Languages & Idioms

##### <Center> Common

<Center>A centralized language popularized by humans spreading across the plane, but accepted readily by most civilisations. Phonetically akin to English, the only main notable features that set it apart from it's real-life counterpart is the mish-mash of idioms and sayings from other languages.

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##### <Center> Dwarvish

<Center>A thickly-accented language of hard consonants and an expansive vocabulary. Dwarvish sounds harsh and utilitarian, with a variety of nouns and verbs built to precisely describe a variety of situations. Dwarvish words tend to build upon one another; if "ae" is gold and "tharn" is love, then love of gold is "aetharn." Similarly, if "arau" is large and "glor" is lake, then the ocean is "arauglor." The Dwarvish script is derived from Giant runes discovered deep underground; as such, Dwarvish runes and speech retain some measure of magical power.

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##### <Center> Elvish

<Center>An elegant, flowing language with an almost musical quality, Elvish is derived from ancient Sylvan, with unique dialects for every pocket of elves across the planes. Elvish sounds like poetry and looks like calligraphy, and complex thoughts and feelings can often be expressed with a few simple, well-chosen phrases. While specific and accurate, the language itself is a florid poem.

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##### <Center> Gnomish

<Center>An odd, somewhat stilted language that sounds silly to many non-native races. In reality, Gnomish is a distant descendent of Sylvan and Giant, with a sing-songy tone and a high degree of precision. As opposed to Dwarvish, which combined existing words to represent new concepts, Gnomish boasts an enormous vocabulary of unique words for a variety of specific situations, forcing any non-native to learn an immense number of vocabulary words that differ by region.

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##### <Center> Dragonborn

<Center>The Draconic language is a harsh, sibilant language primarily spoken by dragons, Dragonborn, and other reptile-adjacent creatures. Though unable to be spoken by most humanoids, the Draconic script has been used for centuries as the official language of arcane notation and spellcraft, often taught in wizarding schools but rarely used as a verbal language - much like Latin in the real world.

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##### <Center> Orc

<Center>A derivative of Giant, Orc is a harsh, rough-sounding language specific to the orcish tribes. Many confuse the language with Goblin, and the two languages do indeed share some overlap in their history. As orcs tend to hold a fierce oral tradition, there is very little in the way of orcish texts; however, some native scholars have found workarounds to preserve stories, discoveries, and laws. They use either a scratchy cuneiform-like text or the Dwarvish alphabet to represent their sounds, though the translation loses a significant amount of meaning without vocal cues and inflection.

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##### <Center> Halfling

<Center>This soft, calm language is deceptively simple. In fact, the Halfling language might have a dozen words for simple concepts--such as varieties of cheeses, wines, and colors--but very little complexity in realms such as art and war. Most halflings speak Common just as well as their native tongue, so Halfling is reserved for communal gatherings, sharing stories around a fire, and enjoying the simple things in life. It's easy to pick up the words and cadence, but it's difficult to learn the casual attitude that marks a true Halfling speaker.

|Idiom|Meaning
|:---:|:---:|
|As the hawk flies|In a straight direction, ignoring terrain
Having turnips in your ears|Deaf or dumb
Knee high to a ram|Small or young
Fewer years than feathers|Having confidence in spite of inexperience, due to youth
Locking horns with a ram|Stubbornly sticking to an idea or path
Picking flowers in the briar patch|Seeing good in a bad situation or wasting time
Pitching a tent in the rain|Doing something too late or in inappropriate conditions
Living with one’s lips between the ‘skin and the pipe|Living a life of hedonistic luxury
Not a foot too big to rest by our fire!|Hospitality to other races
Footpatch|Hair on top of the feet, annoying
Getting briars/fleas in one’s footpatches|Getting anxious, restless or having wanderlust
Down to the fescue|Running low on resources (fescue is a grass that makes grazing animals sick)
Goblin in a goatskin|Being dishonest about your intentions
One sausage short of a farrow|Not having enough of something, usually because if wastefulness or impulsiveness
Making/sleeping in a grass bed|Getting kicked out of the family tent for shameful behavior
Trading skins|Moving to a new tribe because their totem matches your values better
Having skin that doesn’t fit|Not fitting in with the rest of the tribe, lacking core values

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##### <Center> Goblin

<Center>A stern, barking language that has roots in Old Draconic, which was seen as the language of Authority in ages past. Goblin was built to convey orders and commands as quickly as possible. It is spoken most articulately by hobgoblins, who adhere to the careful grammar of Old Goblin no matter where they might be stationed. Bugbears and goblins are more likely to branch off and create dialects peculiar to their region, often drawing words from the native tongue to create mixed languages that more easily convey civilian concepts.

