Oh, great, Cody is writing another article on languages. . . I apologize to those who might be tired of me taking this angle for analysis, but I generally find the topic fascinating. I myself am NOT a linguist, nor am I a polyglot (I speak English natively, as well as bad French and bits and pieces of other languages). However, the more I read about history, the more I enjoy looking at the languages spoken as it is a reflection of so much of culture and history. While the idea of language derives FROM culture and that you can determine the essence of that society by its words doesn’t entirely hold up, the migration of languages can show you population movements in history (from conquests to simple migrations) is well established. Additionally, some aspects of language, especially WRITTEN language, shows cultural values more than a spoken language does when developed by a society. As such, like the geography in which they developed, you can see how a society and culture developed quite well by looking at how they speak and write. To that end. . . Writing. It was this development in human history more than almost any other which has created the world we know today. With the development of the written word, no longer was humanity limited to the experiences of a single lifetime. No longer was the sum total of knowledge available to a person limited to what they could store (and remember) in their own brain. For the first time in human history, people could become immortal. Not literally immortal, in our modern sense of the word, I should point out, as outside of the necronomicon or a similar Nerothian text this isn’t possible. No, they became immortal in that even after a person is dead, those who came after would know their names, know their thoughts, and hear their words.
But you may say: Cody, with topics like Valinor and True Dragons and the Sorcerer-King, why would you think I’d be interested in things like “what would the Coryani use for paper?” Well, for that I can only assume that if you have read this far you would be. Like many of the more fluffy things in fantasy universes, we have a very mixed bag of information when it comes to the writing in this universe. As with usual, I will give a little bit of background on how writing worked in our world.
The earliest known types of proto-writing in our world date to around 6,000 BCE in China (for reference, this would correspond to the early ssethric empire of Yahssremore), though there are other similar symbols found scrawled on rock walls and inscribed in bones before that. The meaning of these earliest symbols is not known, but it is believed that they are little more than the first abstracted images for concrete ideas, like a simplified bird standing in for a bird. These systems ultimately evolved into similar systems for accounting purposes as societies began trading more and more stuff. For example, if you are storing thirty vases of olive oil in a room, you would seal the room with a clay tablet with an image of a tree on it with thirty lines next to it.
As inevitably happened, these symbols became more abstracted (usually because the person drawing them were less artistic or lazier), with something like a bull becoming a bull’s head, becoming a triangle until the library of symbols came to look like strange geometric shapes. It was (around) this point in development that someone then said “hey, if we combine the symbols, we can say words!” The way this works is that you would combine symbols for words which have the same sounds as syllables of other words. For example, in English you could theoretically write “selfish” with a symbol of a seashell, followed by a fish because “shellfish” sounds a lot like selfish. With this, true writing was born!
The story is, of course, more complicated than this, but it shows the current theory of how we (over some 3,000 years or more) as humans developed this oddly unnatural system. From here we can run the gamut of all sorts of different writings, from logograms to alphabetic systems. The system used in our world (at least when it was originally developed) speaks much of the values of the cultures at hand, with historically sedentary and hierarchical nations (such as Sumer, Egypt, and China) using extremely complicated logographic systems of thousands of glyphs/symbols/etc, while more mobile and trading-oriented groups (such as the Phonetians, Greeks, and Arameans) developing alphabetic scripts which are simpler but more abstract.
What does this have to do with Arcanis? Well, we have a few interesting tidbits of information about what the various nations of Arcanis use as writing systems. For example, it is fairly widely understood that Low Coryani (as well as most human languages) use an alphabetic script, be it a true alphabet like the Latin or Greek alphabet with vowels and consonants, or what is called an abjad which only contains consonants and the vowels are left to the reader to add like Hebrew or Arabic. As a side note, it could also be what is called an abujida which is kind of an in-between of these, with each ‘letter’ supplying both a vowel and consonant sound (such as in Canadian First Nation syllabics). While not expressly stated, there have been many puzzles and statements made in the history of the campaign specifying ‘letters’ (ex. “shaped like the letter C”), so it is a safe bet to assume that Low Coryani is a true alphabetic script. This also makes sense as alphabetic scripts tend to be the most versatile lettering systems in the world (as seen by the extensive use of the Latin alphabet in our world), and Low Coryani is the lingua franca of much of the world (even into the “Far Western Lands”) which means they’d need an easy to learn, easy to use, and versatile lettering system.
