Common Gratic

" The trader's guild in Highton was in shambles after the fire...it would be many a year and a lot of work before the hard r's of Gratic would be heard there again, coming from that collection of freezing Domians. They would always be found huddled around the fireplace, playing dice and exchanging wild tales of dragons in the Red Guard Mountains or black-skinned worm-men in the mines of the Orchills... "
~unknown sheaf of vellum found in the Nevercold Library.

Writing System

24 characters that are in the form of a flowing, cursive-like script, with breaks for individual words. Punctuation takes the form of frills or spirals attached to the final letter of a phrase. The two "borrowed consonants" (ch and sh) have special ligatures.

Geographical Distribution

The language is spoken predominantly in The Gratic Empire, but traders or mercenaries of other lands are usually versed in some basic Common Gratic.

Phonology

18 consonants and 8 vowels, with two additional vowel sounds and two additional consonant sounds due to exposure to Hayimic and Essic-Llenic words.

Morphology

-Nouns and adjectives can have any one of five cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, or instrumental) and any one of three genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter).
-Verbs conjugate by number and person.
-Plurals can be either just that or sometimes a collection of the item (for example, drúin can be "trees" or "forest").

Syntax

SOV for statements, with VSO used for questions and the ability to place emphasis by moving it to the beginning of the sentence. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify.

Root Languages

• Old Gratic

Spoken by

• Essic-Llenic
• Gratic

Common Phrases

gruta

hello

gartin

goodbye

tikin nesivin drúin tis kirdét!

You went into the old forest!?!?

Common Female Names

Entelia, Caldia, Kenti, Parelia

Common Male Names

Artus, Fredirk, Jonitan, Kelem

Art Credit: emperorcharlesii (me!)