Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: Apologies if this is an old topic that’s been already been chewed up and spat out.

Say!

Everybody in Tyria seems to speak and understand the so-called ‘common’ language, and that’s great, but what about some of the species-specific languages? We know one asura word – bookah. What do you suppose the rest of their language is like? What’s their word for, say, ‘malfunction’? Or ‘hello’? (Whatever that one is, I figure it would translate to ‘You don’t look so smart, what’s your IQ.’)

What about the charr, what sort of language would they speak? Would it have lots of growls and hisses and showing of teeth, or perhaps weird quadrophonic aspects that creatures with only two ears might not be able to hear or understand?

Has anyone here ever considered trying to create a language for any of these guys? You know, follow in the footsteps of Tolkien and/or Okrand.

The “Common” language in Tyria is New Krytan, it was designed and popularized by the Durmand Priory, before it was accepted as the official Tyrian language in 1105AE. New Krytan is a mix between the old Ascalonian and old Krytan languages. Its spoken by the 5 playable races, and most of the non-playable races also.

The Asuran had their own language, that went out of use after they had to evacuate the undergrounds and come to the surface for saftey, due to interacting with other races more. I know a guy on Reddit figured out the old Asuran alphabet, but obviously, its not canonized, so it could potentially be wrong.

I guess the Charr would have originally used Old Ascalonian, or some other common language that they would’ve used to communicate with the Ascalonian humans, before they took back Ascalon. Or they could’ve had their own language, which there seems to be no trace of, or none that im aware of, but it would be interesting to see.

Sadly, ArenaNet never put any work into spoken languages aside from Old Canthan and Old Kurzick. We do have a couple terms from charr – Hrangmer, which translates into Jaws of Oblivion, for example – and asura – which is restricted to Bookah in what we know – we also have seen examples of the written language and its structures, but that’s pretty much it.

Everyone easily has an understanding of the Tyrian human language.

Info I could find:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Languages_of_Tyria
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Languages_of_Tyria

Yes, I did just google it. : P

Yeah, I googled it, too, before I posted. ;-)

Anyway, since anet doesn’t seem to be interested in pursuing it, I thought it might be fun for us to create more words for these guys. Maybe even a speakable language. No point to it, really. Something to do, maybe, between living story chapters.

Dramatization:

Zojja: Vakoo! Vakoo! Plem do jek! Lo sha kreet d’shoet! Ha’eh!

Vikk: Takore, Zojja! Zojja shen kreet ooba hass!

Ahai lore forum dwellers! I think ANet once said in an interview that Asuran is supposed to sound mathematical. Every sentence is an equation that must be solved by the listener. They noticed that this was too difficult for bookahs so they adapted the simpler language.

So, how would that work?

Statement: ‘The bookah broke the chair.’

As an equation (more or less): ‘Chair plus bookah equals broken chair.’

For the listener to solve: ‘Chair plus bookah equals what result?’

The result, ‘broken chair’, would likely be obvious to another asura, but not necessarily obvious to anyone else.

Dramatization:

Zojja: Hah’eh! Subet vae bookah do kemka.

Vikk: (chuckles) Bookah d’krasp.

Logan: OOPS, SORRY ABOUT YOUR CHAIR.