Old Common

Old Common is the early common human language, created in the first days of the Arathorian Empire to help unify the disparate tribes.
This is a placeholder article.
==Origins==
*Vrykul speech!
*Myriad human dialects.
==Old Common A==
The older form of the language, Old Common A contains minimal linguistic content from other sources. However, it is also a patchy reconstruction with many serious gaps. Believed to have been in use until around 150AD.
Old Common A was also used as a significant tool of social control, with many tribes forced to abandon their own languages in order to ensure the total adoption of the new lingua franca of the Empire. Remnant languages remain today in the form of a scattering of unusual phrases found throughout the Common language but bearing little, if any, relation to 'High' Common or the languages involved in its evolution.
==Old Common B==
In use from around 150AD (though the delineation point in language evolution is always murky), Old Common B incorporates significant influence from the Elven language due to continuing cross-cultural exchange and contact.
==Old Common C/'Middle Common'==
The third form of Old Common was in use from around 1100AD, and owes its existence to contact and trade with the Dwarven people of Khaz Modan. Later forms of 'Middle Common' blur heavily with the modern language.
==Rationales and Disclaimers==
While the existence of a changing language is attested to in the lore in various places, the bulk of this article is fanon. The reality of it is, we don't know very much about how the common tongue evolved, and only know a few words of it. For thematic purposes, I've chosen to use Old English, Old Norse, Old German and some forms of Old Slavonian to reinforce what is known, as we can see that Vrykul speech is essentially bastardized Old Norse and/or poorly translated modern Icelandic. Drawing thus from the same well for the earliest human speech seems appropriate.
The tripartite division of this language is a little too neat, but that's deliberate. In reality, language evolves piece by piece, slowly shifting over time (barring sudden shifts due to major foreign influences) and there tends to be a lot of overlap during the 'transitional' periods. That's going to be covered in the expanded article.
If anyone objects to the content of this article, I invite them to add a new subsection on their view or their guild's views, or to write a new page to do the same.
Category:Languages