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##### <Center> Undercommon

<Center>Undercommon has faint roots in ancient Elvish, Dwarvish, and Deep Speech, as drow, duergar, and aberrant societies were influential in its early development. It bears no relationship to Common except for its initial purpose--to serve as a trade language between a variety of coexisting species in the Underdark. As it is mostly spoken in regions of near-total darkness, the resulting language is a strange mishmash with a heavy focus on volume, vibration, and resonance--carrying more information and intention in its delivery than languages spoken in the light, where non-verbal cues do much of the heavy lifting.

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##### <Center> Giant (Spoken)

<Center>Giant is one of the oldest languages in the world, full of deep, vibrating tones that most medium-sized humanoids find impossible to replicate. Though spoken by many large creatures such as trolls, ogres, and firbolgs, these versions of the language lack the inherent magical power of their ancient progenitor. When spoken by the massive lungs and vocal cords of true giants, the language takes on an inherently magical quality reminiscent of old Primordial.

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##### <Center> Giant (Script)

<Center>Derived from Primordial, the Giants perfected the art of runes to create the most powerful pictographic language of all. These runes were first utilized during the Empire of Ostoria to great effect, allowing the giants to subjugate every other mortal civilization. The war with the Ancient Dragons resulted in many of these runes being obliterated, the language nearly lost to time. Today, these runes survive in their Dwarvish descendants or in deep, well-hidden caves ruins that serve as time capsules of the ancient empire.

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##### <Center> Primordial

<Center>Arguably the first language ever to exist, Primordial is the language of the elements. Split into four dialects--Aquan, Ignan, Terran, Auran--Primordial is conveyed through sounds that mimic natural elemental noises. The bubbling of water, the roar of flame, a passing breeze--all of these sounds may convey basic concepts in a more fundamental way than other spoken languages. Non-elemental creatures who learn this language may find themselves poorly imitating natural noises in an attempt to roughly convey similar concepts.

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##### <Center> Abyssal

<Center>The language of eternal chaos is scarcely a language at all; a collection of ugly noises that altogether sounds like a discordant melody. Abyssal is the chaotic twin of Primordial; while the other eventually settled into four unique dialects, Abyssal remains a nonsensical mess. It has no sentence structure or familiar grammar, and its script can be written and read in any direction. Its sound is inherently unpleasant and unsettling, and the very act of speaking it can damage mortal throats.

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##### <Center> Celestial

<Center>The celestial language is harmony itself. Derived from the words of the gods, true Celestial often layers several harmonious messages on top of one another, making it nearly impossible to follow for all but the most trained ears. Non-natives or mortal creatures who speak Celestial can only convey one message at once, a pedestrian use of the language that many celestial creatures look down upon. To an untrained ear, even this spoken word is beautiful, full of round vowel sounds and a sing-song tone.

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##### <Center> Infernal

<Center>The language of devils was originally pure, unchanged Celestial, as Asmodeus and his followers were initially a divinely-sanctioned force dedicated to battling demons. As the devils began to take the form of their fiendish enemies--red skin, horns, and an evil outlook--their language began to incorporate the harsh, authoritarian nature of Abyssal, as well. An unholy mix of the two languages now prevails, providing those fluent in Infernal the ability to understand bits and pieces of both roots. Infernal combines harmony and discord to create a language that is painful to speak simply by existing.

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##### <Center> Sylvan

<Center>The language of the fey, and of nature itself. Sylvan is composed of too many sounds to count--everything from the flap of a butterfly's wing to the thunderous sound of a falling tree makes up the music of the world. Sylvan is painfully beautiful, the natural language of enchantment that is almost impossible to ignore. Those who hear Sylvan words experience sensations of nature and find themselves supernaturally drawn to listening to the speaker--with many beasts and plants almost powerless to avoid following the beautiful commands.

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##### <Center> Deep Speech

<Center>The language of aberrations is actually a catch-all of the sounds made by the various creatures that breached the Material Plane centuries ago. A collection of horrid, impossible noises and a deep-seated feeling of wrongness mark any Aberrant language as Deep Speech, which follows no known rules of grammar or phonetics. There is no single unified language or script; comprehending this language tends to require an aberrant mind or the ability to understand languages through magic. The very act of hearing Deep Speech and attempting to comprehend it may drive a weak mind to madness as they struggle to make sense of the aberrant words.

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