Another possibility that occurs to me: Tradetalk may be, among other things, a skill (partly magical) for *devising* pidgins on the fly. That is, two skilled Tradetalkers might end up starting off their communication on an elementary level, and progressing to have a much more elaborate "private language" by the end of the bargaining session. (An equally skilled tradetalker, walking in on the end of the session, might be baffled by their language--though they could use their skill to bring him up to speed quickly.
*If* this idea is plausible--I expect there's still a lot that tradetalkers could do right away. e.g. Merchanting might go like this (assuming, of course, that the merchants don't share a mundane common language):
Merchants without tradetalk: bare basics, like "I'll give you this much silver for three of those"
Merchants with journeyman tradetalk, right from the start: "How old is this?" "Who here can vouch for you?" "How was it made? [if answer can be shown with gestures, or very simple words]"
Merchants with journeyman tradetalk, after they've been talking a while: "Where did you get the materials for this?" "Twelve silver? Do you want to see my children begging in the streets?" "I'll be re-selling this to the trolls of Yolp Mountain, and if it breaks, they'll know where I got it from."
Higher tradetalk skills improve the learning speed and the complexity of information you can convey at any level. And a tradetalker can also communicate with a non-tradetalker, though with a hefty penalty--so a highly skilled tradetalker can get along fairly well with any human. (Bigger penatly dealing with non-humans, of course.)
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