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Fax Celestis
2007-06-24, 01:24 PM
That is, do you envision the D&D languages with real-world counterparts? I do. Here's my approximations:

Dwarven: The dwarves are precise and logical, but not without style. Also, rune/character centric. Personally? Dwarven is Chinese.
Elven: Something flowing and vowel-heavy, and with a similar script. I see Elven as Arabic.
Halfling: Gaelic fits, for me, as a "trader's tongue" and certainly has enough body to it for a halfling to speak it and remain jovial.
Gnomish: Shares common roots with dwarven, but isn't quite the same and has grown into its own, unique language. Gnomish is Japanese.
Orcish: Harsh, clipped, militant, yet still capable of a variety of inflections and pretty if used correctly. German.
Goblin: Strange and alien, and somehow divorced from the rest of languages in both alphabet and vocalization, I have to say Russian for Goblin.
Draconic: An ancient language, spoken by the intelligent and used in a variety of magics. Latin.
Auran: Light and flowing, full of vowels and precise vocal tricks, I have to tag Auran as Hawai'ian.
Aquan: Full of subtlety and depth, smooth and artistic, French fits Aquan for me.
Ignan: Flamboyant, expressive, passionate, and--above all--sounds good when swearing. For me? Portuguese.
Terran: I hear this as Greek. All those long words, carefully placed together, and comingled with all those hard k's ans x's.

Do note, these are opinions and as such are probably different from your depictions. What do you hear them as?

CrazedGoblin
2007-06-24, 01:31 PM
look about right to me :smallbiggrin:

brian c
2007-06-24, 01:34 PM
Chinese isn't harsh enough to be Dwarven. I always figured Dwarven was like the Scandinavian languages (which originally used runes).

I definitely agree with Elven as Arabic and Halfling as Gaelic.

Last game I played in, the BBEG cursed at us in Ignan a lot, but the DM described it as sort of a hissing, crackling language, which I don't think compares very well with any (common) human language.

Delaney Gale
2007-06-24, 01:36 PM
Due to in-game silliness, I will always hear Draconic as "SLAYER" shouted repeatedly and with different inflections. Thinking of it as Latin makes me able to take myself seriously, though.


Goblin: Strange and alien, and somehow divorced from the rest of languages in both alphabet and vocalization, I have to say Russian for Goblin.

I dunno, Russian isn't that strange and alien in the context of being Indo-European and having twenty quadrillion Slavic neighbors. If you're looking for a language with those qualities, I'd go for Maygar (Hungarian). The alphabet is mostly Roman (with the exception of their obsession with accenting every vowel), but the language itself isn't related to anything around it.

Demented
2007-06-24, 01:37 PM
Elven: Elfelvelfelvelfelvelfelvelfelvelfelvelfelvelfelvel felv...

Dwarven: Dwarfdorfdwarfdorfdwarfdorfdwarfdorfdwarfdorfdwarf ...

Gnomish: Gnomiegnomiegnomiegnomiegnomiegnomiegnomie!

Halfling: Halfalingalfalingalfalingalfalingalfaling...

Orcish: Orkorkorkorkorkork!

Goblin: Gobolineygobolineygobolineygobolineygoboliney...

Draconic: Dra...con...i...dra...con...i...dra...con...

Auran: Auraurauraurauraurauraurauraura...

You could probably guess the rest by now....

Fax Celestis
2007-06-24, 01:41 PM
I dunno, Russian isn't that strange and alien in the context of being Indo-European and having twenty quadrillion Slavic neighbors. If you're looking for a language with those qualities, I'd go for Maygar (Hungarian). The alphabet is mostly Roman (with the exception of their obsession with accenting every vowel), but the language itself isn't related to anything around it.

I meant in comparison to the other translated languages I had presented. Different alphabet (Cyrillic), different vocalization, different grammatical structure--at least, from the others presented.

Matthew
2007-06-24, 01:45 PM
I would guess an Oriental Character and a Dwarf would be pleasantly surprised by the similarity of their languages!

I usually think of Elvish, Dwarvish and Orcish being similar to how they are presented in The Lord of the Rings, and Halfling, Gnomish and Goblin being derivatives. Draconic, I think of as something complicated and possibly unrecognisable as a language. The other languages I have no real frame of reference for...

Orzel
2007-06-24, 01:56 PM
I hear Dwarven like this

The Dwarven Alphabet using languages well... like English with strong accents, loads of slang, and words for other languages. The other guys just took Dwarven and beat it with a stick.

Jack Mann
2007-06-24, 02:00 PM
I always hear German for dwarven. It's a nice no-nonsense language, and is very good for technical purposes. As well, the older Germanic languages actually used runes.

Starsinger
2007-06-24, 02:08 PM
I think anime is a culprit, but I think of Elven as Japanese, because it seems to me to be the sort of thing an elf would do, Kanji is very pretty, but ridiculously difficult to learn them all, unless you lived for thousands of years, which elves do... also I blame Anime.

I picture Sylvan as a light bouncy language, I'm not sure if there's a present equivalent, but I see it as a language where it's very hard not to have fun saying anything. Like pig latin, but not exactly.

Dwarven I picture as english, with a thick scottish accent... but then again, who doesn't. :smalltongue: Although, other times I think of it as Latin, with the present day scientific connotations in tact, I see dwarves as very no-nonsense.

I picture Undercommon as being something like Newspeak, sort of like common, and at first seems similar, but entirely different.

Illithid, when spoken, I picture as sounding something like a washcloth sloshing around in a blender.

Druidic? I think of Druidic as being Gaelic.

Gnomish and Halfling on the other hands, I don't think about, I have a dislike of the small races.

skywalker
2007-06-24, 02:09 PM
I concur with fax on all but the gaelic. Not that many people who speak gaelic anymore, really. If you want to play straight to type, halflings should speak Romani, the language of the Roma(Gypsy) people that current edition halflings are based around.

Ignan should be either Portuguese, Italian, or Spanish. All three very passionate, expressive languages.

What about Celestial, Abyssal, etc.?

My former group thought of celestial sort of like Newspeak from 1984. In other words, there is no word for bad, there are no curses, etc. When the party's knight insults things in celestial, he calls them "double-plus ungood," etc.

Storm Bringer
2007-06-24, 02:21 PM
Dwarfven i've always seen as full of unusual emphasis, somewhat guttural, and heavy on the constanants. not sure what real world language i'd see it as.....none really.

Elven as being arabic i can see, and aggree with. Halfling....I'll go with it being like Gaelic.

Gnome....I ddin't really think about it till now. Now i do, I'd say something spoken very very fast, with the words flowing though a series of similar Syllables, very hard to follow if you're not fammilar with it

Orcish, i'd hear as really harsh, hard sounds strung together in a unusual manner.

Goblin I see as a sort of chittering, a series of sort sharp sounds with odd infections and changes of pitch.

cubecrazymonkey
2007-06-24, 02:43 PM
My group has tried a couple different things for in-party communications using things other than common. Sometimes if everyone is one a compy, we have different chat windows open for each language, so that those members who share a language can have conversations unbeknownst to the others. Others can still tell that something is being exchanged by the fact that two players are typing away frantically, but they don't get to know just what.

We've also played with the Troll language as Japanese. There's no justification for this other than that it was practical...a few of my fellow players and I have functional proficiency in Japanese, and Troll was the only language shared among us that the non-speakers lacked.

We also have a good time just making sounds with the languages. Sometimes we just add the racial inflection: Imagine how Dory speaks "whale" in Finding Nemo, and then apply that to Draconic. Or sometimes we'll speak gibberish in the appropriate sounding way before applying an easily understood translation--roaring and snarling as a dragon then explaining "I would like to eat you now."

Hefty Lefty
2007-06-24, 02:49 PM
Haha, in our games Goblin is always English with a thick Italian accent.

Goblin: "Getta off'a my land or I'm-a gonna smack you up good!"
Human Fighter: "I can't understand you!"
((Goblin attacks Human Fighter))
((Goblins suck, so Goblin dies))
Goblin (dying): "That...was a...spicy meat-a-ball!...gurgle..."

Pronounceable
2007-06-24, 03:05 PM
Elven=Arabic is right on target.

Dwarven=German to me. Plenty of hard kh sounds and generally irritating to my ears.

Hobbits speak English to me. Sorry, I meant "halflings"...

Orcish=French to me for an undetermined reason. I really don't know why.

Gnomes don't even exist, just like ewoks. I refuse to acknowledge them.

Everyone who plays DnD would take common as their own native language I imagine.


And I don't think elemental languages are really "languages". I think they're sort of like how animals understand each other.

Diggorian
2007-06-24, 03:17 PM
I try to make the different languages sound distinctive to give flavor to my NPCs. The realtion the have to real world languages is based on sound rather than syntax or relation.

