>FWIW, I currently think that Tradetalk is a pidgin language like the
>Chinook Jargon. It dates back to the Storm Age - the Orlanthi claim
>it was invented by Garzeen, I think the Malkioni believe it was
>invented by Kachast and used in his Speaking Tour.
The problem is that Kachast lived in the Golden Age and his languages gave rise to the moden Malkioni speech (before then, people communicated by thought). I'd say instead that the language (or languages according to RoC) comes from the Trade Rune rather than a specific god.
>It probably is
>derived from a strange mismatch of words from around Glorantha
>(maybe with Heortling and Western at its core).
I don't think classifying Tradetalk as a pidgin is all that helpful as pidgins are quite common and boring in the RW. I prefer to focus on how it might communicate among all gloranthans rather than break down the composition of its vocabulary (which really doesn't tell us anything about how it works).
IMO Tradetalk has no core vocabulary as its speakers use whatever languages they know when speaking it. What it does use is a magical way* of speaking that implants the desired message in the listener's head. This works regardless of whether the listener actually knows any of the words that he hears. For a conversation, the participants must use tradetalk on each other. If the Listener doesn't know any tradetalk then all he can do is point or otherwise communicate nonverbally the answer.
Tradetalk is best for simple concepts. Skilled speakers can get complicated concepts across but the cost is that the speech is so much longer than the time taken to say it in an ordinary language. So if you are using tradetalk for a Ciceronian defense speech (_Pro Cleuntius_ say) then the court is going to so bored they will convict you out of malice long before you've finished the speech.
--Peter Metcalfe
*I shan't give an example as everybody will already have a good idea of what it sounds like.
--Peter Metcalfe
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