By extension, the nations and languages of Milandir and Canceri also use this same alphabet, which is stated as being the “Coryani Alphabet” on page 155 of the A:RPG, suggesting that these other nations 1) accepted the use of this alphabet, likely during their tenure as part of the Coryani Empire, and 2) that this alphabet was designed for High Coryani originally. This may not be entirely true, considering the history we have of Coryan the City before the Empire suggested they were not a particularly mercantile or intellectual power, which means that this script may have originated somewhere else in the Known Lands, but was adopted by the city of Coryan who then spread it throughout the world. In our world, this would be similar to how the Romans adopted the Italic script (a variation of Greek) which was an Etruscan development, and then modified it and exported it through the entire (though mostly western) Mediterranean.
We also know that there are at least two other, distinct Human (or, at least Mandai human) scripts in use: The Altharin script, and the Khitani script (note, the A:RPG calls these alphabets, but those likely simplifications of terms). From what we know, all of (Mandai) human languages are derived from Altharin, the language (and presumably, script) given to mankind by Althares as his Gift to mankind (different from the other two Gifts, by the way). We do not know how different these two scripts are from the Coryani script, but one would think that the Coryani one is at least derived from at least the same root at them. In various adventures, authors have allowed Heroes who speak a language fully understand the scripts that that language would be in regardless if they would even KNOW that script (ex. An adventure with an inscription in Altharin which any Hero can read). While entirely possible, I don’t now of a lot of people in North America who could read an inscription—even if written in English—if written in the Greek or Cyrillic alphabet, which is likely due to over-simplification (often necessary in RPG’s) than design.
Taking this into account, I think we kind of have to assume that Altharin and—especially—Khitani represent basically true Alphabetic systems. In fact, I think a reasonable comparison of these scripts would be Greek (Altharin), Latin (Coryani), and Cyrillic (Khitani), all being alphabets that are related to one-another. This is complicated by the fact that in our game Khitani is represented by mongrel Mandarin Chinese for the most part, and in our world that language is mostly represented by logograms. However, I cannot think of a single instance in our own history where people went to an intentionally MORE complicated script from an alphabet (you could debate Hebrew, but even that is an alphabetic script similar to Arabic which is very widespread). The only reason I could see the Khitani using a logographic script (or even an abjad or abugida) would be 1) if Altharin was one of these, and the Coryani is an evolution of that (like taking the Greeks taking the Phoenitian abjad and adding vowels), 2) if the Khitani adopted (or adapted) a script from the Far West such as a script from the Ossorian Empire or the Andaii (unlikely as I doubt the Sleeping Emperor would allow such ‘foreign’ notions to take hold), or 3) that the script was given to them by the Sleeping Emperor much as how Altharin was given to mankind. This last option is interesting, but I don’t think it is true as Henry has stated that the Valinor of Man (at least those in good standing with their Gods) seem to favour Altharin, as seen by the adoption of that language in Bastion by the followers of Xabal when they are surrounded by Auxunite, Khitani, and Infernal.
One other script of which we actually have a good and very clear set of data on is that of the elorii. It has been stated many times that the elorii write in ‘glyphs’, with the word “novaros” (never forget) being a single symbol. This means that the script used by the elorii is, in fact, a logographic script similar to Chinese or Ancient Egyptian where you can have entire words or phrases represented by a single symbol. Even more telling is that in the A:RPG, apparently the elorii use the SSETHRIC script, used by the modern states of Ssethregore as well as (presumably) the Black Talons.