Dwarven: German a touch Klingon-sounding.
Elven: French with a mixture of the Elvish I heard in LotRs
Halfling: Tolkien elvish mixed with Italian
Gnomish: British gibberish in the voice of the munchkins from Oz, specifically the lollipop guild
Orcish: Klingon but louder and extra feral
Goblin: like gnomish but more arabic-sounding, Bugbear dialects leans Dwarvish, Hobgoblins speak High Gobbley which sounds Japanese. So three flavors of gibberish :smallamused:
Draconic: Sibilant latin as though crocodiles or lizards cwere speaking it. Emphasis on R's, S's, and long I's
Auran: A breathy whispers like wind sounds
Aquan: lisping and gutteral Elvish
Ignan: loud breathy crackling, lots of hard K's
Terran: very bass tone rumbling like the song of whales similar to Entish in the LotR movies.

PlatinumJester
2007-06-24, 03:32 PM
Elven - Italien
Dwarven - German
Orc - Welsh
Gnome - Irish
Halfling - Cockney
Draconic - Latin
Abyssal - beatboxing mixed with Polish
Terran - Africans
Ignan - Spanish
Aquan - a camp common dialect. Simply fabulous.
Druidic - leet speak (since it neither are a real language)
Gnoll - Russian
Giant - Jamaican
Auran - Japanese
Infernal - Arabic
Sylvan - French
Goblin - Turkish

Callix
2007-06-24, 03:49 PM
<snip>Dwarven: The dwarves are precise and logical, but not without style. Also, rune/character centric. Personally? Dwarven is Chinese.<snip>
Gnomish: Shares common roots with dwarven, but isn't quite the same and has grown into its own, unique language. Gnomish is Japanese.

I have to disagree. Chinese is neither precise nor logical - it is poetic, free-flowing, and barely has any grammar. Japanese, on the other hand, is a clear and logical language, which, unfortunately, is not linguistically based on Chinese. While the two sound similar, anyone who has tried to learn either will tell you that the similarities are almost all cosmetic. The same characters are often pronounced completely differently.
Two pieces of advice
1. Swap Dwarven and Gnome
2. If you want to keep the associated feel of Dwarven and Gnome, don't use Chinese and Japanese. Use languages that are actually related.

Otherwise? Lots of fun.

Neon Knight
2007-06-24, 03:51 PM
Dwarven: German. Makes sense.
Elven: Latin. As pretentious as they are.
Gnomish: Some dialect of German.
Orcish: Cockney English. I may play too much Warhammer, particularly of the 40k variety.
Goblin: Something Slavic, certainly. Hobgoblin dialects are proper Russian. Goblin dialects are things like Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, etc.

Everything else I assume has no real earth equivalent, at least not one I associate with it. Draconic, in particular, would be something utterly alien.

I also thought this was appropriate for the discussion. (http://www.starslipcrisis.com/d/20050701.shtml)

GoblinJTHM
2007-06-24, 03:53 PM
I don't hear em, since they're pretend and nobody at the games I attend expects us to understand them babbling gibberish :P

Behold_the_Void
2007-06-24, 04:08 PM
I think anime is a culprit, but I think of Elven as Japanese, because it seems to me to be the sort of thing an elf would do, Kanji is very pretty, but ridiculously difficult to learn them all, unless you lived for thousands of years, which elves do... also I blame Anime.

I picture Sylvan as a light bouncy language, I'm not sure if there's a present equivalent, but I see it as a language where it's very hard not to have fun saying anything. Like pig latin, but not exactly.

If we're using Japanese for Elven, one could almost say that Sylvan is a really thick Kansai accent, which has the same root but can be completely unintelligible to those who speak standard Japanese and, as I understand it, is considered less refined. Remember, Elven and Sylvan use the same alphabets.

Bagera
2007-06-24, 04:39 PM
My groups have always described infernal as backwards german, and Abyssal as backwards russian.
Also goblins just say "Robble" with different inflections and tones.

Gavin Sage
2007-06-24, 04:44 PM
Elven is either Finnish or Gaelic, depending on whether you favor Quenya or Sindarian as your standard "Elven" language. Why? Because those are what Tolkien used.

Dwarves, something Eastern European or Scandinavian depending on you preference.

Orcs personally would be nothing current. Tolkien used Gothic I believe for the little we know of the Black Speech which is what I think orcs would use. Albeit with a really primative turn on it, since manly orcs have no use for pretty word speak. That stink like elves.

Gnomes and Halfings would be close to English at the most.

Celestial would be an extremely prissy Latin.

Infernal would be maybe Greek or something, for no particular reason I could think of. Or maybe proper Black Speech from Tolkien.

Draconic would be something Germanic in sound.

And anything isn't used enough for me to care.

GoblinJTHM
2007-06-24, 04:44 PM
unless you're in the diablo universe, where it sounds like 'rapideetshu'

Starsinger
2007-06-24, 04:47 PM
unless you're in the diablo universe, where it sounds like 'rapideetshu'

Rakanishu.. It's the name of the super unique from Act 1 :smallwink:

dungeon_munky
2007-06-24, 05:07 PM
The elves, I think, should be Italian. And halflings I have imagined to be yiddish, if only because klezmer music suits them so nicely.

SilverClawShift
2007-06-24, 05:12 PM
Elven = French in my mind, no question. Parlez-vous elvish?

That's the only racial language that I've really always attributed to a real language.

Which is actually kinda silly if you think about it, since thank to Tolkein, Elvish actually IS a language and is the only one that doesn't need a real world counterpart...

prufock
2007-06-24, 05:55 PM
Dwarven: Scottish Gaelic.
Elven: A soft form of Icelandic.
Halfling: Similarities with Inuktitut or Greenlandic.
Gnomish: Manx. Shares it's origin with Dwarven, as Manx does with Gaelic.
Orcish: A weird mix between Russian and German.
Goblin: Vietnamese?
Draconic: I agree with your choice, definitely Latin.
Auran: Hawaiian sounds about right.
Aquan: Tagalog, maybe.
Ignan: No human analogue. Whispery and crackling.
Terran: Chinese with less inflection in phonemes.
Common: English! Being a native-English speaker myself, this one is a given.
Abyssal: I imagine two voices at once; one speaking a Slavic language, and the other speaking common in reverse.
Celestial: Classic Greek.
Infernal: Sort of like Parseltongue in Harry Potter.
Giant: Afrikaans, or something similar.
Gnoll: Something primal-sounding, probably with syllables (yips, barks, yelps) that aren't translatable to the latin alphabet. Zulu, maybe?
Sylvan: A musical language, like whispering through metal or wooden chimes.
Undercommon: Some sort of ancient semitic language where the letters Z and Q are common (Ge'ez?).
Druidic: It's a secret! Really, though, I imagine this to be a variation on elven, but including codes such as whistling, trail markers, etc.

I_Got_This_Name
2007-06-24, 06:20 PM
Abyssal, Celestial, and Infernal have to be similar to Aramaic, Babylonian, and ancient Hebrew, with some Latin and Greek thrown in. That's where all of the RL demon and angel names come from, and quite a few D&D demon princes/devil lords, and celestial lords, have names based on those names, and use their feel at the very least, and something's name should sound like it came out of its language.

Turcano
2007-06-24, 06:40 PM
Orcish: Orkorkorkorkorkork!

I thought that was Swedish.

Eladrinstar
2007-06-24, 06:51 PM
Common: English
Halfling: Intelligible cant with a hint of Eastern European accent
Elven: French Italian mix
Gnome: Spanish Yiddish mix
Dwarven: Norweidgan Russian mix
Orc: German
Celestial: Hebrew Greek mix
Abyssal: Backwards Latin
Infernal: Araimic
Aquan: Hawaiian. The words are so flowy and soothing
Auran: whispered Arabic
Ignan: Screaming Japanese quickly
Terran: Slow Chinese
Draconic: Aztec language, but even more harsh consonants. Very difficult for mammals to speak getting a sore throat.
Gnoll: Yipping, barking, growling
Sylvan: Gaelic
Druidic: the Druids aren't telling

Everyman
2007-06-24, 08:10 PM
That is, do you envision the D&D languages with real-world counterparts? I do. Here's my approximations:

Dwarven: The dwarves are precise and logical, but not without style. Also, rune/character centric. Personally? Dwarven is Chinese.
Elven: Something flowing and vowel-heavy, and with a similar script. I see Elven as Arabic.
Halfling: Gaelic fits, for me, as a "trader's tongue" and certainly has enough body to it for a halfling to speak it and remain jovial.
Gnomish: Shares common roots with dwarven, but isn't quite the same and has grown into its own, unique language. Gnomish is Japanese.
Orcish: Harsh, clipped, militant, yet still capable of a variety of inflections and pretty if used correctly. German.
Goblin: Strange and alien, and somehow divorced from the rest of languages in both alphabet and vocalization, I have to say Russian for Goblin.
Draconic: An ancient language, spoken by the intelligent and used in a variety of magics. Latin.
Auran: Light and flowing, full of vowels and precise vocal tricks, I have to tag Auran as Hawai'ian.
Aquan: Full of subtlety and depth, smooth and artistic, French fits Aquan for me.
Ignan: Flamboyant, expressive, passionate, and--above all--sounds good when swearing. For me? Portuguese.
Terran: I hear this as Greek. All those long words, carefully placed together, and comingled with all those hard k's ans x's.

