> >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
> Why? It makka no sense! For a script to be used to communicate by
> groups using differing spoken languages seems to require an ideographic
> script. If it is alphabetic the language will mutate as the written
> language mutates and will soon be mutually incomprehensible.
Just like English you mean, whose spelling has of course mutated to _exactly_ match pronunciation?
> The analogy with Latin as a common sacred tongue fails because Latin has
> a spoken and written form of its own.
I think there probably is a common(ish) spoken form, it's just what you hear on the streets. A sort of "Church Western", as it were.
> I think it must be more like
> Japanese and Chinese using ideographs to communicate.
That's _definitely_ a flawed analogy, as Japanese and Chinese don't have a common written form (just a common set of ideograms).
I think one's best RW analogue is probably Arabaic, as others have suggested; supposedly an alphabetic language, but "creatively" read according to the local spoken language.
> p 34 of Player's Book Genertela says they are *so* Orlanthi. Unless this
> has been officially Gregged?
It merely says "Cults: Orlanth pantheon", which ain't the same thing at all. In fact, note that every other group of "Orlanthi" are combined in the single "Barbarian Belt" entry. I think Ygg's Isles are at the least widely acknowledged to be non-Orlanthi storm worshippers -- if it hasn't been Gregged yet, just wait a while. (Several of the entries in these sections are clearly "placeholders", by analogy with closest-known cult/pantheon, not Greg's Honest Truth.)
Slainte,
Alex.
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