The diagram at the head of the article, represents the relationship between the most important languages used throughout the history of
Magicians' End and how they have influenced one another. Each of the languages or language families in the diagram is covered in a little more detail within its own specific article, which can be found under the parent languages category, and/or linked also at the bottom of this page for convenience.
The languages coloured in lincoln green towards the bottom of the schema are living human languages with active speakers in today's world. The ones shown in white are dead native languages with varying degrees of historic interest, but all of them important in their own place and time. Languages shown in red are of alien origin, coming into Magicians' End from the wider
Discontinuum.
Linguistic Evolution
It is thought that before the time of the Painted Peoples, there may have been a number of early languages which have been lost to modern scholars and are not shown in the diagram at the head of the page. Evidence for these languages survives in small untranslatable fragments and in hints within proto
Julkai, suggesting that it had earlier anticedents than
Wet Cursive. In any case, before the time of the Old Kingdoms,
Wet Cursive had become the universal language of the Painted Peoples in north western
Myruthea and it has a very strong claim to be the progenitor of all subsequent native languages. When the Kingdom of Myruth was founded, a more sophisticated variant known as
Dry Cursive had taken hold and in fact, it is from
Dry Cursive that
almost all modern languages descend, with the sole exception of
Julkai, which is known to have branched from the root of
Wet Cursive at an earlier date.
Equinu and
Julkai are the languages of the continent of
Punjuki and of interest to linguists because they are the most ancient of the living tongues. Although they have evolved internally over thousands of years, they have remained relatively pure, unaffected by the cross pollination and more rapid changes which have characterised the languages of
Myruthea and
Tinturbean, over the same time frame.
Equinu is the more important and widely spoken of these two tongues, with
Julkai, the more ancient, only holding on in the far south of
Punjuki.
As the Old Kingdoms spread over
Myruthea and
Tinturbean, the dominance of the
Trinity Moon Triple Enfolding led to the spread of
High Trinitarian on
Tinturbean and
Low Trinitarian on
Myruthea and on
Zisleth, where it was the language of the
Kingdom of Snowborne.
After the civilisation shattering events of the
Sundering,
Westoric evolved out of
High Trinitarian on
Tinturbean, whilst on
Myruthea,
Low Trinitarian would mutate into proto
Empyrian, the language that would go on to become the main form of communication within the
Old Pale Empire and perhaps the most widely spoken language which
Magicians' End has ever known, before or since.
The Planar Conformation which brought the continent of
Novanoir into the world, also brought three alien languages,
the Dark Bleed,
Pan Zoophraisic and
Illbrathic. Of these, the first two have never been spoken beyond the confines of the
Dark Domains whilst
Illbrathic came to the shores of
Myruthea with the invasions that followed and was widely spoken by the conquerors of
Sunrock, so much so that elements of the language found their way into
Serall, a post
Empyrian successor language that was spoken in the west of
Myruthea in the early centuries after the fall of the
Old Pale Empire.
The collapse of the
Old Pale Empire led to a fragmenation of culture and language with regional variations in
Empyrian becoming languages in their own right. In
Tinturbean,
Beaneese adopted also elements of
Westoric and is still spoken on that continent today.
Serall we have already mentioned. On the eastern plains of
Myruthea, the cities of
Klaractazum and
Zalgurim gave birth to the so called, "twin market languages" of
Zumash and
Gralce. To the south,
Sea Speak became a unifying tongue, widely spoken also along the coasts of
Punjuki, wherever there was trade with the larger continent after the rise of the Water Kingdoms from the end of the fifth century APC.
Much later, during the
Time of Terrors in the early fourth millenium APC, the
Owlblood from the
Moonside of
Noctaliya brought their language of
Noctan to the city of
Quarowl via the
Noctaliyan Gate.
Noctan is still spoken in Owlblood communities and although it has never been adopted by humans, aspects of the language have found their way into
Ossanifrean, a modern hybrid between
Beaneese and
Sea Speak which is the primary language of the
Trans-Oceanic Empire.
During the age of the
Limit Protectorate the language of
Limitation was first heard on
Magicians' End, brought here by the hated
Limit Princes. Of all the languages discussed here, this one was the least spoken and had the least long term impact but it should be included for completeness.
Finally, we reach the most recent modern language,
Alchix, still in the process of development but based on aspects of
Equinu and a unification of
Zumash and
Gralce. This mode of speech arose during the time of
Ixthamon, when the mad mage forcefully brought
Punjuki culture and
Equinu specifically, to the plains of
Myruthea.
Alchix is now a tongue spoken in the cities of the
Alchemical Alliance, where its nature as a linguistic alchemical fusion chimes with the philosophy of the new union of ancient city states.
Comments