Do note, these are opinions and as such are probably different from your depictions. What do you hear them as?

You and I have almost the exact same ideas, Fax. The only difference is that Orc is Russian and Goblin is German.:smallsmile:

Athelian
2007-06-24, 08:15 PM
I, personally, see Dwarfs as having a pseudo-Russian or German language. Chinese? No way.

Foxtale
2007-06-24, 08:56 PM
In the campaign I'm currently in:
Auran - sounds like wind, with some crackles and lightning booms mixed in.
Ignan - lots of crackles and clicks.
Aquan - water rushing/crashing, waves washing on the beach
Terran - ground creaking

Basically, those languages aren't even recognisable as languages to those who can't understand them. They just sound like the sounds of those elements.

Prothero
2007-06-24, 09:06 PM
Genetically (linguistics term, not biology), Chinese and Japanese are completely unrelated. They do not share common roots (although Japanese has borrowed a great deal of Chinese words throughout the years). Not that it matters, considering this little fantasy linguistic world of ours only exists in our heads.

The White Knight
2007-06-24, 09:08 PM
That is, do you envision the D&D languages with real-world counterparts? I do. Here's my approximations:

Dwarven: The dwarves are precise and logical, but not without style. Also, rune/character centric. Personally? Dwarven is Chinese.
Elven: Something flowing and vowel-heavy, and with a similar script. I see Elven as Arabic.
Halfling: Gaelic fits, for me, as a "trader's tongue" and certainly has enough body to it for a halfling to speak it and remain jovial.
Gnomish: Shares common roots with dwarven, but isn't quite the same and has grown into its own, unique language. Gnomish is Japanese.
Orcish: Harsh, clipped, militant, yet still capable of a variety of inflections and pretty if used correctly. German.
Goblin: Strange and alien, and somehow divorced from the rest of languages in both alphabet and vocalization, I have to say Russian for Goblin.
Draconic: An ancient language, spoken by the intelligent and used in a variety of magics. Latin.
Auran: Light and flowing, full of vowels and precise vocal tricks, I have to tag Auran as Hawai'ian.
Aquan: Full of subtlety and depth, smooth and artistic, French fits Aquan for me.
Ignan: Flamboyant, expressive, passionate, and--above all--sounds good when swearing. For me? Portuguese.
Terran: I hear this as Greek. All those long words, carefully placed together, and comingled with all those hard k's ans x's.

Do note, these are opinions and as such are probably different from your depictions. What do you hear them as?

Almost perfect, but I, too, fail to think of Dwarven and Gnomish as Chinese and Japanese. I'd feel marginally more comfortable with Italian and Spanish, but I still don't feel like they're quite on the mark either.


Abyssal, Celestial, and Infernal have to be similar to Aramaic, Babylonian, and ancient Hebrew

Agreed here, too.

Duke Malagigi
2007-06-24, 10:19 PM
I've also included the typical alignments of each race in the campign setting I'm working on.

Dwarven (LG): Germanic or Icelandic
Elven (CG): Gaelic
accents by subrace
-High: Irish
-Gray: Welsh
-Wood: Scots
Gnomesh (N(L)G): Germanic
accent: Germanic Swiss
Goblin (LN(G)): Late Middle to early Late English
Orc (LE): corrupted Gaelic
accent: a gravely Irish
Ogre (CG): see elves: wood
Hag (NE): English
accent: Cockney
Kobold 1 (marsh, LE): Italian
Kobold 2 (desert, LG): Old Persian
Troll (CE): Germanic or Icelandic

Gralamin
2007-06-24, 10:34 PM
That is, do you envision the D&D languages with real-world counterparts? I do. Here's my approximations:

Dwarven: The dwarves are precise and logical, but not without style. Also, rune/character centric. Personally? Dwarven is Chinese.
Elven: Something flowing and vowel-heavy, and with a similar script. I see Elven as Arabic.
Halfling: Gaelic fits, for me, as a "trader's tongue" and certainly has enough body to it for a halfling to speak it and remain jovial.
Gnomish: Shares common roots with dwarven, but isn't quite the same and has grown into its own, unique language. Gnomish is Japanese.
Orcish: Harsh, clipped, militant, yet still capable of a variety of inflections and pretty if used correctly. German.
Goblin: Strange and alien, and somehow divorced from the rest of languages in both alphabet and vocalization, I have to say Russian for Goblin.
Draconic: An ancient language, spoken by the intelligent and used in a variety of magics. Latin.
Auran: Light and flowing, full of vowels and precise vocal tricks, I have to tag Auran as Hawai'ian.
Aquan: Full of subtlety and depth, smooth and artistic, French fits Aquan for me.
Ignan: Flamboyant, expressive, passionate, and--above all--sounds good when swearing. For me? Portuguese.
Terran: I hear this as Greek. All those long words, carefully placed together, and comingled with all those hard k's ans x's.

Do note, these are opinions and as such are probably different from your depictions. What do you hear them as?

Very Accurate, I'd just move/change some of them.

Dwarven, I find as a Germanic language, Particularly Norwegian.
Gnome, I'd find as the Swedish Germanic language.

Goblin, I'd find as English. We are considered one of the weirdest languages.
Orc, I'd state as Russian.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-06-24, 10:34 PM
Celestial: I always picture this as either Latin or Arabic.
Infernal: Hmm, something precise, logical, but stylish and dark. French.
Abyssal: Like french, but chaotic, horrid and gutteral. English!

Overlord
2007-06-24, 11:36 PM
I've never really thought much about this, but you guys have some pretty good ideas. I think a great deal of what the languages sound like is based on the general feel of your campaign, but a lot of it is indeed based on personal preference as well. Personally, I think only a few languages should sound like something from Earth culture.

For example:

Common: Hey, nobody's talking about Common! To me, what Common sounds like should be based on the geography and history of your campaign. In a classic Medieval English-esque campaign, the obvious choice for Common is Old English. My new campaign is going to have a nautical, piratey feel, so I'm strongly considering having Common be Portuguese, the language of Henry the Navigator.

SurlySeraph
2007-06-24, 11:43 PM
Dwarven: The dwarves are precise and logical, but not without style. Also, rune/character centric. Personally? Dwarven is Chinese.

Not as Scottish? HERESY!

I agree with you on pretty much all the rest, though. I see Elvish as more like Old English and Draconic as more like Swedish or Norwegian than Latin, because of the long and odd-sounding, vaguely mystical words. Latin seems too clear, clipped, and straightforward to be Draconic - of course maybe studying Latin for the past 7 years has changed my perspective.

Fhaolan
2007-06-24, 11:54 PM
A joke that I've always intended to introduce into my game, but haven't had the opportunity, is that Gnollish is exactly like 1337-speak. Simply because it would piss my players off and make them hate Gnolls even more than they do now...

CockroachTeaParty
2007-06-24, 11:57 PM
Hmm... I agree with Fax's original list for the most part, save a few differences.

To me, Dwarven would be Latin, and Draconic would be something akin to Sanskrit. Ancient, and still in use by many, but mysterious to the common folk.

Oh, and nobody's mentioned the language of the Aboleths... eh... Aboleth. They may not be in the SRD, but I've found their language, no arguments here.

Want to take a listen? (http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav)

Quincunx
2007-06-25, 03:32 AM
From the influence of my EQ guild and the peculiarities of race distribution there:

Undercommon ("Dark Speech" in EQ): Swedish, the most common language of the Nordic chat. Use Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic for individual races. Since we had a preponderance of Swedes and trolls, those went together also. Our only dwarf was Icelandic, so that was the language by default.

Elder Elvish might have been the fancy languages you all propose here, but the 'common' wood elves tended to be. . .manic Spanish. Sylvan, perhaps? Dryads leaping down from the branches with gleeful shouts of "jejejejeje" before smiting you with a ham shank*?

The gnomies are difficult. We had the usual tinkergnomie traits in common but no language or dialect: an English gnomie, an American gnomie, a Dutch gnomie with flawless English. Demented pretty well summed up what came out of the gnomish mouth though. Ah yes, and then there's Gnomie Surrounded by Trolls:

(gnomie flees to the right)
naenaenaenaenaenaenae
(gnomie flees to the left)
inte äta miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig
(gnomie flees in circles)
ingen kebabgnomieeeeee

*Don't ask about the ham jokes.

Roderick_BR
2007-06-25, 07:23 AM
"Gnomish: (...) Gnomish is Japanese."
That explains why Gnomes are small and like to build gadgets...

(hidding from both Japanese and Gnomish mobs)

Shadow of the Sun
2007-06-25, 07:46 AM
Orcish is based on the Black Speech of Mordor by Tolkien, is it not? Black speech was described as having no real innovation, stealing words and sounds instead.

Therefor, Orcish is easily English.

Lavidor
2007-06-25, 07:47 AM
Cool, I'm going to start studying Elven next year! (according to the OP's opinion)

Beleriphon
2007-06-25, 07:55 AM
Orcish is based on the Black Speech of Mordor by Tolkien, is it not? Black speech was described as having no real innovation, stealing words and sounds instead.

