Re: Common Tongues -- was Re: Quick Intro

John Dollan wrote:
>And, at least for me, the term +ACI-common+ACI- is pretty much a
>convenience term,
>much as is calling the Aewylin +ACI-elves+ACI-, or the e'Grat+AOs-n
>+ACI-goblins+ACI-, and I
>doubt it will ever make it into the story.  I'm working on the history of
>my
>setting right now, and the first human nation was that of +ANs-riad, and I
>suppose they spoke a language called something like +ANs-riite, or
>something.
>Now, if it turns out that this language, or rather its descendant is the
>one
>that survived after a fashion to become the common language for all Human
>races, then instead of being called the Common Tongue, it might be named
>after some variant of +ANs-riite.  Perhaps Eurian, or Eurish, or something.
>  It
>is too early to tell.  In fact, I can't even guarantee that there WILL be a
>common tongue, unless it would be similar to Latin in function, in which
>case only the more learned of the various populations might understand it.
>
>What do you folks think?  Is a +ACI-common tongue+ACI- even a logical
>possibility?
>A natural outgrowth when you have four (possibly five, if I decide to
>develop the Trollish races) separate species that are commonly interacting?
As Joseph pointed out, there's been at least one language known as "common"
in real world history (namely Koine Greek, where "koine" is Koine for
"common"). Lingua francas, that is languages used as a common vehicle of
communication between speakers of several different languages, have arose
many times in history. In large bits of the world today, English functions
as a "common" language. So, assuming that your races are reasonably
humanoid, there's every possibility of a "common tongue" being used among
them, altho' the odds are that it won't be called "Common". It would
probably be the racial/national language of a group that is culturally
dominant in the area, or has recently been so.


      Andreas

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