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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 2, 2016 13:02:14 GMT -5
Do you guys think there are any differences between Old Oeridian, High Oeridian, and Old High Oeridian? Or are they all just referring to the same language but in a different way?
On p. 16 of the Guide, Old Oeridian is referred to a few times, but the others only once each:
"Nyrondese: This is a High Oeridian dialect of Common which is spoken in some areas of Nyrond."
"Keolandish: This is a widespread dialect of Old High Oeridian with local admixtures."
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Post by Scott on Nov 2, 2016 13:24:29 GMT -5
Quick response: Slightly different dialects, but probably similar enough to be understood, Like British, Scottish, Irish dialects of English.
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Post by geneweigel on Nov 2, 2016 14:37:16 GMT -5
In Germany they dont speak what I learned in high school which is High German it is closer to Austrian. When I was in the German speaking part of Switzerland it didnt sound exactly like the people that I was speaking to in Berlin
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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 2, 2016 15:02:35 GMT -5
That's what I was thinking as well, but I was trying to make sense of it all in the context of the given languages and dialects. So, as the Oeridians migrated in the Flanaess, west to east:
Keoland: settled first by Oeridians who spoke Old High Oeridian. Nyrond: settled later as Oeridians continued to move east, and Nyrondese is a dialect of (not as old) High Oeridian.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 12, 2023 10:00:14 GMT -5
I was thinking about the emergence of Common in the Flanaess, and how that came about.
"Common: A combination of Ancient Baklunish and the dialect of Old Oeridian spoken in the Great Kingdom forms the basis of this new, widely used tongue" (Guide p. 16).
Did anyone ever talk to EGG about this? What seems plausible to me is that when the Great Kingdom became was waxing in power it began long term trade with the Baklunish states in the far west and started to adopt words and perhaps the alphabet from them. As the Great Kingdom conquered much of the Flanaess it spread both the Common language and CY calendar and they became the norm. Another possibility is that the Aerdi tribal language adopted some Baklunish before migrating east into the Flanaess c. 1000 years ago, and it evolved for several centuries into what became known as Common when they spread it through conquest. I think part of the unofficial history (per the THE LOST CITY OF GAXMOOR) is that there was an Oeridian Empire south of the Ancient Bakluni Empire prior to the Invoked Devastation, and if it was Aerdian the proximity could explain influence of Baklunish on their tribal language.
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Post by Scott on Sept 12, 2023 13:30:11 GMT -5
The Oerdin Empire was Ernie's creation when he originally ran Gaxmoor, as a play by mail campaign for an inmate pen pal. So not sure how official you want to make it. In my campaign the Oeridians were more like Germanic tribes, the Franks, Saxons, etc. and never really reached that level of cohesion, or were never able to maintain it for very long. Just looking at the migration map, the roots of Common don't really make sense. I'm not sure where the lands of the ancient Baklunish were. The kingdoms in the northwest may be newer states. The line: "The Oerid migrations were similar in cause to those of the Suel, in that the Baklunish-Suloise Wars, and the hordes of Euroz and associated humanoid groups used as mercenaries by both sides, tended to pillage northward and eastward, driving the Oerids before them." makes me think the Baklunish kingdom may have been further south than where I normally think of, and the migration map is just where they enter the picture, and not where they start off map. What maes sense is that some of the Baklunish migrated east through the Oeridian lands. The Oeridian lands were already in chaos from the wars and marauding humanoids/mercenaries. The Oeridians joined those Baklunish groups passing through their lands and those combined bands continued east.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 13, 2023 8:23:03 GMT -5
When I was chattering with Gary (Gygax) for a long time, Gary spoke a sing song German from, according to him, being around people speaking it when he was younger. So to me he was saying these odd phrases in a weird dialect that was not registering in the German language receiving part of my brain. That, I believe, was his core line of thinking on language, e.g., that tradition can inhibit your usage of it and create confusions.
That said the entirety of Greyhawk's languages were devised by Len Lakofka in detail in LEOMUND'S TINY HUT "Adding Depth To The Flanaess" in DRAGON #52 (AUG 1981). There is an intro about Gary's fondness for Len and how he has been D&D from the beginning and Gary touched up some of Len's work on language (and place of origin) and then Gary added his brief appendix of what humans look like in World of Greyhawk.
Here is Len's take on languages with slight touch up by Gary (This is condensed in the 1983 boxed set):
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 13, 2023 10:58:37 GMT -5
Thanks, Gene. There's the Lakofka fiddliness we all know and love! One thing that jumps out at me is how in this article Common is described a bit differently as "A mixture of Suloise and Oeridian tongues with some Baklunish admixture." That makes a lot more sense to as the Oeridians and the Suloise were the most numerous immigrants into the Flanaess and therefore with the greatest likelihood of influencing each other's languages, with Baklunish being an influence mostly relegated to the western regions. These charts also show where Len thought Baklunish had the most influence, predominately in the western side of the Flanaess, and notably isn't represented in the Great Kingdom chart.
I can't help but notice the similarity between the naming convention for Old High Oeridian and Old High German. This is what the Google generative AI came up with:
Here's what it came up with Middle High German:
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 13, 2023 11:39:52 GMT -5
For clarity. Here is the bit from the WORLD OF GREYHAWK FOLIO (1980) by Gary (with Allen Hammack; I verified with Allen & Gary that he worked in tandem with Gary) on languages prior to the Lakofka article:
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