Drow Sign Language

Drow Sign Language, also known as Drow silent tongue, the silent tongue, or simply the "tongue", and referred to as the silent language, hand code, hand cant, or silent code, was a sign language used by drow to communicate in silence and secrecy.
==Description==
In Drow Sign Language, a word's meaning was conveyed by the pattern formed by the hands and fingers, while tenses of words and the links of subject to object in a sentence were expressed by the exact angle of the hands from the body. Meanwhile, emotion and emphasis were applied using stance, body language, and facial expressions. For example, the particular way that Kimmuriel Oblodra waggled his thumb at the end of one sentence indicated his deep contempt for humans and Drizzt Do'Urden folding his arms across his chest was a show of peace. Mez'Barris Armgo indicated a question by popping up her left thumb at the end of a statement. There was of course no vocal component. It was a complete and comprehensive language like any other, with a full vocabulary.
It could be hard for anyone other than the intended receiver of a signed message to interpret and nigh-impossible to decipher for anyone not fluent. While spoken languages usually had more variation or range of expression, Drow Sign Language was nevertheless able to deliver an amazing amount of complex information in a comparatively short amount of time. Elements of Drow Sign Language could even be delivered via normal body language and typical movements, enabling those who'd learned how to pass secret messages to others without being noticed. Provided two persons were in line of sight, it was fully comprehensible up to , where users could apply all facial expressions and body language to be clearly understood. Without these elements to apply subtleties and emotion, it could be communicated as far as , which was the typical limit of a drow's darkvision. Both longer distances and the short winding tunnels of the Underdark naturally impeded communication, however.
There was no known alphabet or written form associated with Drow Sign Language on Toril. On other worlds, however, there was a simple pictographic script comprising lines and dots that approximated the positions of fingers and hands, with emphasis marks for other gestures. It was necessarily less comprehensive and conveyed less information than Drow Sign Language itself, but was enough to communicate essential information. It was used to create directions for drow soldiers following a path and warning signs about hazards ahead, and so on. These easily went unnoticed or were dismissed as artistic designs by anyone not familiar with them. Drow adept in spellcraft could make their innate dancing lights move and blink in this script to create signals and so communicate over much further distances than their darkvision or tunnels permitted. Officers used this to send commands and signals in the chaos of battle. Moreover, some specialized gestures of the hand code were employed in spoken High Drow; these were called "the secret signs" by those drow not versed in either language.
Humans and other races often confused the language's motions as spellcasting. Indeed, a lot of the movements were very similar to the basics of arcane somatic components, enough that an arcane spellcaster fluent in Drow Sign Language was more skilled at identifying the somatic spellcasting of others and at concealing their own. Of course, Drow Sign Language could not be substituted for all or part of a spell's verbal components.
Signing drow sometimes disguised their signing with what was called a "visual code of silence": holding up part of one's cloak with one hand in order to shield the signing hand.
==Users==
Drow Sign Language was commonly known by drow who had the time or interest in learning it, most often warriors. It took some months of dedicated tutoring and practice to learn the hand code with all its nuances and combinations.
Driders, owing to their physical transformation, could not master communicating in the silent tongue, losing approximately 60% of the movements needed. However, they could still understand it and some driders developed new signals for use among themselves.
While only drow could be fully fluent in the silent tongue, owing to their long delicate fingers enabling them to create a great many signs, they would instruct other Underdark races in its basic signs and symbols. This led to a sign-language tradespeech being in common use in the Underdark.
==History==
Originating as a system of swift hand signals and commands utilized by drow military units operating stealthily in enemy territory, it evolved to become a complete and complex language in its own right. At some early point, it incorporated or mimicked the hand motions of arcane spellcasting; it's unknown whether this was deliberate or just a consequence of the many drow users of arcane magic simply being most familiar with these movements.
When Drizzt Do'Urden encountered the Thistledown family in the , and Connor Thistledown challenged him in a language he did not know, Drizzt tried to respond in the drow silent code. But Eleni Thistledown feared he was casting a spell and Connor attacked; though Drizzt disarmed him, it did not settle things.
In Ravens Bluff around 1370 DR, the renegade drow Valandrin Telenna, nicknamed "Dusk", began teaching the Drow silent tongue to Tira, a deaf-mute orphan girl at the Hand of Mercy Children's Hospital and Orphanage. He did this to repay Rook, a paladin of Ilmater who'd saved his life. While Tira had learned simple signs to express basic needs, she'd had no way to communicate more complex information until Dusk began his tutoring.
"Rongquan Mystere" and the sailors of the ships Eyecatcher, Heartbreaker, and Hellraiser in Waterdeep in the , were potentially given away as disguised drow by their use of unfamiliar hand signals. They were in fact members of Bregan D'aerthe using Drow Sign Language.
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Category:Sign languages
Category:Languages
Category:Elven languages
Category:Drow languages