>1) I note that all of civilised Fronela except Loskalm speaks a
>collection of Theyalyan derived dialects. What effect does this have on
>relationships between the Loskalmi and their neighbours? Does it
>reinforce the perception of the Loskalmi as 'foreign invaders'?
The Civilized People of the Janube Valley speak Janubian, 'a tongue not closely related to any other' (Genertela Book p12). I'm inclined to make this a western language that is descended from Akemi and is remotely related to Loskalmi. The Junorans speak Loskalmi AFAIK but they probably speak a local dialect.
Hence if Loskalm is English as spoken in London, Junora is North England and Janube is the Scottish Lowlands.
>2) 'Western' languages all use the same written language. Presumably
>this means that it uses an ideographic script (if that's the right word?
>Like Chinese, anyway). How tightly is this bound up with the system of
>Logic that existed before Time?
This has been dealt with before and the concensus is that it's in an alphabetic script but people only use it for writing down High Malkioni (which would be similar to Brithini) and not their native tongues of Loskalmi etc. The RW parallels to this would be Latin in the early middle ages where such vulgar patrois such as french or italian was simply not written down or Arabic which is devilish hard to represent variations in dialect or accent (one normally writes down what was meant and the reader translates this into what was said based on his knowlege of what the ethnic group of the speaker sounds like in Real Life).
To give a good RW anecdote on the historical relationship between the spoken language and the written language, when Catherine of Aragorn set foot upon the british isles to be married, the only speech that she and the english court had in common was Latin. However none of the court could understand her and it was only the english bishops (who had more experience with foreign pronunciations of latin) that could communicate with her (although with some difficulty).
>3) Are all the Malkioni 'Holy Texts' in Western? Or are there some in
>later languages? Is it important that the Holy Texts be kept in the
>original? Are you not allowed to translate them the way Muslims aren't
>allowed to translate the Koran from Arabic? Is there a 'protestant'
>movement to bring the Truth to the peoples in languages they understand?
The Latin and Arabic parallels suffice here. According to Malkioni thought, the peasants aren't supposed to be able to read anyhow coz they are not educated enough to interpret the scriptures. One could do a Martin Luther and translate the scriptures into Barbarous Vulgate (and I daresay some people have done so in the past) but one would have to be pay extra in fire insurance...
>4) Where did all these ruddy Orlanthi come from anyway? Ygg's Isles? How
>did the Orlanthi get *there*? Mythologically and historically, Heortland
>seems to have been the core of Orlanth worship (although presumably
>KeroFinela was the GodTime core).
You raise an interesting point and one that I'm not completely certain about the answer to. The Yggi are not Orlanthi and have their own traditions. The other Orlanthi come from the south over the High Llama's Pass into Jonatela and Oranor. Further east and north, the 'orlanthi' are not Orlanthi as such but really hsunchen pagans that have adopted the plow since the late Second Age. Their Storm Gods are probably Urox and Resant the Storm Bear. Galastar is stated to be Orlanthi (codex #2) but where its Orlanth cames from is unknown.
>5) Presumably all the Malkioni lands outside Loskalm represent the high
>water mark of Loskalmi Imperialism in the Second Age?
The Janube river valley right up to Eastpoint (but not Galastar). Oranor and Jonatela were under its dominion but frequently revolted IMO.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #123
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