Therefor, Orcish is easily English.

You're thinking the written form of Black Speech. The language itself had a very distinct sound and structure that was most assuredly not borrowed from any natural language.

Guinaur
2007-06-25, 07:55 AM
Its interesting for me to see people comparing Giant to my primary language: Afrikaans. But it could work ^_^

Fighter: "Oh no, a Giant..."
Giant: "Kyk daar, dis 'n klein mannietjie in yster klere. Ek dink ek gaan hom eet..."

hehehe

Dervag
2007-06-25, 08:03 AM
Orcish: Harsh, clipped, militant, yet still capable of a variety of inflections and pretty if used correctly. German.Your orcs speak German? Wow. That means you can combine two sets of fictional villains in one and have Nazi orcs running around! Talk about doubling your fun.

I'd have to say that German isn't quite harsh, clipped, or militant enough for the task, but I'm not sure any human language is.


I meant in comparison to the other translated languages I had presented. Different alphabet (Cyrillic), different vocalization, different grammatical structure--at least, from the others presented.Sure, but Magyar is even weirder. If they had created their own alphabet rather than using the Latin one, it would probably be the second-most alien language in Europe, second only to what the Basques speak.


I think anime is a culprit, but I think of Elven as Japanese, because it seems to me to be the sort of thing an elf would do, Kanji is very pretty, but ridiculously difficult to learn them all, unless you lived for thousands of years, which elves do... also I blame Anime.Nah, it actually makes sense. Moreover, you can tie the traditional Japanese "every terrain feature has its own spirit" religion into elven nature-veneration.


Dwarven I picture as english, with a thick scottish accent... but then again, who doesn't. :smalltongue: Although, other times I think of it as Latin, with the present day scientific connotations in tact, I see dwarves as very no-nonsense.I often imagine dwarves with a germanic accent myself. You can just see dwarves sounding like Ahnold, can't you?


Orcish=French to me for an undetermined reason. I really don't know why.OK, now that is an unusual pairing.


Gnomes don't even exist, just like ewoks. I refuse to acknowledge them.I don't know. You could retcon them so they're not a ridiculous joke-race; it wouldn't be that hard. There have been many gnome-like species in fantasy, the slightly magical "little people." It's precedented. You'd just have to strip off the idiotic farce that Wizards of the Coast overlaid on the concept.


And I don't think elemental languages are really "languages". I think they're sort of like how animals understand each other.Or if they are languages, they're languages that human beings aren't really designed to speak.


A joke that I've always intended to introduce into my game, but haven't had the opportunity, is that Gnollish is exactly like 1337-speak. Simply because it would piss my players off and make them hate Gnolls even more than they do now...But if gnolls speak 1337, then what do the trolls speak?

mikeejimbo
2007-06-25, 08:13 AM
Didn't Tolkien base his languages off of real-world languages too? He was pretty good with linguistics, as I understand it.

Anyway, while I'm posting, I might as well share my thoughts...

Draconic: Latin. I've always considered Draconic to be Latin, probably because of the Latin root in the name. (Draco, of course.) But also because Draconic and Latin strike me as old and magical. And one more thing - because I know it better than anyone else in my group.

Dwarvish: Something Teutonic, but older than German, like Old Norse.

Gnomish: Related to Dwarvish, but newer, so probably German.

Undercommon: I think of this as related to both Dwarvish and Gnomish, so perhaps Old English.

Elvish: French.

Sylvan: Related to Elvish, but I can't think of anything I would say. For one thing, I don't know of any derivatives of French, so perhaps it would be clipped French.

Druidic: I would like this to be related to Sylvan, but Gaelic also makes sense.

Orc, Troll, Ogre, Goblin: Clipped, simple English.

Celestial: Latin, but always Church Latin. Maybe some Hebrew and Greek thrown in, as was mentioned above.

Abyssal: Latin, but always Vulgar.

Infernal: Latin, always Vulgar.

Yeah, I'm not too creative here. :P

Selv
2007-06-25, 08:13 AM
This thread delights me, because it suggests we anglophones all have common baggage when it comes to thinking about other languages.

Here's how I thought about it in my idle campaign-setting-ish thoughts. I wanted all the "common races" to be interacting throughout history, so I was thinking almost exclusively in terms of Western europe.

Common cannot be anything other than my own native tongue. Shut up. However, in my description "true" Common was the native language of Halflings. It made sense to me that the lingua franca would be the language of the numerous, unincorporated (and thus politically unthreatening) traders. "Modern" Halflings speak a variety of Common that has continued to evolve since Humans started to speak it, and thus has many more loanwords and "colour". Cockney dialect is in the right direction.

(In my last group, one of the DMs had a tactic of de-railing pun-fights by saying "Those words aren't homonyms in Common.")

In addition to common, I had four Human languages, but they never got much beyond the "pseduo-araby, frozen northlands" stage. Yes, I know. As it happens, the main focus was going to be a river-system with a Rus-style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus%27_%28people%29) history.

Elven, I wanted to be incomprehensible to most humans, but to have loaned a lot of words to Common over time. My solution? French, spoken in the style of Darmok. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok) Yes, I just applied an idea I saw on Star Trek to D&D. The dork is strong with this one. Anyway, the main body of humanity, being under Elven rule "back in the day" are now speaking Franglais.

Dwarves in this setting are fulfilling the roles of Soviet Russia and Imperial Britain, being a big mysterious power that is also utterly dependant on grain imports. I have Dwarvish sounding like German, largely on intuitive grounds.

Gnomish I want to sound like Dwarven, but they're also much more involved in the Common-speaking world, so I have them sounding like Frisian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_language): Not quite intelligible, but with the same rhythms and structure as Common.

If only I gave this much thought to my thesis...

The White Knight
2007-06-25, 08:27 AM
Dwarven, I find as a Germanic language, Particularly Norwegian.
Gnome, I'd find as the Swedish Germanic language.


There we go. These feel much better.

I also find the concept of Gnollish being 1337-speak to be utterly hilarious.

Fhaolan
2007-06-25, 08:40 AM
But if gnolls speak 1337, then what do the trolls speak?

That would be better, wouldn't it? Unfortunately trolls aren't a separate species in my campaign, so it's a bit tricky. [My campaign has a lot of re-arrangements like this. Trolls are Aberrant ogres, every so-many ogre births produces a troll. I've re-classified 'Aberrations' as mutants and chimerical creatures like owlbears. Every aberrant has a 'normal' creature it is derived from. It might breed true, it might not, but it's nominally a 'one-off' kind of thing. Which is why it's an aberration. :smallsmile: Because of this definition, a lot of creatures were shuffled into the Aberration group, and a lot of creatures shuffled right out and into other groups. Someday I'll write this whole mess up and post it on the Homebrew forum.]

Peregrine
2007-06-25, 09:50 AM
Me, I'm too much of a language obsessive to settle for the idea of 'racial languages'. I think global, I have my peoples speak whole families of languages. But if we were just going for one continent, this sort of setup would be great. I might have to steal some of its ideas at some point... grab a Russian phrasebook to throw some goblin-fighting PCs...


Abyssal - beatboxing mixed with Polish

You win.


Didn't Tolkien base his languages off of real-world languages too? He was pretty good with linguistics, as I understand it.

Only in terms of 'feel', as in sounds and some structure, not in vocabulary. Quenya (High Elven) has similar sounds and grammar to Finnish, while Sindarin (Grey Elven) has Welsh sounds and borrows a few of its structural idiosyncracies.

He did however use real languages to 'translate' many things in his books. He started out with the hobbits, as the central characters in an English-language tale, having their language translated into English. (They speak a dialect of Westron -- the 'common' tongue of Western humans -- since the Shire was originally part of the kingdom of Arnor.)

As with English, many peculiarly Hobbitish words can be traced back to their ancestor tongue, before coming to the Shire -- so lots of derivatives of Old English show up, English before it was alloyed with Norman French and started pillaging every other language too. This ancestor tongue was what the ancestors of hobbits spoke when they lived in the vale of the Anduin river, in close contact with various Mannish peoples -- including the ancestors of the Rohirrim. So Rohirric in the book is also represented by a derived form of Old English, and the hobbits and Rohirrim find they have common vocabulary in their old and obscure words.

Other Northern groups of men had their languages represented by other Germanic tongues -- and it was these men that the dwarves were most in contact with, so the names of dwarves are generally Scandinavian. (Dwarves had their own language, and names in it, but they didn't share either language or name with outsiders, instead speaking and taking names in the languages of nearby men.)

Tolkien being Tolkien, he went much deeper than this, right down to translating specific Hobbitish names, to make them feel as 'familiar' to English speakers as the real names did to Hobbits -- did you know that Samwise (Sam) Gamgee's name is actually Banazīr (Ban) Galpsi? And Meriadoc (Merry) Brandybuck was actually Kalimac (Kali) Brandagamba? I ramble on this much because it's a particular interest of mine, but you're much better off reading Appendix F to The Lord of the Rings. :smallsmile:

AtomicKitKat
2007-06-25, 10:45 AM
Languages...

