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Starfall's Wish - Chapter 0 - First Draft
🕑 Added 2023-09-30 19:59:06 +0000 UTCI have one more thing before you get started. This setting is foremost a linguistic exercise and, while fantasy as a genre is replete with, well, fantastical names, some folks may feel mine are more so than most. The great irony is that the names and languages are rather mundane when taken in the full scope of human communication.
While there are many more languages throughout the world of Erthas, this story contains three. Without spoilers, they are High Elven, Fēritai, and a third unknown.
The inspiration for the Elven languages comes from Old Japanese. In particular, the split between native forms of words and those imported from contact with China via Korea. I wanted to do something similar. The High Elven language I pulled from the Japanese rendering of the Chinese reading of words (that is the various on'yomi) plus grammar reconstructed for Old Japanese. This is distinct from the broader elven family (a dozen or so languages) that make use of the native Old Japanese form (kun'yomi) with a similar reconstruction for Old Japanese grammar. The reason for the split is touched on later in the story. In addition to the High Elf characters, the Chiefly family of Fērizith also have High Elven names.
The Fēritai language, on the other hand, is fairly different. It, and the other languages of the Uruk, are inspired by the Turkic languages. These languages feature vowel harmony and a wide vowel inventory that has required the use of diacritics and other special characters, which give a more alien appearance than the Elven names. All of the other characters in the story have Fēritai names.
The third language, without spoilers I'll call it the unknown language, is a Proto-Indo-European reconstruction. It is by far my favorite and most developed of all my languages. Its use in this story is rather limited, only spoken by two characters and they only say a handful of words in it. It will feature prominently in the future.
To conclude, I believe these linguistic choices imbue the story with an immersive and captivating quality, inviting readers to explore the intricacies of language and culture within the realm of fantasy.
