From what I gathered, the Neran language will be the default language in Elyria. Tribes may speak their own language among themselves, but when they speak to another tribe member, they will use Neran.

Posted By Raiborn at 09:52 AM - Mon Oct 28 2019

From what I gathered, the Neran language will be the default language in Elyria. Tribes may speak their own language among themselves, but when they speak to another tribe member, they will use Neran.

I don't think that is right. There is a "translator" profession in game that would be completely useless otherwise. "Neran" is not like "Common."

Rather, I think (hope) that there will be some language algorithm to determine whether an NPC can speak a language -- probably based on tribe and tribal makeup of their community. Maybe having each NPC having a chance to speak another tribe's language equal to the percentage of that other tribe in the county, with the default being either the majority language of the county of the tribal language of the NPCs tribe.

I also think that the kingdoms can work out language protocols -- such that all diplomacy is conducted in Croçais or somesuch.

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/25807/design-journal-communication#post282165

Neran - The language that is historically spoken by the Neran and has, through their prolific trading, become the language-of-choice for business and mercantilism beyond the borders of predominantly Neran settlements. This language's alphabet and phonology is effectively identical to English.

I believe certain tribes such as Janoan are fairly isolated and have not bothered to learn Neran. In those cases you will need a translator.

Some countries through history had two languages for different purposes - religion, goverment or scientific language and common language,

I bet most of alchemist and physician books, scientitif works and schools will be on Lazu (as parralel to Latin - long time language of medicine), and probably there will be many cases where Court language is not same as common folk language - kept for literate nobility for their agreements, their court culture etc.

There may actually not be any plan to homogenize kingdoms to the degree players would like.

Neran is supposed to be the "common" language, yes. From the communication DJ by Vye (which Raiborn linked above, but just reposting for consistency):

"Neran - The language that is historically spoken by the Neran and has, through their prolific trading, become the language-of-choice for business and mercantilism beyond the borders of predominantly Neran settlements. This language's alphabet and phonology is effectively identical to English." (emphasis mine)

Now, that doesn't rule out some backwoods people who only speak their local tribal language. But for the example given of what the nobility will use to conduct business across the Kingdom, Neran fits the bill just fine.

Source: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/blog/25807/Design-Journal-Communication

Switzerland has 4 official spoken+written languages within their tiny country, as well as (an officially) spoken-only Swiss German--with dialects that vary from county to county.

Depending on your education level & location, you may learn several of those official languages, a local Swiss German dialect, and English (the "Neran" of Earth). Nearly everyone who's well-educated speaks English at 50+% fluency. Or if you live in the boonies, you may only really learn your local dialect (which everyone in your county speaks fluently).

Speaking to "foreigners" in CoE will be fun.

If you are asking whether you will be able to start with those languages if you gear your character toward being learned and diplomatic, then yes. If you are asking whether you will start with them whether you put any effort into learning them or having the attributes necessary to learn them easily, then of course not. Much as a purely learned and diplomatic duke may not have the combat skills that most would expect out of a duke.

Neran is something of a lingua franca among the learned and mercantile, though i think few Janoans have bothered to learn it. And I would expect your average non-Neran laborer to necessarily know it.

I'm interested to see how widespread literacy is.

Posted By Raiborn at 5:52 PM - Mon Oct 28 2019

From what I gathered, the Neran language will be the default language in Elyria. Tribes may speak their own language among themselves, but when they speak to another tribe member, they will use Neran.

Neran, Croçais and Pyqsi are the three most common languages used, this can be proven by the fact that they once sold an item including a travelers guide, which contained simple phrases in those three languages. So it's likely that almost everyone knows at least one of these languages.

Neran is definitely not the only "common" language.

Proximity also breeds cross pollination.

The languages of the dominant tribes of the various areas will tend to overlap a little with the three mentioned above as the most likely to do so.

So most likely in the Far North (or Far South as the case may be) the language will probably be more specific. And as you reach the middle areas the Neran and T'oresk languages will form linguistic bridges that unite those ends to the middle.