This actually makes a lot of sense (to me) from a narrative point of view. These systems, as stated above, tend to be derivative systems originally used as a 1:1 representation of an idea (such as one symbol for cow, or king, or a specific river, etc) and are the first stages of developing true writing. The ssethrics the most ancient race that we know of that developed writing (there is no record in HP’s or books of the Issori or Eladru developing writing earlier, though they also likely had some), and they might have developed it independently even before they migrated north to what is now the Blessed Lands. Additionally, a complicated (some may even say arcane) script like this would actually fit with the cultural views of the ssethrics (by my understanding) very well, since as we see in our own records of similar Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Egyptian systems that the knowledge of how to use this script was known only to a select few (fun fact: the “Scribe Class” in ancient Babylonia and Sumeria was often equated with priests for the hidden knowledge they had). Since the ssethrics are extremely caste-based (often racially-caste based), and since the ruling ssanu wouldn’t want the ‘lower races’ like the iguadons and the ss’ressen from being able to gain knowledge to challenge them, having a writing system that is intentionally obtuse would suit their purposes. This system also makes sense to me as, in these ancient cultures which used these systems (and arguably even today in East Asia), it could take an entire lifetime to learn how to write in this script, which gives an advantage to the longer-lived races such as the ssanu, naga, and later the elorii over the shorter-lived ss’ressen, further cementing their power.
As an aside, I also had the thought that this system of writing may also be advantageous to the ssethrics because. . . well, their language may be very strange to write out. A logographic script represents THOUGHTS (though, most of them also became semi-alphabetic where these thoughts were then related to other ideas based on the sound of that thought, as per the “shell-fish” example above), which means that the script does not HAVE to represent the words spoken. We know that Ss’ressen (the language) uses a lot of held “s’s” (Ssshe wantssss to go. . . ), so writing those out could be complicated to put to paper. What this means is that you have a script that can be used for multiple different peoples since it doesn’t matter what their word is for ‘cow’ if the symbol means the same thing in to all languages. An example of this is in modern Chineses, where a lot of people (mostly the Mandarin-speaking “Han” Chinese) will state that there is only one single Chinese language, even though by sound Cantonese and Mandarin are about as different as French and Spanish. However, they both use the same script because the script transcends the SPOKEN language (to an extent), which means that on the page all Chinese is the same.
The only other system of writing that we really know anything more concrete about then “yup, people sure do write stuff with that” is Udor. In the A:RPG, it lists the ‘alphabet’ as “Runic”. Now, people who are familiar with Fantasy universes probably equate Runic as being something akin to the logograms that we read above (ex. “The xxx rune for yyy is. . . ), but in our world, Rune refers to a VERY specific script: that of the ancient Germanic peoples. In the ancient past, the alphabetic system of writing was developed in Phoenicia (modern Lebanon), likely from the Egyptian script, and from there it was exported to Greece, who modified it, and from there exported it to the Etruscans, who further modified it. I have already stated that the Latin system you are reading this in now is based on the Etruscan alphabet (known as Italic), but what I didn’t say is that this system isn’t the only one derived from the Italic script. In the ancient, long forgotten world, the Etruscan peoples were known to have contact with the ancient Celts of central Europe, and through them the Germanic tribes around the modern Baltic Sea. It was through these contacts that the Runic Alphabet was transmitted and changed, creating a unique alphabet system of its own. If the dwarves and giants (who are going to become a lot more prominent based on recent events) are using a ‘proper’ runic system, that means that their script is also alphabetic just like the Coryani script, and may represent a unique evolution of the system!
Using that as a nice place to switch topics, the mention of ‘long forgotten world’ involving written scripts brings me to the subject of writing material. Simply put, the average person in the modern world has absolutely no concept of HOW people of the ancient world wrote stuff down, and this ignorance leads them to make a lot of assumptions and carry forth a lot of prejudices. The average modern human cannot contemplate the fact that paper as we know it has only been around since around the first Century CE, well into the Roman Empire era, and even then only in China where it was developed. Modern papermaking wouldn’t even hit Europe until the ELEVENTH Century CE, well into the medieval times, having been brought to Europe by Muslim traders. Since our first true writing systems have been around since around 3,300 BCE, this means that there is a 3,200 to 4,300 year span where they were writing on something else!