I haven't had the chance to try these in real life, but I've always had it in my head for the following languages:

Ignan sounds like a fire crackling. To wit, you make a a lot of Ke Ka Ko sounds, like the flames licking on wood.

Auran is the wind blowing. You leave your mouth open, and just make sounds as you exhale. No closing. ALL vowels.

Aquan is the gurgling of water in the drain, or a babbling brook. Lots of BLB sounds. Think Blibdilpoolp, the primary God of the Troglodytes(I think?).

Terran is the most difficult to emulate. If you've ever seen some of those cartoons where there's golems(I'm thinking Xiaolin Showdown's Wuya's golems, at the moment, or the golems in Warcraft 3), they usually make these rock-grinding sounds. You have to use a lot of KR-initialed sounds.

In Vaprak controlled Ogrish, language speaks YOU! Basically, ever since someone suggested Russian for Ogres, I've been unable to get the image out of my head.

Not to be rude or anything, but for me, Germanic, Russian, and Arabic sound a lot more gutteral, with plenty of glottal stops, all the Ik, Atcht, etc. make them sound very vowel-unfriendly. Not really something I'd associate with the rather flighty Elves. Elvish and Sylvan should be fairly closely related languages, with like 500 different words for happiness, depending on context.

Draconic is sibilant, commanding, and insinuous all at once. I don't remember the phrases from the Draconomicon, but you basically have sentences going like "Ssslakrishna GOOKRA garishNA!", where it goes hissy at the start, then crescendoes, before subsiding and getting a second bark.

Sylian
2007-06-25, 11:02 AM
(gnomie flees to the left)
inte äta miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig
(gnomie flees in circles)
ingen kebabgnomieeeeee
I guess most of you just won't get the jokes but I have to say: They're funny! :smallbiggrin:

I personaly can't see any race speaking Swedish, Danish or Norweigan.

Telonius
2007-06-25, 11:47 AM
Common: English
Dwarven: Swedish
Elven: Sindarin
Gnomish: Dutch
Goblin: German
Orc: Russian
Halfling: Italian
Draconic: Latin
Druidic: Gaelic
Giant: Greek
Aquan: Dahomeyan
Ignan: Turkish
Terran: ... not sure. One with lots of consonants. Czech or Serbian, maybe?
Auran: Arabic (if only because djinn speak Auran).
Undercommon: Quenya
Sylvan: Japanese
Abyssal: Mix of Russian and German on a deep-voiced guy who's been smoking for 75 years, has a head cold, a hangover, and a speech impediment.
Infernal: Legalese
Celestial: Choir music

Oh, forgot one.
Street Urchin: Common with a fake Cockney accent. No matter what city you're in.

Tallis
2007-06-25, 12:14 PM
Honestly hadn't thought about most of them, but I'd say:
Elvish arabic sounds good
Dwarfish German gutural but similar to Engish (common) or Russian
Gnomish Latin long words, lends itself well to science and technology
halfling Welsh just feels right
Draconic Greek complex and old sounding, with a completely different alphabet
Druidic Gaelic

bosssmiley
2007-06-25, 02:17 PM
I don't hear em, since they're pretend and nobody at the games I attend expects us to understand them babbling gibberish :P

We still talking D&D languages here? :smallwink:

On topic again:

Common: English
Halfling: yokel English
Elven: per LOTR (kinda Finnish/Celtic sounding)
Gnome: Italian. The whole race is Leonardo de Vinci anyway. :smalleek:
Dwarven: German (with lots of added lots of growling, hawking and snarling of 'r' sounds).
Orcish: generic "babbla-grabba-gurrrrrr!" angry caveman speak with cuffings and kicks as punctuation.
Goblinoid: A mush of Slavonic languages (with Japanese sprinkles for the Hobs).
Gnoll: How your dog would talk. Short, snapped-out phrases and expressive body language.
Sylvan: All fey talk like Tom Bombadil (I *hate* Fey).
Druidic: the incomprehensible, deliberately obscure, backward heathen gobbledegook that is Welsh. :smallwink:

Prothero
2007-06-25, 02:39 PM
Tolkien was pretty good at linguistics??? He almost single-handedly revived study in medieval Scandinavian literature and language.

What do you all think about his giving the Dwarves a Arab-Semitic-like language?

(What little text we have of Tolkien Dwarvish hints towards the Afro-Asiatic family).

Erom
2007-06-25, 02:57 PM
I used to follow the tired old dwarves = scottish and orks (I mean, ahem, orcs) = german thing, but since I've been listening to the Guild Wars dwarves with scandanavian accents (Swedish? Finnish? not sure.) and the Warhammer orcs with cockney english, I've decided I like that a lot better.

Seriously, check out the GW dwarves for an interesting look at dwarven. They still have the miner/metalworker/tough aledrinker/hammer weilder stereotypes, but they live above ground and speak completely differently. Fun stuff.

Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick
2007-06-25, 03:00 PM
All fantasy languages are precisely equivalent to various regional dialects of Scotland and England. Very exotic fantasy cultures may be welsh.

GusGusStrumSong
2007-06-25, 03:29 PM
My opinion on the matter however I am likely to be persuaded.
I liked Fax_Celestis' idea about how latin was the root of everything. Which is true. i possibly could be persuaded either way. here are some ideas about what i thought when i first heard about these.

I guess you should think about what they are now. like common back in mideval times would probobly be something close to latin.

Dwarven: would be Something practical yet used for an economically sound and would be used by a resourceful nation so probably the chinese language, however not sure whether it would be either the Mandarin or Cantonese dialects I'm not an expert. possibly Korean as well.
Elven: I would have to see elvish as possibly Arabic, or some Samoan dialect such as Hawaiian.
Halfling: Gaelic, defiantly Gaelic. I agree with Fax_Celestis on this one.
Gnomish: Its a bit diferent but still has some elements of dwarven as Fax_Celestis said, Gnomish is Taiwanese in my book.
Orcish: German no doubts.
Goblin: Polish. A derivative of Russian.
Draconic: An ancient language, yes, even in the medieval era, however it would probably be some derivative of an Arabic language mabye Hebrew or possiply from our roots in africa.
Auran: Tongan a Samoan language much like Hawaiian but totally different to listen to.
Aquan: French
Ignan: I don't know a whole lot on this one, maybe Catalan.
Terran: I was thinking English. though i don't know anything about Auran, Aquan Ingnan and terran i would guess English. just because i speak it it sounds down to earth hahaha.
no, but really is somewhat like french and portugese. but english is slightly more blunt and takes more thought to speak meaningfully and it is really rather dull.

Morty
2007-06-25, 03:41 PM
Goddamit, I've seen Polish language two times in this thread, and both times it stood for Goblin:smallconfused: What's with goblinoids and slavic languages? Just curiousity. Also, I'd never tie Orcish and German together.
Anyway, in my games I tried to make elves look like ancient celts, so I'm diggning through internet and books in search of irish, welsh and celitc names and sentences. For me, elves=celts.
Seriously though, I've never pictured racial languages as real-world languages. When designing languages, I just say "alright, so goblin is quick and full of hissing syllabes, dwarven is short and resembles scandinavian etc.".

MeanJoeSmith75
2007-06-25, 03:49 PM
Elven: Swahili or the language used by South American Native triber- the clicks and whistles carry farther in the forest and tress providing better communication
Dwarf - a soft language maybe Japanese as suggested or one of the Polenisian. Basically a language that prevents harsh sounds that 1. echo and become indistinct and 2 could cause cave ins.

Kalirren
2007-06-25, 04:50 PM
Regarding Tolkein's treatment of Dwarven, I refer you to this site (http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/khuzdul.htm), which pretty much settles the question regarding Tolkein's conception of Dwarven as a Semitic language. As for Elvish, I'm less sure. I think Tolkein drew his inspiration from French, and the Gaelic languages - sure shows his British side there.

Of course, who says we have to be bound by Tolkein? I'm currently running an Eberron campaign where I've essentially defined the languages as follows:

Khorvaire Common (or Galifar) = Karrnathi = German/English/French
Khorvaire Dwarven = Semitic (so I guess I did still go off of Tolkein here) = Yiddish/Hebrew
Druidic = Etruscan, if we knew it (yay secret languages!)
Elvish = a mixture of Giant and Druidic = Latin
Old Giant = Sanskrit
Vulgar Giant and the various Drow languages = the various Indian dialects
Reidran = Chinese

Selv
2007-06-25, 05:52 PM
When I first read LOTR I always equated Elves with Romans. Seriously, it makes sense if you come at it from an Anglo-Saxon point of view (bonus fun fact: the 6th century Saxons were convinced they were living in the final years of the world, after all civilisation had reached its peak and fall.)

Turcano
2007-06-25, 06:12 PM
(What little text we have of Tolkien Dwarvish hints towards the Afro-Asiatic family).

Semitic languages, specifically. Khuzdul has templatic morphology, which is pretty much unique to that family.

