Empyrian
Empyrian was the language used as a common tongue on Magicians' End during the age of Old Pale Empire and in all of its domains. Whilst the Empire politically and militarily came to dominate almost all of the world, Empyrian did not quite extinguish local languages, such as Equinu or Westoric, although it was used for all legal matters and at the highest levels of government.
Empyrian descended from the corrupted dialects of Low Trinitarian which were spoken on the eastern plains of Myruthea at the time of the Myruthean Unification Wars.
Scholars of the language divide it into three forms by age. Old Empyrian is the first recognisable form, spoken in the cities of Klaractazum and Zalgurim alike, towards the end of the age of the Twelve Wise Ones. Both the Treaty Of Pale, and the Declaration of the Domains of Greater Pale which set out the manifesto of the Old Pale Empire, are written in Old Empyrian.
Middle Empyrian is the classical form, best known to later generations, an enriched and more sophisticated dvelopment of the language used in most of the best known writings of the Old Pale Empire. The illustration at the head of the article comes from the ruined capital of Honirham, the text being an example from this era.
Late Empyrian evolved from Middle Empyrian in the last thousand or so years of the Empire, prior to the Planar Conformation. This form of the language continued to have active speakers after the end of the Old Pale Empire but it fragmented into separate tongues during the dark ages after the Planar Conformation and now only survives outside academia in the extensive legacy it left to later living languages.
Geographical Distribution
Empyrian began as the language of the eastern plains of Myruthea but it spread throughout the world with the expansion of the Old Pale Empire and has left its imprint on a number of successor modern languages.
Comments