elves and pelorian linguistics

From: Peter Metcalfe <P.Metcalfe_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 22:43:22 +1300


Chris Lemens:

[on the Elf Sea]

>Question #1: Has anyone published stuff for this area?

Griffin Mountain (OOP - not even I have this) details Balazar and some of the Elder Wilds. New Lolon Gospel #2 details some coastal location on the Elf Sea.

>Question #2: Why does the map of Genertela from the
>Genertela box show no forest in the Elder Wilds, but the map of inner
>Glorantha from the same box show an elf population there?

Editorial Snafu perhaps? Probably the same slip that saw no mention of any Elder Wilds elvish population in G:CotHW. There is an elvish population according to Elder Secrets.

>Question #3: Why do runners have fur (instead of leaves/needles/spines)?

I thought it was grassy-like myself.

>Mree Vorala (sp?) fills the roles of Earth Witch and Ty Kora Tek (sp? box
>is at home) for elves.

Mee Vorala is actually the goddess of a seperate phylum. Her conciousness is a seperate conciousness from that of Aldrya and is more potent in that the Voralans often have no concept of self-consciousness whereas most elves have had some experience. The Earth Witch diety (Ty Kora Tek is a translation IMO) would be heavily cthonic rather than fungoid.

>Voralans use sorcery, yet another reason why no one messes with them.

I don't like this idea, assuming RQ3 sorcery is meant. Although the Cult Writeup does say that the cultists can use sorcery, IMO this is an fumbled roolz attempt to generalize the cult rather than an indication that the Voralans do know sorcery. After all, Chalana Arroy has no prohibitions on learning sorcery according to the roolz yet I would be aghast at the possibility that Sartarite healers being sorcerers.

The Voralans do know exotic magic but this is concentrated mainly in making wierd fungoid monsters, exotic poisons, strange weapons and bizarre mind-altering potions. Any personal magic would be spirit magic as the group mind would know all the heavy shit. But most of them aren't even aware of the importance of self preservation...

>Most of the stories are that the
>elves slept during the darkness, except for the green elves under the
>leadership of the High Elf Lord and Yelmalio. So I'm thinking there is a
>story about one of the Yelmalios and the High Elf Lord being responsible for
>the Dawn. Which Yelmalio? What did they do? Somehow, they got Yelm out of
>Hell, or perhaps manipulated the stupid human gods to do it for them? Is
>that what the elvish Hill of Gold is about?

The God's name is Yelmalio and the location at which he fought is Winterwood in Fronela. I have given in the past a complicated theory about why the god's name is actually Alio and that various elves put the name of the local sun god in front and so on. He seems to have fought hard and eventually presevered so that when High King Elf danced the Rites of Spring, he was able to rise to his rightful place in the sky.

Alex Ferguson:


>Isn't Torang relatively Pelandan-ish anyway, from what little we know about
>its language? All the Paradisial Poseurs had rather Pelandan-sounding
>names anyway, roughly the same part of the world (or close enough to
>sound good to a person with all his maps at home).

The Kestinfolk have their own language. However they do have a large peasant population which could come from any old [pelandan] place.

Me>> IMO the PFL are the vulgar versions of the Dara Happan Speech heavily
>> enriched by whatever local speech used to exist and various
>> influences. But Dara Happan became a fixed courtly speech
>> whereas the PFLs kept on changing.

>Sounds rather the wrong way round to me... Recall from the Entekosiad
>a Mere Peasant correcting a DH type on her use of Pelandan glyphs.

The glyphs are said to be ideograms which implies that there are no phonetic clues within the glyphs. As an example, the ideogram would let you know the word division was Ul Eria and not Uler Ia, but you would be unable to detect whether the original word was pronounced something like El uria or something similar. Well 'unable' is a strong word as linguistic change can be detected in Chinese writing (through rhyming poetry) but it's not something the average oppressed Pelandan peasant would pick up.

Hence the Corrected Carmanian Great Lady was previously making erroneous word divisions (like UlerIa) IMO as this would be picked up by your barely literate peasant seeking to take down the tosspot nobility down a peg.

[On Antirius's pelandan origins]

>The -tur- to -tir- xform may need more handwaving...

Nonsense, 'tis a mere piece of cake! The linguistic phenomena is known as vowel shifting. For example, If I fly over the Tasman and buy some socks, I would have to go up to the lady at the counter and ask for 'sex'. Them convicts seem awfully senstive about us saying Sydney, we have to wrinkle up our noses and say 'Sednee' before it sounds right to them.

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