Spot on, I'd say. Clearly they aren't Orlanthi (although there are certain traits that seem familiar, such as exuberant ups, mournful downs, suspicion of authority, clannishness and a preparedness to have the odd drink every now and then), but medieval Russians (indeed, to an extent even as late as the turn of the 19th/20th Centuries), while all speaking 'Russian', actually used dialects which had often wandered very far from the root. The next result was that there were serious communication difficulties, and figures such as the local cleric were often vital 'translators' between 'local Russian' and 'official Russian'.
All that said, religious, legal and official words and phrases remained pretty constant, not least because there were priests, etc maintaining this constancy. So you could go to a village and be greeted in God's name with the same greeting that you might have heard five hundred miles away, just with a diferent accent. But as soon as you want to ask the way to the market or who has bear pelts for sale, you're in trouble.
So for Orlanthi, I'd imagine ritual, gesture and certain phrases and words to be constant. I can't see a word like 'storm' changing, even if there might be different interpretations between different groups. What a Tarshite Orlanthi might call a storm would probably be a fine day to a Far Pointer!
Mark
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