Also, it seems that most people are restricting themselves to Indo-European and East Asian languages. Some of my picks are:

Elven: Basque. If you didn't know anything about the two languages, you might confuse it for Spanish, but most people find the syntax bizarre.

Dwarven: Abaza. One of my professors was one of the foremost experts on this language, and if I didn't know any better, I'd swear it was made up on a dare.

Gnomish: Georgian. Like Abaza, it's a Caucasian language, but it's a bit less... sadistic. (Dang. I just realized all of the languages I've picked so far are ergative. What does that say about me?)

Halfling: Dutch or Frisian. This is mainly due to my views on race origins and the fact that English is my native language.

Giant: Indonesian.

Draconic: !Kung. Dragons might have problems with labial consonants and so would use non-pulmonic consonants to compensate, which !Kung has in abundance. Kobolds and similar creatures speak Xhosa.

Orcish: Nahuatl.

Goblin: Quechua.

Druidic: Welsh. Still Celtic, but different.

Pronounceable
2007-06-25, 06:36 PM
Infernal=Legalese

I salute you Telonius!

SurlySeraph
2007-06-25, 07:35 PM
Goddamit, I've seen Polish language two times in this thread, and both times it stood for Goblin:smallconfused: What's with goblinoids and slavic languages? Just curiousity.

I think it's mostly the (American) stereotype that Eastern European countries are all full of jury-rigged or primitive technology, the kind of stuff goblins are usually portrayed as using.

Also, just imagine a goblin in a Russian fur hat. That should make you understand.


Vulgar Giant and the various Drow languages = the various Indian dialects

I'd never thought of that, but Drow as Punjabi or Tamil makes a lot of sense.


Draconic: !Kung. Dragons might have problems with labial consonants and so would use non-pulmonic consonants to compensate, which !Kung has in abundance. Kobolds and similar creatures speak Xhosa.

I just can't imagine Kobolds speaking in clicks. I preferred the Kobolds = rat-dog-humanoid-whelps to the Kobolds = reptiles. Also Xhosa is just too cool-sounding and pleasant for Kobolds. I imagine Kobolds as sounding (and acting) sort of like Chihuahuas on PCP.

Call Me Siggy
2007-06-25, 07:49 PM
Elven:Arabic, as stated many times.
Dwarven:A little German, but I certainly envision it as closer to the FUTHARK (http://members.aol.com/JehanaS/futhark/runes.gif).
Gnome:No. Just, no.
Orcish:Something...exotic. Lots of clicking noises and guttural sounds.
Halfling:Spanglish, or at least an odd pidgin of words from other languages.
<Insert elemental language here>All onomatopoeias of whatever element they're speaking, with different levels of sound and expression of certain traits and such..e.g. an angry Terran-speaker would probably sound like an avalanche.
Celestial:Latin, in a sort of Gregorian chant way.
Infernal:Also, Latin (As in my opinion Latin is a very Lawful language and only Archons would bother to use Celestial regularly), but spoken a little more like a back-alley merchant enticing you to buy less-than-legal goods.
Abyssal:A lot of rising and falling sounds, a bit like a maniacal laugh given texture.
Goblin:I never really knew, until now, when I envisioned a goblin in a Russian hat.
Gnoll:Imagine a chihuahua and a jackal become one.
Draconic:Something old. Reeeeally old. I envision it as sort of a sumerian thing.

brian c
2007-06-25, 08:16 PM
(Dang. I just realized all of the languages I've picked so far are ergative. What does that say about me?)

I have no idea. Linguistics major, are you? (or were you)

Turcano
2007-06-25, 09:21 PM
I have no idea. Linguistics major, are you? (or were you)

I have a Master's, yes. But why would I pick out that?

AtomicKitKat
2007-06-26, 05:08 AM
Abyssal: Swearing.

I can just imagine it now. Balor and Pit Fiend talking(Telepathy would get the message across. Just speaking for emphasis.

Balor: *Censored* *censored* *censored* *censored*
Pit Fiend: Ipso Facto, Habeus Corpus.
etc.

WhiteHarness
2007-06-26, 09:56 AM
Semitic languages, specifically. Khuzdul has templatic morphology, which is pretty much unique to that family.

Also, it seems that most people are restricting themselves to Indo-European and East Asian languages. Some of my picks are:

Elven: Basque. If you didn't know anything about the two languages, you might confuse it for Spanish, but most people find the syntax bizarre.

Dwarven: Abaza. One of my professors was one of the foremost experts on this language, and if I didn't know any better, I'd swear it was made up on a dare.

Gnomish: Georgian. Like Abaza, it's a Caucasian language, but it's a bit less... sadistic. (Dang. I just realized all of the languages I've picked so far are ergative. What does that say about me?)

Halfling: Dutch or Frisian. This is mainly due to my views on race origins and the fact that English is my native language.

Giant: Indonesian.

Draconic: !Kung. Dragons might have problems with labial consonants and so would use non-pulmonic consonants to compensate, which !Kung has in abundance. Kobolds and similar creatures speak Xhosa.

Orcish: Nahuatl.

Goblin: Quechua.

Druidic: Welsh. Still Celtic, but different.

I like these ideas better than those of the original poster. I also studied Linguistics in college...

Lolzords
2007-06-26, 03:30 PM
Common: I'd say english with "aye" instead of yes, "nay" instead of no and "ye" isntead of you.

BooBooSpooki
2007-06-27, 02:49 AM
Its interesting for me to see people comparing Giant to my primary language: Afrikaans. But it could work ^_^

Fighter: "Oh no, a Giant..."
Giant: "Kyk daar, dis 'n klein mannietjie in yster klere. Ek dink ek gaan hom eet..."

hehehe

Giant's mother: "Jy doen niks voor jy jou bed opgemaak het nie!"

BooBooSpooki
2007-06-27, 03:00 AM
An interesting exercise may be to look at actual languages constructed for these races. Here's an attempt by members of a Neverwinter Nights persistent world (http://wiki.avlis.org/Category:Language).

Dwarven
Certainly Germanic, sometimes elements of Gaelic.


Famoch tighmann voromlag wegoir wofel caufoch nudh washelg.
I went to the store yesterday because I wanted to buy a new shield.

Gnomish
Also Germanic, in this case based on Dwarven but with a much more complex syntax.


Enkraftunsplunk
We are all working to build the great machine.

Orcish
Should reflect some semitic grammar with a slight Arabic template mixed in with Klingon-sounding words, but it may not be in its current form on the server.


Zavnuk cemgund dralzah ghaash grultuk-ug ag-ub choom lat-uuk.
Zavnuk, fire axe of the granite dragons will slaughter you all.

Elven
Apparently based on Hebrew. Some of the words, though, sound Latin.


I do not speak elven, but I want to learn.
Eni li doober nanshilae, eval eni retzelath moderas.

GusGusStrumSong
2007-06-27, 12:40 PM
"Goblin:I never really knew, until now, when I envisioned a goblin in a Russian hat."


lol

FireSpark
2007-06-27, 01:30 PM
I strongly disagree with Draconic being thought of as Latin in sound. This is a language that was birthed by a reptillian species (or at least reptile like in structure). One of the ways most reptile-like creatures differ from mammal-like creatures is the lake of lips (or at least anything more than rudimentry control of the muscles in the face surrounding their teeth). This would indicate, to me anyways, that a language borne of such a mouth structure would not have, as Turcano suggested, much in the way of labial consonants (like B, P, or M. Just ry saying those three without touching your lips together.:smallamused: ) or any other labialisation. To me this would seem to share much in common with native Aboriginie, at least in basic structure. A language which is spoken using muchly with the positioning of the tongue and throat. Also with Draconic, there would undoubtedly be some hisses and clicks integrated, and probably some pretty harsh non-labial consonants (I would imagine k and x would qualify here).

As for halfling, for some reason (that I still can't figure out), their culture and racial make-up sound very native american to me, and that's how I always heard it in my head.

elliott20
2007-06-27, 01:37 PM
Dwarven: I imagine this to be have a very strict language structure, with lots of grammratical rules that once you figure it out, becomes the most logical thing in the world. for some reason, this comes across as germanic to me.
Elven: Somehow, I see this as being latin language crossed with arabic
Gnomish: Hebrew and Yiddish. I don't know why, but every time I see a gnome in game, I end up imagining him talking like Billy Crystal or Woody Allen.
Orcish: Orc comes across as a pigeon tongue to me, where the grammar structure is pretty loose. Kind of like a more chaotic, gutteral version of Klingon.
Draconic: If Latin had the strict strict strict structure that german has ontop of the millions upon millions of different honorifics, that would make it sound draconic to me

AtomicKitKat
2007-06-27, 01:59 PM
So, thinking through it some more, I always see Abyssal and Infernal as being made up of ridiculously convoluted combinations of combinations. Stuff like Sthlarkathsugka. With plenty of ! and ' thrown in(all the clicking mandibles, rustling throat scales, etc.

AND now, for something completely different...

