Languages of Barram

Numerous languages are spoken on the continent of Barram; some are far more obscure than others.

Imperial Trade Commontongue
Imperial Trade Commontongue - or simply, "Common" - is a simplified language created over the course of a decade by the linguists of the Imperial Academy of Law and Trade. It was intended for use across the massive empire to promote ease of trade and commonality in record-keeping. Common uses a simplified version of the halfling (more proplerly, High Hin) written script for both letters and numerals, written left to right horizontal. The language uses elements of Dwarven and Low Hin for its spoken form, but the "Imperial accent" tends to be less harsh than Dwarven and less rounded than the halfling tongue. Those who speak Common tend to pepper their speech with idioms and words from "proper" Dwarven and Elven; most Imperial nobles wrote and spoke Elven fluently, and use of elvish words such as "astaan" (contracted from the elvish benediction Li astaan ni loramiel, "peace and fortune be granted," and used informally in Common both on greeting and at parting) and “ahuru” (a term properly referring to a masked caste of merchants, but very often used to refer to half-elves in general) remains widespread even after the Empire's fragmenting.

Use of Common in signage, correspondence and conversation spread beyond its original usage as a tongue of commerce, to the point that even poorly-educated individuals generally speak the language (though sometimes with highly variable proficiency). The use of two signs - one in a native script, and one in Common - is a frequent sight in racial neighborhoods or in towns predominantly (or originally) inhabited by a particular race. The refusal to speak Common was often considered a sign of anti-Imperial sentiments during Arc Prasata Vaa's peak.

Dwarven
Called "Khezdûlin" in the language itself, Dwarven is a widespread language owing to the power, wealth and influence of dwarves (properly pluralized as dwarrow in Khezdûlin, though most do not insist upon the name when speaking Common) across the width and breadth of Barram. Between the mining Stoneblood and seafaring Saltbeard branches of the race, dwarves could be found everywhere on the continent that trade could be found.

Dwarven is written horizontally using a 28 letter alphabet, and read left-to-right. It is a common sight in cities all over Barram, and its highly technical terminology for architecture, mining and alchemy are used extensively in those trades.

Dwarves also use iglishmêk (generally called "Dwarfsign" in Common), an extremely simple sign-language, amongst themselves. While too simple to hold complex conversations, Dwarfsign is used to communicate when it is impractical or even impossible to communicate verbally, such as in the massive communal smithies found in every major dwarven settlement. It can convey simple concepts such as "listen" and "I am listening." Its most complex meanings are generally related to which specific tool you would like to be passed. Many dwarves unconsciously employ Dwarfsign gestures while speaking aloud out of sheer habit. Because it is deliberately unaltered and taught very precisely, Dwarfsign is sometimes used by members of other races to facilitate communication in similar circumstances.

Elven
Elves speak speak close to two hundred dialects, but the dialect Eldavalerin - that of tower elves - is treated as a standardized version for trade, and it is the dialect spoken by virtually all non-elves.

The elven language is written vertically, and read top-to-bottom, left-to-right. Famously, the elven language has an alphabet of thirty-six characters, with an additional eighteen suradava, pictographic punctuation used to denote emotional tone. The suradava are written at the beginning of a sentence in Elvish, so if a sentence is meant, for example, to be read as an angry exclamation, the reader will understand the tone immediately. The subtle variation between these eighteen emotional markers, such as between "sorrow" and "loneliness" is often considered the most difficult aspect of the language to master.

Gnomish
The Gnomish language, Fastu, is considered as much art as communication tool by the Gnomish people (be they the chaotic Ramka or scholarly Bamvu branch of the race). Their extremely elaborate handwriting can be difficult to read, and the use of illustrative metaphors is considered almost mandatory. It took centuries for a single Gnomish language to even appear, as the highly iconoclastic gnomes could not settle on a single word for things. A somewhat unique trait of Gnomish is that, to avoid this sort of confusion, new concepts are generally described through the use of compound words. To describe a battleship, for example, the Gnomish language simply combines the Fastu words for "armored," "large" and "canoe" together to form a new word.

Gnomish is written horizontally, read right-to-left, and entire sentences are properly finished with a single brushstroke, with a character called a madk (literally "breath") between words in a sentence.

Halfling
The halfling language has three variants: Low Hin, High Hin, and Holy Hin. Virtually all non-halflings who speak their language speak High Hin, the language the halflings use for trade and polite conversation. Low Hin is a curious dialectical variation which is known for its clipped consonants and abbreviated turns of phrase. This can make a conversation in Low Hin a morass of truncated local idioms and references to events that a stranger is completely unfamiliar with. Speaking the local Low Hin in front of a visitor is considered extremely rude. Holy Hin is never spoken conversationally; it is purely a liturgical language, and spoken aloud only by trained priests called Ledhindo (literally "speaking person" in Common).

Halfling is written horizontally and read left-to-right. A simplified version of the Hin script is used as the written form of Common.

Esoteric or Dead Languages
Some languages are spoken by very few people, chiefly scholars.

Shevrandi
Shevrandi is the language formerly spoken by the giants of the Sevenfold Empire of Shevrandt, also known as "the Sun People." It is an obscure dialect of Giant, virtually unintelligible even to fluent speakers of that language, which scholars believe was developed by the Sun People specifically to establish them as apart from, and superior to, other giants. It is spoken chiefly by scholars, historians and as an ecclesiastical language by the clergy of the Anuric pantheon.

Although in many ways a dead language, many Shevrandi phrases are still in common usage. The clan naming convention, specifically the use of the "n'" appellation, is of Shevrandi origin. It is a contraction of a Shevrandi phrase meaning "owing fealty to," and denotes to which clan one ultimately owes loyalty. The title of a clan-leading aristocrat, zamindar, is a Shevrandi word meaning literally "landowner." Paravan is a Shevrandi word meaning "shield-bearer" and is the rank held by the leader of a single military formation in the field; such a formation is called a vyuha, meaning "clenched fist." The noble rank of reidh is a Shevrandi one, and can be easily translated as "knight." Formal city names use the word den, which can read as meaning "us," "city" or "gathering." The Empire itself used a Shevrandi name: Arc Prasata Vaa, "Great Jade Empire," and the most commonly-used name for the world entire is Arc Arjet, "the Great World." And of course the gods themselves are named in Shevrandi - Anur means "guardian," and the names of the gods themselves were first recorded by Shevrandi sages.

Shevrandi has a twenty-two character phonetic alphabet, with each letter having a "high" and "low" value, and numerals one through nine. Shevrandi also has a placeholder number, analogous to the use of zero in Common. Shevrandi is typically written horizontally and read left-to-right, though it is most commonly found in ruins written vertically.