The Elder Tongue
The Elder Toungue, is the common language of the northern peoples of Norjord and Rus. The language itself has several regional and tribal dialects, but shares a common root language.
The Elder Toungue is derived from a lost language spoken by the The Northern Peoples before coming to Zihæt. However the language has evolved significantly with some of the regional dialects being barely recognizable to speakers of a different dialect.
Shortly after the coming of the Younger Races, the prior runic script used by the lost language was abandoned, and the Dethek Runes were adopted. Sharing common script the Jotun and Ghukliak languages facilitated trade and made it easier for the tribes to learn these foreign languages.
As a result, the Elder Toungue has imported a number of words and expressions from Jotun and Ghukliak. This is particularly true of terms used to describe native features of Zihæt.
Spoken by
Comments
Author's Notes
The inspiration for the language is of course old Norse. However, given the amount of time that has occurred between the coming of the Younger Races and the current period, the language can be assumed to have evolved significantly. For that purpose, we assume that the Norjord dialect of the elder toungue bears more resemblance to the North Germanic languages. Phrases and idioms can be pulled from this language group for flavor. Similarly the Rus, due to their close contact with the Holy Empire of Humanité, likely evolved more towards western germanic languages such as Danish, German or English. Feel free to use color from these languages for flavor. The speakers of the Elder toungue have abandoned the original norse ruins and largely adopted the Dethek Runes after coming to Zihæt. This is a due to the influence and close proximity to speakers of Jotun. The Dethek script used in this set of pages uses the font created by Pixel Sagas. You can download the font free for personal use. This font remains subject to the copyright of the creator.