The first known writing material (beyond on rock walls with stuff like ochre) was actually mud. In ancient Mesopotamia, they simply had nothing to write on since there are really no trees that naturally grow in modern day Iraq. What they did have lots of, though, was mud. They developed a system we now call cuneiform where they would make small tablets of soft mud, and push in little divots into the mud with a pen-shaped stylus. These mud tablets were then left to dry in the sun (remember, they couldn’t bake these because wood was rare), leaving a semi-durable record of what was written. This system then spread throughout the modern Middle East, and was adapted to other writing systems such as carved stone.
The earliest Chinese writing, on the other hand, was done on dried BONE or wood. Here, using a knife or similar sharp object the earliest Chinese symbols were carved into the hard (and heavy and bulky) material. These were then translated into multiple different long-term storage forms, ranging from intricate “bamboo books” where rolls of lashed-together wooden panels were collected into extremely bulky tomes, or during the Shang Dynasty (probably even with the earlier Xia Dynasty era) were used in divination rituals with forms such as the Oracle Bones.
The other primary writing material—this one found throughout the ancient world—was, simply put, trash. Specifically here, I mean pottery shards. When clay is fired into pottery, it creates a very hard material which, if broken, cannot be used for much else. Wishing to find new uses for what is otherwise bulky garbage, most ancient societies (from Greece to India) would then write (with ink or paint) upon these ragged shards and use them as we would use a post-it note or scrap paper. In fact, these shards (known as ostraca in Greek) were used in Greece to write names of people who were voted into exile in places like Athens, and is the origin of our modern English word “ostracise.”
The Egyptians also made a lot of use of mud in their writing, but they had another advantage: the papyrus plant. This plant produced fibres that could be flattened and stuck together to form long rolls of a fragile, but light-weight material similar to modern paper (though, I emphasize, MUCH more fragile and perishable). This allowed the Egyptians to become fastiditious record-keepers, and allowed for the storage of much knowledge (arguably more than anyone else before them in history). Papyrus was so much of a step up in technology that it (along with wheat) became a valuable export for Egypt, allowing them to make so much money that they remained a world power despite the fact that the country lacked good sources of other valuable materials such as gold, iron, or wood.
Before I move on, I should also point out that other types of ‘paper’ were developed around the world, but none were as well-used or in demand as papyrus. The ancient Etruscans would weave flax into linen which they would make books out of (interesting fact: Etruscan books are not like normal books, but have a distinct ‘accordion fold’, and the only other group which developed books like this that I know of were the MAYA of ancient Mexico), the ancient Indians (possibly as far as the Indus River Civilization) made use of a form of palm tree paper which had the keeping-power of tissue paper, and the ancient Mesoamericans made another type of paper which was actually on par or better than Egyptian papyrus, though they were an ocean away and couldn’t share their knowledge.
Eventually, however, the needs of advancing society outgrew what it could accomplish with material like mud, pottery shards, and wood panels. During the Hellenic age when Egypt was ruled by the Ptolomaic Dynasty who nationalized and heavily controlled the export of papyrus, other cities went looking for ways of creating more light-weight and cheaper materials to undercut the Egyptian stranglehold on writing materials. It was from here that the city of Pergamon in modern day Turkey (another Hellenic state) invented parchment, which is made from the dried skins of animals. While expensive (after all, animals were valuable commodities in the ancient world), nations who were enemies of Egypt could now produce written works for much less expense than they could on papyrus, leading to this material to spread from the Middle East (actually spelling the death knell of the Cuneiform script) to England, and would until the introduction of Chinese wood-pulp paper some 500 to 1,000 years later.
