Language Inspiration in Akadimía | World Anvil

Language Inspiration

Narrator Dialog

The authors of Akadimía have written the setting and stories within in English for English speaking audiences. As an Australian American, I speak several different English dialects (poorly) and often interchangeably and sometimes in the same sentence. I've endeavored to use American English spellings and grammar.  

Fictional Languages

Because we assume that the readers of the setting are, in fact, natives of Earth, I've used several ancient and modern languages as a source of names, phrases, or places.   I am not a linguist, historian, or anthropologist. As a result, I've likely misused several terms or mangled word forms — my apologies in advance to native speakers of these languages.   If you are a native speaker of the language and come across painful misuses, please reach out to me directly. I'll gladly be educated and correct it to make reading easier for future native language speakers.  

Zaúdhán, the Native Language

No planet would have a single common language. However, for simplicity, I assume that the region of focus and the civilizations in that region all use a common language, Zaúdhán.   This language is a constructed language (or conlang). I've included the dictionary and grammar in the article describing the language. This conlang is a very early work in progress and may be updated or replaced in future iterations of the setting.  

Drákonic, a Greek variant

Greek is the primary inspiration for the language spoken in the Dragonshome Islands. I do not intend to be rigorous, historically accurate, or syntactically accurate. Instead, the primary motivation for using Greek in this setting was to provide the starting point of Akadimía with a "flavor" or "feel" of a late classical period Greek civilization.   The island chain is the home of many Dragons and the Dragon Scions. These races fought side by side in the Great War or have lived side by side after coming to Zihæt. Akadimía speculates that the Attic dialect of Greek, and the script that evolved from Linear-B, were taught to the natives by Dragons during the Great War.  

The Elder Tongue

The ancient Giants, Goliath tribes, and the Norjord and Rus peoples speak the Elder Tongue. Old Norse and North Germanic languages inspire much of the language and naming. Once again, I do not intend to be rigorous, historically accurate, or syntactically accurate.  

The language of the Persopoulus Tribe

The Persopoulos Tribe members' language is assumed to have been a polyglot combination of Akkadian, Aramaic, Hittite, and Kassite. Akkadian is likely the common trade language. As the setting has not elaborated on this group, their current language's final form remains unknown.  

The language of the Voulgaropoulos Tribe

The language of the initial Voulgaropoulos Tribe members is assumed to have been Thracian, a Baltic-Slavic family. As it has in our world, this language has died out, replaced by the Human tongue.  

Human, The Language of Humanité

The primary inspiration for the Holy Empire of Humanité, including its location and language, was the Frankish Carolingian Empire. As a result, the Human of the Holy Empire of Humanité is based loosely on French.   Akadimía models the Primordial on Classical Latin. Primordial's many dialects provide the root of the Human language, much as Vulgar Latin is the origin of the Romance languages.

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