Illithids apparently sign, but only for emphasis of thoughts projected. Mind you, Illithid sign language is probably more complex than all Human SL, since each tentacle's exact position is very important(not to mention, more flexible, and thus more positions available overall, despite the lack of digits).

Beholders roar, screech, and probably click. Eyestalks waved for emphasis, similar to Illithids.

Aboleths wiggle their catfish-like tentacles, and probably wink different eyes, depending on how much they want to convey.

Inyssius Tor
2007-06-27, 02:06 PM
Of course, Beholder vocabulary probably isn't that fleshed out...

"Hate!" "Destroy!" "Desecrate!" "Great Mother!"

... and that's it.

GusGusStrumSong
2007-07-08, 07:50 PM
I've always kinda wondered what Drow was like and Drow Sign too.

Jimmy Discordia
2007-07-09, 02:00 AM
Wow, this is a fun read... I've never really thought of which Earth languages any D&D languages would sound like, but it seems that (almost) everyone but me has some opinion on the matter. Especially fun was Turcano's post referencing languages I've never even heard of (specifically, Abaza, Nahuatl, and Quechua... now I wish I knew what those sounded like so I could get a better idea).

I've always thought of Elvish as sounding like Elvish sounded in Lord of the Rings, but the more I think about it the less I like that idea. Everyone bases their elves off of Tolkien's elves. If we're assuming the setting is basically medieval Europe, and Common = English, I think Latin works nicely for Elvish. Perhaps human scholars still speak Elvish conversationally, at least in universities and the like? I might be getting my history mixed up (history has never been my strong suit), but if memory serves Latin was simply what you spoke in medieval European universities. Perhaps the language scholars speak is more like Church Latin, and the language the Elves speak amongst themselves is more Classical Latin.

I like Enochian as the basis for both Celestial and Infernal - John Dee even called it the Celestial Speech, if my memory and Wikipedia are to be trusted. The trouble with this is that I have no idea what Enochian sounds like. Also, depending on whom you listen to, John Dee and Edward Kelly either made it up or received it through divine revelation, so it doesn't really bear any relationship to any natural languages. Or maybe it does - as I said, I'm not really sure what it sounds like when spoken. Aramaic could also work here.

Trying to come up with real-world analogues for languages like Draconic or Ignan is even harder. I'm not even going to try - when these languages are spoken in my campaigns, I just say they're utterly incomprehensible to people who haven't studied them. Even if you have studied them, I imagine mammals can't ever learn to pronounce the words quite right - a dragon might understand you if you speak fluent Draconic, but he might make fun of you for speaking it "wrong."

What interests me particularly is the relationship that various D&D languages bear to each other. Would someone who speaks only Common, for instance, be able to get the gist of what a Halfling is saying in his own tongue? For example, it's my understanding that the languages are closely enough related that someone who speaks fluent Spanish can understand more-or-less what somebody else is saying in Italian. I'm far from fluent in either language myself, but from what I know of each, this doesn't seem unreasonable.

I'd like to see some kind of map of how D&D languages relate to each other - I think it would add flavor if two speakers of distinct but closely-related languages could sort of communicate with each other, perhaps by speaking very slowly and using a lot of gestures. Looks like another thing to add to the list of fluff that I'm planning to add to my new world... I need to stop reading these threads, or the fluff list is going to get so long the project is never going to get done. :smallwink:

Quincunx
2007-07-09, 06:45 AM
It's good to work against language stereotypes (http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip247.html) in gaming. . .

I will concede the point that any analogue for Gnomish has to be able to form compound words without punctuation or spacing. If the language can't spit out a twenty-letter word, Gnomish it isn't. Also it needs inflection, just so other races can get an aural toehold in the barrage of verbiage.

Martichoras
2007-07-09, 07:34 AM
As far as I recall, Tolkien based Black Speech on Hurrian/Hurrite. I think "Sauron" means something like "He who bears weapons" in Hurrian (and something else in Black Speech).

To the best of my knowledge, Tolkien did not find French to be a pleasant language.

I think German is a beautiful language, and have a hard time imagining orcs speaking it. "Goethe the orc"? Unlike Tolkien, I also think that French is beautiful.

I use the following languages as placeholders for non-human languages in my campaign:

Elves: Sanskrit (and then one of my players went off and studied it, which lead to interesting situations).

Dwarves: Proto-norse.

Gnomes/wee folk: Dutch (somewhat ironic, with the Dutch being very tall on average, but the right sound in my ears).

Giants: Hurrian.

I use Thai as a "generic incomprehensible language" (I can speak it with some fluency, none of my players tend to have any comprehension, so it is good for jabbering on in), and use several Western European languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Latin) as placeholders for human languages.

Attilargh
2007-07-09, 07:50 AM
I will concede the point that any analogue for Gnomish has to be able to form compound words without punctuation or spacing. If the language can't spit out a twenty-letter word, Gnomish it isn't. Also it needs inflection, just so other races can get an aural toehold in the barrage of verbiage.
Finnish seems perfect, then. Our longest word is the very gnomish "epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän", although it's bloody hard to use in conversation. And compound words can get simply absurd, which makes for great techno-gibberish:

"Juoskaa, juoskaa! Maahisheitinvipukoneen multienergiavastaanotinreleen prototyypin alkuasteen keitinkammion ylipaineventtiili vuotaa lauhdutintorniin!"

Jimmy Discordia
2007-07-09, 08:07 AM
It's good to work against language stereotypes (http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip247.html) in gaming. . .

I will concede the point that any analogue for Gnomish has to be able to form compound words without punctuation or spacing. If the language can't spit out a twenty-letter word, Gnomish it isn't. Also it needs inflection, just so other races can get an aural toehold in the barrage of verbiage.

Doesn't German do this to some extent? It's been a long time since my Ling courses...

The more I think about it, the more I think Germanic gnomes would be fun. I mean, the gnomes are often portrayed as great engineers, and the Germans make really nice cars...

Erom
2007-07-09, 09:24 AM
Having read, or tried to read, engineering documentation in a number of languages, German is quite good at expressing technical concepts. Of course English is the best not because the language is any good, but just because all the words were invented in an english context. I find old Russian space program documentation aggravating, but it may be because I have less familiarity with the language.

Swooper
2007-07-09, 10:57 AM
Finnish seems perfect, then. Our longest word is the very gnomish "epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän", although it's bloody hard to use in conversation. And compound words can get simply absurd, which makes for great techno-gibberish:

"Juoskaa, juoskaa! Maahisheitinvipukoneen multienergiavastaanotinreleen prototyypin alkuasteen keitinkammion ylipaineventtiili vuotaa lauhdutintorniin!"

I'll take that Finnish "epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän" and trump it with the Icelandic "Vašlaheišarvegavinnumannaverkfęraskśrslyklakippuhr ingurinn" :smallbiggrin: Propably even harder to fit in conversation. Compound words are fun, aren't they?

As for input on the topic, I've always thought of gnomish as welsh, or possibly yiddish.

Elven is simply Quenya/Sindarin. No reason to connect it to a RW language when there's an existing one that works perfectly.

Dwarven is, to me, old Norse/Icelandic (same language, really - I can read old norse without much difficulty without having learnt it).

Common fits as English - a mishmash of vocabulary from various languages and grammar that doesn't make any sense.

Halfling, to me, is Danish. The lazyest language in the world. Doesn't roll off the tongue as much as leak off it.

I strongly dislike connecting Draconic with Latin. Draconic needs to be even more ancient, more primeval than that. Propably not close to any language that has ever been spoken in the RW. As has been mentioned, dragons are reptiles and do not, as such, have lips, making certain sounds unpronouncable. As well as allowing certain other sounds that humanoids (other than kobolds and such) find unpronouncable, in turn.

Celestial I find easier to connect to Latin, perhaps because Latin was the language of the church.

Abyssal/Infernal could work as some distorted form of Hebrew/Aramaic/releated languages, with a good deal of sinister sounding jibberish in between. This description fits the bill for most of the daemon lord names from the D&D lore.

Terran/Ignan/Aquan/Auran sound like their respective elements making noise. Terran like rumbling rocks or grating sand, Ignan like crackling flames, Aquan like a running stream or waves crashing the shore, Auran like howling wind.

Druidic has honestly never come up in our games, no-one likes playing druids. Or clerics, but that's another matter. In any case, I can buy it sounding like Gaelic or ancient Celtic, since that's pretty close to what RW druids sounded like. Haven't given it much thought myself.

Sylvan has me pretty stumped too.

As a last note, a language known as Uncommon was created in one of our more silly campaigns. One of my characters was missing a bonus language, so I asked if I could speak Uncommon. He didn't mind, so I was for a long while the only known person to speak Uncommon. Untill another party in another campaign met a fisherman from a remote province in a country that was basicly medieval Germany. He spoke Uncommon, which is what you get if you take the worst/ugliest/most complex and hard to pronounce word from Danish, German(any dialect) or Dutch, and use it, for every word.

To date, noone has dared to speak Rare.

Golthur
2007-07-09, 11:19 AM
A lot of these are interesting....

I'd definitely have to agree with the "Gnomish as Finnish" sentiment, and would end up putting Dwarvish as Old Norse/Icelandic.