For example, a Brudvir and a Janoan probably aren't going to know each others languages without a lot of study, but would be more likely to know Neran and T'oreskian respectfully without a lot of trouble as they intermingle with those tribes quite frequently.

So if they did need to talk to each other they would need to drop into the "second tongue" to do so and hope that the other one could also reach that same "channel".

If not you would essentially need to make a "language chain" that connects from one to another with multiple intermediaries forming a version of the old "telephone game."

That makes a single person (the translator profession) who can connect "multiple lines with just one connection" a most valuable commodity.

And no self-respecting noble (or trader) who seeks to rule (or do business) outside their own sphere of influence would probably need one that they can truly trust and rely upon on some type of retainer.

Honestly the starting kingdoms are too big and too diverse. There should be twice as many kingdoms, one per biome, and the populations should only bleed together on the borders. Everything else should be left for the players to sort out.

Although, in my opinion, the kingdoms shouldn't even exist. There shouldn't be anything above the Duchy level and they should just call themselves the kings and princes and "duke" it out with each other for supremacy, but I'm hard core like that.

Although, I admit that what I'm saying is tangential to the OP I will say that there's really two options as I see it. Either the kingdoms will split apart or they will become headed by a monolithic central tribe and culture that dominates every other tribe and culture in the order. Those are the most likely outcomes I see, and total balkanization I consider to be a lot more likely especially considering the language barrier on top of more natural barriers like tribe and religion.

Posted By Barleyman at 04:17 AM - Wed Oct 30 2019

Honestly the starting kingdoms are too big and too diverse. There should be twice as many kingdoms, one per biome, and the populations should only bleed together on the borders. Everything else should be left for the players to sort out.

While I think the kingdom sizes are only slightly large (I think half to three-quarters the size would be better) I do agree the diversity is very high.

Part of the reason for the diversity is that players insisted on it (large number wanted to play Neran combined with SbS wanting to put their own races in) meaning the original plan of mostly homogeneous kingdoms of varying sizes as espoused early in the design process was abandoned in favour of letting people know what they would get and having a fixed number of nobles.

Some of the issue with the tribal language is that if the kingdoms were generally homogeneous it would make sense for them to develop a language of their own (or for a group of neighbouring inter-related kingdoms to develop a common language for religious or political reasons). Since we have diverse kingdoms the question of language becomes more complex.

Depending on how long our kingdoms have been around either there'd be a common tongue (it took about 400 years for the Normans to start using English as an official language) or there would be a court language (Norman French or Mandarin) it seems strange that this evolution wouldn't happen in Elyria. Using my example from the OP Lazu would be the court language that nobility and government officials would speak in addition to their tribal tongue while after another hundred years or so Al'Khezamish would be a native tongue using some Lazu descended words for governance and medicine, Crocais descended words for trade, art and seafaring, and Neran descended words for farming and warfighting etc, etc.

I'm just hoping SbS has realised that nobles within the same kingdom do actually have to be able to talk to each other ingame as well as via third-party programs and logically would have thought about these problems years before players got into the game.

@Chipla

Yes, well, it does look like it's still years from when players will get into the game so I think they have time.

However, and this isn't intended to bash SBS, there are so many things that have been altered so drastically from their original conception that I really don't see how they can maintain an artistically consistent vision. It isn't at all unlikely, although I'm not saying it will happen just that I wouldn't be surprised, that the devs will perforate the language barrier down to being more of a speed bump than a roadblock. I don't know what those mechanics would look like, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did something like this.

They said we'd never have cannibalism, they strongly gave the impression that the biomes would be relatively homogeneous, they told us there would be forests in the alpine biome, but as we can see none of those things panned out. I am sure there are other things that I don't know about or can't remember as well. We'll see if their vision of languages can hold in the midst of practical difficulties. Honestly, if they did nothing and forced the players and nobles to sort it out that might not be an entirely terrible solution.