So, what does this history less mean for Arcanis. Well, one thing it should show you is how RARE the written word was in an ancient world. These writing materials (aside from things like mud and pottery shards) were extremely expensive to produce, which meant that only the rich could afford more than a few examples of them. In fact, we have records of people reusing material like parchment many times over the centuries, with examples of the Dead Sea Scrolls (made of parchment) showing multiple layers of ink on certain documents (the old ones being scrapped off and the material reused). This means that before the introduction of paper, the most people simply did not write for the fun of it. If you could write and had only a limited amount of material, you only wrote what you believed to be important. For much of the ancient past, this meant tax records an the like, and it is this reason more than any other why we don’t have a lot of diaries and personal records, novels, and even histories before the Hellenic Age (post Alexander the Great).
In fact, the first real ‘colour’ records we have of the ancient world are found in the works of Heroditus of Halicarnassas and his history of the Greco-Persian Wars, with all other records being short, to the point, and lacking of embellishments to really give you a ‘feel’ for the people and the personalities involved. In the ancient world, this was done almost exclusively by oral traditions and storytellers, as can be seen by the style that Heroditus transmitted his work (many believe it is actually a transcription of his oral performances of the same story).
Additionally, the transitory nature of writing materials (short of carving it into a mountainside, which is expensive and time-consuming) means that even if people wrote this stuff down, it probably wouldn’t survive until the modern day. Leaving aside how perishable materials like papyrus and palm-leaf is, and how likely they are to decay without proper storage, you also have to deal with the fact that most documents were only written down once or twice by hand, which means that each book was almost a unique resource. This left them more vulnerable to things like fire and government pogroms, as seen with the burning of the Library of Alexandria or the purges of Qin Shi Huang Di in the Qin Dynasty of China. Even the mud tablets of Mesopotamia were prone to crumbling unless fire-baked, which is why almost all of our records from the ancient world are preserved only because cities were burned in wars, baking these tablets that were otherwise left un-fired because of how expensive wood was in that part of the world.
This throws into start relief how strange I find it when players apply meta-knowledge of the Arcanis universe to their characters. A lot of people go on about how widespread knowledge of the ancient past is in the world of Arcanis, citing events which happened thousands of years in the past like it was common knowledge, and demanding to know why we don’t know more than we do. I know that I have talked about this in the past, but I feel that this topic brings it up again. Unless people of the ancient past thought something was worth writing down (taking into account the knowledge needed to write, the necessity of purchasing often expensive writing materials, and the need to story often very bulky and perishable works once written down), people simply didn’t write it down. Furthermore, even if this stuff was written down, it often was destroyed in freak accidents from floods, storms, and fires (or even simply decomposition).
It is through this that we have lost knowledge like the name of the First Emperor (though, I still think we should know more now that we have a literal contemporary of the man living again), or the culture of the First Imperium, or the records of the Eloran Empire. Hell, the only reason we know so much about the Empire of Yahssremore is because of those lovely gold tablets that they wrote their history on, especially because of how chemically stable gold is (like bronze) compared to say iron (which rusts very easily).
Additionally, I find it awfully strange (but understandable) whenever we come across some ancient mosaic or inscription when Heroes magically pull out massive sheafs of paper and do ‘rubbings’. For one, these are people who are living primarily in the woods, where these materials are exposed to moisture and the elements, not to mention how bulky massive sheafs of paper are to carry around. I have done much camping in my time, and even carrying something as small as a novel can be problematic. Additionally, while we do know that at least a form of paper (maybe not modern paper, but something tougher than papyrus) exists in Arcanis, writing materials are still likely very expensive, which would restrict how much of it an average person would buy. Hell, with the frequency people are hit by fire magic, I would think that nobody would bring such material with them for fear of become a literal human torch! I fully understand that we are modern people, and we reflexively apply modern notions to the world, but I still find it strange.
_________________ Cody Bergman Legends of Arcanis Campaign Staff Initial Author Contact/Adventure Vetting
Haakon Marcus val'Virdan, Divine Holy Judge of Nier Ruma val'Vasik, Martial Crusader and Master of the Spear Jorma Osterman, Arcane Coryani Battlemage
Last edited by Nierite on Fri Dec 16, 2016 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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