Primordial
Primordial is the ancient language of elemental beings from the planes of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Within Divimeer, it is categorized into 4 different dialects/languages: Ignan, Aquan, Terran, and Auran respectively. Whether any one of these 4 is considered a dialect or a language depends on who is using it.
For elemental creatures, the beings that originated Primordial, the differences between these 4 are closer to those of dialects. Between a fire elemental and air elemental for example, they may use inherently the same words, but their different core elements cause them to have different vocalizations of the language. From here, these differences were then magnified as non-element-based creatures began to vocalize each dialect in their own way, create new words and expressions, and add their own various other linguistic quirks. In this way for example, a merperson that knows Aquan could converse and understand the Aquan of a water elemental using basic words and phrases the elemental would be familiar with. The same merperson could then converse with an earth elemental that speaks Terran in the same way. However, a merperson speaking Aquan and a deep gnome speaking Terran would have to converse at a similarly base level as they would with the elementals. Anything more complex would start to use aspects of each language that developed later on and diverged from one another.
Due to elementals having a generally low intelligence and no desire for record keeping, it is rare to find an instance of written Primordial. Though the scripts of Aquan, Ignan, Auran, and Terran would suggest that they are derived from the same source, only a select few have ever had the chance to read it. For those that have, it is very intuitive and they are able to use their knowledge of one of the other 4 scripts to understand the nature of a text.
Spoken Primordial
For elemental creatures, the beings that originated Primordial, the differences between these 4 are closer to those of dialects. Between a fire elemental and air elemental for example, they may use inherently the same words, but their different core elements cause them to have different vocalizations of the language. From here, these differences were then magnified as non-element-based creatures began to vocalize each dialect in their own way, create new words and expressions, and add their own various other linguistic quirks. In this way for example, a merperson that knows Aquan could converse and understand the Aquan of a water elemental using basic words and phrases the elemental would be familiar with. The same merperson could then converse with an earth elemental that speaks Terran in the same way. However, a merperson speaking Aquan and a deep gnome speaking Terran would have to converse at a similarly base level as they would with the elementals. Anything more complex would start to use aspects of each language that developed later on and diverged from one another.
Written Primordial
Due to elementals having a generally low intelligence and no desire for record keeping, it is rare to find an instance of written Primordial. Though the scripts of Aquan, Ignan, Auran, and Terran would suggest that they are derived from the same source, only a select few have ever had the chance to read it. For those that have, it is very intuitive and they are able to use their knowledge of one of the other 4 scripts to understand the nature of a text.
Note
To make future articles clearer, the language as it originates from element-based creatures, including all dialects, will be called Primordial. If a specific dialect of this base is referred to, it will be written as Primordial followed the dialect of which it is (e.g. Primordial-Aquan). When referring to the more modern version of the language, used mainly by non-element-based creatures, the language will simply be referred to without the Primordial prepended (e.g. Aquan).Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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