Languages of Valador: Common Languages

The three most prolific races of Valador, the humans, elves, and dwarves, have each developed their own unique tongue. The languages are very indicative of the races that created them and their development was done with little influence from the others. Because of this, each language is very distinct and separate from one another.

The Common Tongue of the Valadian Empire: Often referred to Valadian or simply Common, this is the language of Valador's most dominant species, the humans. Valadian formed from the various tribal dialects of early human cultures and much of that is still reflected in the language today. Valadian is a very harsh and guttural language, with short, sharp words and an aggressive sound. Due to human's penchant for wanting to quantify things, Common has many words in its vocabulary, creating a new word for each new thing discovered, instead of simply identifying it with previous descriptive words. This process confuses the other major races, which often dissuades them from using the language unless absolutely necessary.

Elvish: Elvish is a derivative of the Fey language, brought over with the elves when came from "beyond the horizon." Like the Fey tongue, it is a flowing almost song-like language, developed to allow words to easily flow into each other and be carried lightly on the wind. However, over the years, the elves formed the language into their own, creating something distinct from that of the Fey. Because of their interactions with the races in Valador, Elvish has become much more truncated then its Fey origin, ideals that may have taken hours to express in Fey now only take several minutes in Elvish. Still, the language tends to be very long winded and the need for properly controlling the pitch and tone of one's voice in order to speak it correctly means that only those from other races with much patience can ever master even conversational levels of Elvish. This make Elvish the least spoken of the three common languages, something that suits the elves perfectly.

Dwarvish: Once considered a closed language, spoken only by the dwarves, Dwarvish has begun to spread beyond its native speakers as they've begun to interact with the rest of the world. Dwarvish is a simple language, with direct and straight phrasing, devoid of metaphor and complex structure. The language would be considered beautiful if not for the manner in which it is spoken. Like all things they do, dwarves speak loudly and with great passion, speaking even simple instructions with pride. It is not proper form to speak Dwarvish softly and the concept of whispering is lost to them. Many scholars of other races who learn the language are often embarrassed to speak it due to its boisterous inflection.