>From what I can see, the list includes at least:
>- - Sartarite (spoken by most Orlanthi)
>- - Tarshite (spoken by people in Tarsh)
The people of Alone and Aldachur also speak Tarshite.
>- - Praxian (spoken by the Praxian nomads - and probably those in the
>Wastes, too)
The Pol Joni (and other cattle bastards) speak Sartarite while the Zebra Tribe speaks Old Pavic.
>- - Pelorian (spoken by the Lunars?)
New Pelorian. Old Pelorian was a language spoken in the Green Age and the ancestor of all modern Pelorian Languages (save Carmanian and Orlanthi). New Pelorian is a revitalized Old Pelorian with an expanded vocabulary etc. to describe modern things that didn't exist in the Green Age.
A word of warning: Speaking New Pelorian exposes your subconsciousness to the secrets of the Goddess. If you speak it too well, then eventually you'll become a Lunar.
>- - Tradetalk (something that Issaries invented; the closest thing to
>a "common tongue"?)
Not actually a complete language. It's really only a common tongue among the Orlanthi.
>- - Stormspeech (I presume this is an ancient language used by priests
>of Storm deities for rituals)
Yes.
>Does every Rune have its own language? (That is, is there a
>Deathspeech, Harmonyspeech, and so forth?)
Greg used to think this way with the RQ2 description of Firespeech (spoken by birds and salamanders), Earthspeech (spoken by reptiles and gnomes) and so forth but this applied only for the elementals runes.
Nowadays some languages are thought to be the original speech of the Gods (such as Stormspeech of the Orlanthi or Firespeech of the Dara Happans) but worshippers who worship similar gods elsewhere (ie Sikkanos bandits of the Pamaltelan veldt or Teshnan Fireworshippers) will not understand those tongues.
>Roughly what percentage
>of the population would be multilingual? (Especially - how many
>people speak Tradetalk in addition to their main tongue?)
In Orlanthi villages, at least one person or family would know Tradetalk and is charged with speaking to strangers. Orlanthi travellers would know some amount of Tradetalk.
>Are these
>languages similar in any way? (Could someone fluent in Sartarite
>understand any Tradetalk, for example?)
IMO, if they are Sartarites, then they should be able to make understand what the Heortlanders, Pol Joni and New Pavisites are saying through their strong accents. They can place which City Ring other Sartarites come from due to their moderate accents.
With some difficulty, they can grasp what an Old Pavisite/Sun Countyman, an Esrolian or a Caladran is saying, for these are really the same language in barely comprehensible dialects. The conversations will take about five minutes to get across simple concepts, resolve misunderstandings etc.
When speaking to a Tarshite, Aldachuri or Exile, the linguistic gulf is so great that it becomes a different language altogether. Sartarites would be better of learning Tarshite, New Pelorian or Tradetalk instead of relying on their native tongue to speak with Tarshites. As a rule of thumb they will probably understand three words outright: "Hello", "Goodbye" and "Fuck you".
Tradetalk is really used by the Orlanthi for communicating with foreign Orlanthi (such between Tarshites and Sartarites). No relation with any other language is described in the RoC rules (ie speakers of Sartarite do not know Tradetalk at, say, 1/10 their speak Sartarite skill) but it is described as being easy to pick up. However I do not rule out similarities to any Orlanthi Tongue.
>I was thinking that Sartarite would be the main
>language, but if the characters want to trade with any of the
>nomads then (I assume) some of them should know a little Praxian or
>Tradetalk.
Nomads don't understand Trade. They Rob instead.
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