Spoken/Performed By
Aesir & VanirParent Languages
Skaldic Norse, SeidrWritten Language
NoneA combination of spoken and visual language, Friggatongue is a magical form of communication meant to captivate and hold the attentions of the listeners/viewers. As far as the lauded today, of Midgard's 2017, Lady Frigg has taught Friggatongue only to her Mouthpiece and Shield Maidens.
After seeing its effect on myriad occasions and a multitude of different folk, I for one, sentient Book of Knowledge that I am, is glad of its limited fluency.
Not that I, limbless and non-ambulatory, am jealous of a language one must dance to achieve, but after seeing how enrapturing it is to my sapient fellows, how magically captivated they are, I worry for its manipulative effects.
The closer to the source of Magic a being is, the more Friggatongue holds captive the mind until the spell of speech is over.
"We'll renegotiate terms, of course.” Gna curled and uncurled her fingers as she spoke. Body in the constant motions of an undecipherable, slow dance. The sedate building of Gna's magic was lost on most of the crowd, yet Caleb snorted. She'd work the entire crowd in a whirl if he didn't see through.
Common Usage
Friggatongue is an experiential language magically inclined to reach the coils, hammer and anvils of sapient fleshbag's ears and flowerhead's petals in a pleasant and some would say unnerving fashion, while enrapturing the eyes. It digs into a person who can hear the magic of the Aesir. Pulls their attention and narrows focus.
Those without magic (read: Most Humans) view it as Skaldic babble during a strange dance.
One can see why a mother of boisterous, rambunctious Vikings created a language which settled her children enough to listen to their parents... Odin Borson never got the knack, but he threw his hip out early on against the Jotnar so the dance-pivots really are rather unfortunate instead of alluring.
What!?
... yes. It was obvious wasn't it?
Wasn't it obvious? With the alluring and dance pivots and... either we need to work on your reading comprehension, or I'm losing my verve.
Friggatongue is a language used when the intense focus and pliability of an audience is required. The current Mouthpiece of Frigg, Gna, is known to speak Friggatongue in all official capacities during The Mystic Truce Council Meets, albeit with a more restrained use of posture and hand & arm sigil-movements. It is enchanting, a pull of focus in the space until none who can experience magic are capable of ignoring.
In more intimate circumstances, those with Raynar Einridsen and others in heated conversations, Gna's movements become more bold. The rattle of her rattle-bone cape, the sweep of her limbs as she takes up a greater amount of space have been known to pull him in. Temper the tension briefly enough that he hear her out at all.
"And thus calls Anger, Fellow of wood scraps. Escaped Godling, What calls you to Gna?" A flourish and a bow, Gna, Goddess-Herald of Lady Frigg swept before Raynar and the human on his lap. Growing like a rose in the dawn, the smile warmed the charged particles of the air, until no death's sting nor distant relation's absent chill dimmed it.
"Life-giver, rage son, What calls you to Gna?" A frenzy lingered there, eyes too wide to be civil, grin too predatory for its' warmth to be anything but a trap.
"Oh holy Renn-Faire what is she doing?"
"Heraldic verse. Livia, Gna. Gna? Livia. My girlfriend."
"Livia... She who life sustains. Tempered thanks Moði" Gna's head twitched to the side, fingers twisted and bent in odd angles as flickers of colour stole across the mushrooms at her feet. Each sigil and sign of Gna's fingers brought another colour to the grove, another scent to the air. "Liv, whom life sustains. You brought her to us."
"Oh for the... hullo darling! Tis the year Twenty and Seventeen, Queen Elizabeth II is still mercifully on the throne, and I am not some-what? Good gracious. This unfortunately dressed rubbish heap is either insulting me or preparing me for a stay in office and I cannot fathom which. May I shoot her and be done with it?"
Syntax
Verbally Friggatongue is a spoken Scandinavian dialect, which magically connects to the brainstem or floral cognizance node for instantaneous translation to the language the sapient being understands best. Visually the sequence of gestures and postures denote subject, object, or tense within a sentence.
When speaking to a large crowd where more subtle magics are best plied, Friggatongue invokes finger and hand movements, commanding posture and welcoming circular motions made wide with the position of the arms. In more intimate settings, or where optimum personal attention is required, Friggatongue's mobile component takes on a flowing form of dance indicative of the emotion attached to the 'listener'. It becomes a personal and intimate language, a performance of care or love or hate or control.
Morphology
I assume one is familiar with the entirety of the Norse Sagas and extant... as Lilith Mischeva's eyes appear to be glazing over, I'll abbreviate my exegesis on Asgardian morphology:
The wealth of skaldic poetry and 'beat your shield' storytelling in Scandinavian traditions is alive and well in Asgard. Friggatongue fluent people are natural Skalds, storytellers who lilt and capture attention through the rhythm of their diction and use of alliteration. It is often a language which flows from the conventions of Skaldic Poetry.
Sentence Structure
Word order in Old Norse languages can be argued to hold an underlying SVO structure, despite the relative freedom of word order in various extant texts. From an Ásgard dialectic investigation, I can confirm the most common usage in spoken Asgardian Norse is, indeed, Subject - Verb - Object in correspondence with its Old Norse and more contemporary Icelandic, roots (Article: Freja Bang Lauridsen).
For the more kinetic components of Friggatongue, this culminates in poses indicating a pantomime of subject or noun, transitions as adjective and sigil-like finger or limb placement as verb.
Transitional movement indicates emphasis (or lack thereof), and adjective or adverb. The intensity of the motion and how quickly it is done is the best indication of tone, mood and sensation.
Consistency of motion and strength of the pose or repeated pattern is an indication to the verb.
Phonology
Guttural, elongated or aspirated sounds hold corresponding flow of movement in Friggatongue. Fast and abrupt signs or rhythms correlate to guttural sounds, where softer and more eased movements match elongated sounds.
Baby Shark!? Y-buh-I break down a mystical language combining movement and mouth sounds created by the Matron of the Aesir and you... you wonder if it... Caleb! She's at it again!
So this is how Ragnarok starts, a teenager's attempt at a dance party to learn the language of her Goddess ancestor. You know you're in for hours of repetitive teeny-bop techno music, don't you?
Ahhhh, this is great. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Chris! Glad you enjoy the pantomime