Rengrei

Rengrei is a native Kepian language. It is the traditional language of the Bartel and Nuria people, both of whom live in southeastern Kepia in the Low Greens and Mason's Heart. Although no longer spoken by any civilization, it is still alive, and is used primarily in spellcasting.

## History

Decline of the language began primarily after the fall of the Bartel-Nuria Alliance to Daegoria. Along with the oppression natural to being conquered, institutions created by the Daegorian government with the intention of incorporating the native populations into mainstream society further increased the rate at which the language declined.

### Current Status

The efforts made to revive the Rengrei language are notably lauded as one of the most successful language revival attempts in Kepia. As of modern day, there are six established schools in the state of Bolto-Noro, each of them having been founded by Hugo Imarik. Despite academic predictions that the language would be extinct within the next decade, Hugo's work prior to his death helped revitalize the language amongst the magical community, who continue to use it in Rengrei Style Casting. In particular, Hugo is noted to have made vocal recordings of himself speaking the language, and gave them to The Shard. As a result, Rengrei Style Casting has been gradually gaining traction with magicians outside of the Bolto-Noro capital of Crescent City.

Magicians residing in Crescent City under the leadership of Fulvia Edwards have also collaborated to create a dictionary for Rengrei words. To this day, the dictionary is hailed as a national model used by other Kepian scholars for other lost languages. In addition to having multiple printed copies all across Kepia, there is also a lexicon of recordings for pronunciation available in Crescent City's libraries, along with a literary collection currently being constructed that includes texts that can act as context for various words and phrases.

Although the number of fully fluent Rengrei speakers is around 100, the actual number who know the language to any extent is easily triple that amount.

## Language Features

The most well known unique feature of Rengrei is that its nouns will change depending on the plurality. This is not just conjugation, as there is not a rule for how nouns change. Rather, Rengrei simply has significantly more words to describe not just an object, but how many of an object there are. This convention typically goes up to three of something, and anything after that is just referred to as many. Any given noun therefore generally has four variants. Rengrei speakers therefore have trouble conveying exact numbers. Saying *I have six coins* could be done by using the triple version of the noun coins twice, but there is no easy way to say something like *I have 107* coins.

In contrast to the increased complexity in nouns, the syntax and grammar of Rengrei is much simpler. Tenses don't exist, and are inferred through context clues. Sentence structure is also very simple, with words often being used without connecting grammatical tools. The phrase *I am going to build a fire* would translate to *me fire*, where context clues would determine if the sentence means *I'm going to build a fire*, *I am on fire*, *I am fire*, or any other possible interpretation.

For more info on how this is used in spells, see Rengrei Style Casting.