wip || Philosophy and Religion & Pantheons || Half-elves | [WIP]

I have a weak spot for fictional languages and a compulsive need to poke them with a stick and babble about it. It was this or get sucked into trying to build actual headcanoned conlangs out of this nonsense. So.

If your character has elven on their character sheet: no they don't, the elves are just humouring you. No PCs actually learned this istg.

'Are you still putting off that elven subrace post?' YES.

The 'Elvish' you put on your character sheet as a language proficiency - or Lalur ('the Singing') in Elvish - is actually a pidgin tongue akin to Common, a 'simple' trade tongue that allows elves from various backgrounds to communicate. Elven languages tend to be varied, sometimes to an extreme extent. Drowic altered rapidly due to adapting to Underdark survival and meddling from the church of Lolth, and each drow city has a different dialect; and the Lythari dialect is utterly unlike any other.

As per the advice in Drow of the Underdark (1e), it's a perfectly valid choice to simply cherry pick words from canon glossaries and invent your own elven languages and dialects.

'Standard' Elven seems to look like this: 'Ai armiel telere maenen hir.' 'Qu’kiir vian ivae, qu’kiir nethmet. Ivae marat vand Cormanthor. Mythal selen mhaor kenet. Qu’kiir vand tir t’nor' Very big on diphthongs and ' .

Menzoberranzan Drowic looks like this: 'Khaless nau uss mzild taga dosstan.' 'Kyorl jal bauth, kyone, lueth lil Quarvalsharess xal belbau dos lil belbol del elandar dro.' They like their hard double consonants along with their dipthongs.

And the Lythari dialect looks like this: 'Na kwast wahir athu kyene wekht unarihe.' Seem to be a lot of 'clipped' sounds.

Put a moon elf a drow and an elven lycanthrope in the same room and tell them they have to use their mother tongue and they're not going to get anything done. A fluent speaker of the standard surface elven can make out about 14% of drowic by linguistic overlap, but nothing more, and such applies to other elves: a group of green elves and a migration of aquatic elves that encountered each other once had to spend time breaking down language barriers to talk to each other.

Usually the structure of elven languages flows like English, because the writers aren't actually making a genuine conlang. And then sometimes it really doesn't which makes trying to mine vocabulary and grammar annoying.

As well as spoken languages for daily communication, there are complicated mystical formal languages like Seldruin and 'High Drow' which is used by powerful spellcasters (High Mages and High Priestesses of Lolth respectively).

Elves also utilise alternate forms of communication like sign language and a sort of braille on a regular basis, even if abled. Drow are most known for their use of sign language (its lack of verbal component in particular is useful in the open Underdark, where making a noise is extremely likely to guarantee your death) but surface elves also use it, and use of 'braille' was promoted by moon elves for the sake of the visually impaired and blind, though many sighted elves also use it for secret messaging. Drow in particular make use of it for that, but they're hardly alone.

The alphabet elves use to write in Elven and Common is espruar, created by moon elves and adopted by other elven people (likely due to the amount of wandering and mixing the early moon elves got up to, pre-Crown Wars).

Comes in two variants, the latter of which is the most usually seen:

There's also an older variant of pictograms used by early elves that were 'predecessors' of the Thorass alphabet... which also might actually double as music instructions.

Seldruin is written in a distinct and basically extinct alphabet called Hamarfae.

Elven includes at least six grammatical tenses not found in the languages of shorter lived races to accommodate the elven understanding of time. While it hasn't come up in canon, with the Seldarine being ambiguous about gender elves should probably also have more complicated grammatical gender as well.

Just about every word in Common has about ten or more potential translations in an elvish language, each with a slightly different nuance which may be context sensitive as every word in elven appears to have several meanings within itself. Sort of like there's a word for every facet of a concept or thing, depending on what about the topic you specifically want to discuss.

Want to talk about the winter this year? Two words that will get translated into 'winter' in Common are Loress and Orth. Loress means winter as in the aspect of the season as a period of dormancy, slowing down and hibernation and winter's effect on plant life, you'd probably use it to discuss gardening and crops. Orth means winter in its aspect as a period of danger and consequences (closed roads and frostbite and death by exposure). But in common they just say 'winter.'

What you stress and how you use it will give you an entirely different sentence.

For general elven: Ar means great, Cor also means great, Selu means great.

Cor has connotations of 'grandness' and 'monarch,' carrying connotations of highest authority, and possibly a sort of peak: the highest point its possible to reach, and maybe culmination and fulfilment.

Ar also means 'sun,' probably the colour gold (since teu means silver and moon), as well as connotations of a high rank and the responsibility of guardianship and/or guidance judging by the title 'Arakhor' (ar + akh (duty-need) + or (woods) - the tree guardian, grandfather tree, the one who protects the woods)

(Thus gold elves, the Ar'Tel'Quessir have a name that communicates that they are the people of the sun (by golden appearance and affiliation with Labelas Enoreth), the 'highest' of the People, and they are those with a duty to look after the elven people and their ways.)

Not sure about selu, it places an emphasis on a translation into 'high' and it mostly crops up in connotations of High Magic. Usually gets contracted to sel, like 'Seldarine.'

And then, by changing the stressed syllable, a word has a different meaning.

For example 'Cormanthor,' 'Cormanthor,' and 'Cormanthor' are three different words!

Combining Cor = 'Grand/great ' + Manth = 'Promise/vow,' apparently with connotations of hoping/having faith in the promised outcome + Or = 'Wood,' 'place,' probably also 'copper'

Cormanthor means 'the King's Vow Forest.' Referring to the forest of Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Place of Great Promise.' Referring to the capital city of Myth Drannor, Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Ruler of the Forest True,' and 'King of the Oathlands,' was the green elven title for the coronal (king) of Cormanthor. Apparently when stress is taken of manth and or they combine meanings to get 'faithful-wood/land' or 'oathland'

And then there's 'Cormanthyr' which is a different word altogether whose nuance can be translated as 'the Fulfilment of Promise' and 'Culmination of Hope and Faith' simultaneously.

Also sometimes seems like nouns double as adjectives.

Theur means 'shield' and 'unbreakable,' 'unyielding.'

Aegan means 'physical strength' and 'strong.'

Plurals are just come in so many variants.

Vel -> Vael Sig -> Sige Or -> Ora Athil -> Athila Quess -> Quessir