What's interesting to me, though, is that I often create conlangs for my games, and for one campaign I modeled Dwarvish as a combination agglutinative/Afro-Asiatic style language (like a fusion between Turkish and Middle Egyptian). I wasn't aware that Tolkien also viewed Dwarvish as an Afro-Asiatic language, but it's funny now in retrospect.

Elvish I would put as something completely unlike other languages - like Basque. Or maybe something like Navaho - nearly all verbs, no nouns.

The various goblinoid languages I would model after Asian analytic languages - like Chinese and Thai, but I'd take cues from Japanese for the hobs.

Draconic, as proposed here, would be some sort of modified Latin, perhaps taking cues from Finnish where you could create these unbelievably long Latin-like words that convey very subtle nuances of meaning.

Orcish is a tough one. I can't think of any languages that have both the consonant and grammar structure I'd like. I'm sure there are some, but I just don't know about it. To me, it would combine the harshest consonants of German along with the pharyngeals of Arabic, but I'd use the analytic structure of the goblinoid languages. Another possibility would be a Slavic language, like maybe Polish, Czech, or Russian.

Giant would, in my mind, be related to Orcish - so if I were using a Slavic for Orcish, I'd use a different one for Giant.

Celestial/Infernal/etc. would definitely be Afro-Asiatic - Hebrew or Akkadian, possibly with cues from Sumerian.

Hmm... This is definitely an interesting thread. :smile:

Attilargh
2007-07-09, 11:44 AM
I'll take that Finnish "epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän" and trump it with the Icelandic "Vašlaheišarvegavinnumannaverkfęraskśrslyklakippuhr ingurinn" :smallbiggrin: Propably even harder to fit in conversation. Compound words are fun, aren't they?
But see, it's not a compound word. It's just a a single word ("järjestelmä") which has then been derivated to Abyss and back.

If we want to go compound, "lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliups eerioppilas" (61 letters) - meaning approximately "assisting mechanic non-commisioned officer student of airplane jet turbines" - has actually been an assignment of the Finnish Defense Forces. In addition, you can find an "atomiydinenergiareaktorigeneraattorilauhduttajatur biiniratasvaihde" (66 letters) - literally "atomic nuclear energy reactor generator cooling turbine gear shift" - from your nearest nuclear power plant.

I'm actually amazed I'm taller than three and a half feet, now that I think of it.

Ędit: Funny, the board can't handle that long words. I hope I'm not causing any sidescrolling. :smalltongue:

Quincunx
2007-07-10, 02:38 PM
I thought I worded that specifically to exclude spoken-typeface. Let me dip into the dictiona--

(Something small and high-velocity WHAMs through the conversation, scattering the rest of the quincunx like bowling pins.)

aie!--
ow!--
oof!--
[censored]!--

That is SO COOL! you got GEARSHIFTS on your nuclear power plants are they manual or automatic?--

I'll be [censored] by [scrubbed]. Definitions one and two are mutually inclusive. How about 'modulation'--

--an' can put rearview mirrors on the tops of the coolin' towers so you can see where you gotta go an' ohyeah put on the sirens when you brake 'cause you gotta signal then--

Dihan
2007-07-10, 03:49 PM
All fantasy languages are precisely equivalent to various regional dialects of Scotland and England. Very exotic fantasy cultures may be welsh.

That's how I also hear the languages. Though I may be a bit biased achos dw i'n siarad Cymraeg* :smallbiggrin:

*In case you can't speak or understand Welsh... That was Welsh :smalltongue:

Pauwel
2007-07-10, 05:44 PM
Finnish seems perfect, then. Our longest word is the very gnomish "epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän", although it's bloody hard to use in conversation. And compound words can get simply absurd, which makes for great techno-gibberish:

"Juoskaa, juoskaa! Maahisheitinvipukoneen multienergiavastaanotinreleen prototyypin alkuasteen keitinkammion ylipaineventtiili vuotaa lauhdutintorniin!"

Same for the Scandinavian languages.

"Jeg er et hundeslędelųbsguldmedaljevinderholdsmedlem! Og udover det har jeg, som nyuddannet lęge, lige fęrdiggjort min speciallęgepraksisplanlęgningsstabiliseringsperiod e!"

aberratio ictus
2007-07-10, 05:56 PM
I think German is a beautiful language, and have a hard time imagining orcs speaking it. "Goethe the orc"? Unlike Tolkien, I also think that French is beautiful.


Thank you! Personally, I believe Hitler totally screwed up the image of the German language in the world. (Yes, I know... discussion growing longer, Hitler is mentioned...) Whatever.

I absolutely cannot picture a male Orc meeting a female Orc, saying "Mein schönes Fräulein, darf ich wagen, meinen Arm und Geleit ihr anzutragen?" With her replying "Bin weder Fräulein, weder schön, kann ohn' Geleit nach Hause gehn."

In fact, the militaristic, harsh way Hitler spoke German seems quite alien even to native speakers today. Maybe the military speaks that way sometimes (or myself, if I'm playing an Inquisitor chasing a sinful seducer, a two-handed sword drawn, shouting "FLEISCHESLUST!!!")


By the way, as for compound words without punctuation or spacing.... "Rheindampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenplakette" is widely known as the longest possible word in German... at least I heard this quite often lately. Well, in fact you could add some more words to the compound... "Rheindampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenplakettenflecke ntfernungsmitteltube" for example. But that wouldn't make much sense, though it would be possible grammatically.

Catharsis
2007-07-10, 07:05 PM
For me...

...Elven is Quenya. Maybe Italian spoken at a normal speed (something unheard of in Italy) would work too.
...Sylvan is Sindarin.
...Dwarven is Scottish English as spoken among Scots (not the English they speak to tourists!).
...Orc is a mixture of Klingon and French.
...Abyssal is Arabic. I boggle at the thought of assigning that to Elven. All the choking and gargling sounds...
...Infernal? Hmmm... difficult. Maybe Latin spoken in a basso profundo, with verrry rrrolling R's. :)
...Celestial: Something like an extreme form of Quenya, even smoother. I guess ancient Greek would work too, being so melodious and all.
...Gnome is German. Tinkerers. German is too mellifluous for Dwarven or Orcish, as anyone who actually knows German can tell. Of course, this doesn't work if we're playing in German, in which case Common calls dibs on that. Also, if you view Gnomes as jesters and bards rather than tinkerers, use Fiddledy-Fuddledy-Flanders-style English (shudder).
...Halfling? Quaint English fits the Tolkien hobbits well, but the D&D ones are more gypsy-like, so Roma works here.
...Mulhorandi is Ancient Egyptian with a bit of Arabic.
...Druidic is Gaelic. Perfect fit. Druids are quite Celtic in flavor, and the language is weird enough to remain secret. :smallwink:

ObsidianRose
2007-07-10, 11:08 PM
Dead on with the Elven = Arabic. But the way I see it,

Orcish = One of the Scandinavian languages with interspersed clicks and grunts
Dwarven = Bavarian German
Gnomish = Cantonese (seriously, watch one of those subbed Hong Kong action films and listen to them speak. Everything is a little bouncy song, with silly noises at the end of the sentence to indicate tone since the words themselves don't allow free rein in accenting)
Halfling = Spanish
Goblin = Swahili (am I the only one who plays his goblins like this?)
Drow = Russian
Abyssal = Greek
Draconic = Hindi
Infernal = Afrikaans
Sylvan = Gaelic

Maybe it's just a product of the culture I'm in, but doesn't a female Halfling seem like someone with a Puerto Rican accent with a tank top on to you guys?

Martichoras
2007-07-11, 09:53 AM
"Rheindampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenplakette"
In Norwegian that would be "Rhindampskipsfartskapteinslueplakett".

Notoriously long Norwegian words in actual use would seem to be "minoritetsladningsbęrerdiffusjonskoeffisientmåling sapparatur"
(60 letters), "fylkestrafikksikkerhetsutvalgssekretariatslederfun ksjonene" (58) is another contender... There aren't any spaces in these words, that is an artifact of the board software...

Matthew
2007-07-11, 08:04 PM
Thank you! Personally, I believe Hitler totally screwed up the image of the German language in the world. (Yes, I know... discussion growing longer, Hitler is mentioned...) Whatever.

I absolutely cannot picture a male Orc meeting a female Orc, saying "Mein schönes Fräulein, darf ich wagen, meinen Arm und Geleit ihr anzutragen?" With her replying "Bin weder Fräulein, weder schön, kann ohn' Geleit nach Hause gehn."

In fact, the militaristic, harsh way Hitler spoke German seems quite alien even to native speakers today. Maybe the military speaks that way sometimes (or myself, if I'm playing an Inquisitor chasing a sinful seducer, a two-handed sword drawn, shouting "FLEISCHESLUST!!!")

Yeah, this is definitely a style of speaking, rather than a product of the language. Japanese is the same. It can sound quite harsh when spoken by somebody harsh or quite soft when spoken by somebody who is softly spoken. The same is true of English.