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4 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2009 - 5:57AM
#11
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To me, Elven is a cross between Lakota and Gaelic, if you can imagine such a thing. Clannad's songs Croi Croga and (the non-English parts of) Trail of Tears, as well as John Two-Hawk's Lakota speech at the beginning and end of Nightwish's Creek Mary's Blood, are basically how I imagine the Elven language (and music) sounding. Supernal is the invented language used by Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance when she sings. Deep Speech has to be the alien language of the Cthulhu mythos. Lots of consonants and glottal stops, with hardly any vowels. Giant and Dwarven are Semitic languages, with Dwarven being closer to Hebrew and Giant closer to Akkadian. A lot of Draconic words can be found in Draconomicon, so I defer to that source for what Draconic sounds like. I'm not at all certain about Goblin other than that it strings words together into longer compounds like German does and that it sounds quite 'liquid' and 'bubbling', as though spoken through a throat full of phlegm. Hobgoblins have developed a simpler, harsher-sounding dialect for giving commands in battle, which sounds a bit like Tolkien's Black Speech.
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4 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2009 - 12:35PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jan 10, 2008
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Primordial as spoken by its native elemental creatures should be rumblings, hisses, crackles, roars, booms, thumps, and scrapes, representing the movement of the elements (earthquakes, lightning, wind, falling pebbles, glacial advance, waterfalls, waves), with a massive variety in volume (depending on context) and taking a *long* time to convey a complete sentence, with massive amounts of meaning in the small details and dozens of different ways to speak the same words.
The humanoid incarnation of the speech would be very difficult and outright *hurt* to speak, due to the unnatural grating sounds that would need to be produced by the vocal chords and the necessary varieties in volume. A speaker would probably focus on a dialect associated with a favored element when speaking, but would have to be able to understand a large variety of dialects to adequately communicate with different elemental creatures.
I would see some anthropomorphized elemental creatures, like efreets, as speaking a more structured dialect of the language which is closer to a humanoid interpretation: more "voice" and less "sounds", faster, more eloquent, more intellectual, more emotional. Archons would also have a faster dialect, but with a perpetual angry and warlike sound about their speech. Titans would speak a form of primordial designed to invoke sheer awe, as appropriate for their intimidating stature and connection to the creation of the world, filled with boasting pride, seeing themselves as god-like.
Abyssal and Giant would both sound somewhat similar, but very distinct.
Abyssal would be warped by sheer unadulterated evil, twisting in upon itself, filled with sounds of violence and anguish. It would have shrieks, howls, deep groans and other genuinely nasty sounds woven through its words.
Giant would be like a severe dumbing-down of Primordial, losing almost all of its elemental sounds and replacing long depictions of formative forces and qualities with short worldly colloquialisms.
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4 years ago ::
Jul 18, 2009 - 11:00AM
#13
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The word primordial suggests it's raw, primitive and savage with dominant and submissive modes of speech
An Orc walks into a bar. The Human and the Elf laugh at the hapless Orc. The dwarf walks under it scowling and doesn't laugh. He doesn't see the humor. It was all over his head
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4 years ago ::
Jul 19, 2009 - 3:36PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jun 12, 2009
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I think most of it is lower than humans can hear but i think it would sound like the boom of thunder, the wind and the crackle of fire
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4 years ago ::
Jul 19, 2009 - 9:56PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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Primordial wouldn't sound like speech-it would sound like crashing stones, rumbling thunder, and the like.
Also, I see Deep Speech as being fluid, with no pauses, and having an after whisper.
Ex) Illithid: Tacosss.. Creepy Whisper: Tacosss...
Shaman: "Why doesn't the squirrel shoot the wizard?" DM: "Because the last squirrel who tried to shoot the wizard missed, then was pulled out of his tree and incinerated." Wizard: "He has a point."
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4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 4:03AM
#16
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The problem with describing Primordial (or any language in D&D, really) as something no human could actually speak is that humans obviously can speak it perfectly well. If you're going to have it as random elemental noises or something similar that isn't reproducible by the human larynx, then you probably should ban humans and other non-native speakers from being able to speak it (they could still learn to understand it, of course).
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4 years ago ::
Jul 21, 2009 - 12:47AM
#17
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Date Joined:
May 26, 2005
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Primordial probably isn't a language per se, it's energy, the roar of thunder, the crashing of waves, the endless rumbling of an avalanche. Primordial tongue strikes me as something almost impossible to really speak, the spoken version is probably what the mortals or archons use as the true primordials did not speak so much as impose their energy and will, and all creation understood it.
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4 years ago ::
Jul 21, 2009 - 4:08PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Jul 29, 2004
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i always pegged it as a slightly deeper and gravelly version of the protoss from starcraft. they dont talk, you just get the sound and image in your brain.
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4 years ago ::
Jul 23, 2009 - 7:10AM
#19
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Murlocs.
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4 years ago ::
Jul 23, 2009 - 8:19AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2008
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When I first read the thread title I couldn't get the Lavos screech out of my mind (course I interpreted the thread as "What sound does a Primordial make").
Once I had a player address an elemental using a Team America Style parody (stringing words like Burn, hiss, swoosh, destroy randomly and subtitling coherant thought.)
Or perhaps it's like speaking Whale from Finding Nemo (HOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW ARRRRRRRRRRREEEEE YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU?)
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