Olgish languages

The Olgish languages (olg. Olgenam) are one of the three major branches of the Ortûlékian language family, spoken by the various groups self-identifying as Olgs in Belkondíl, Geran, the Northwestern Colonies, and the Reknaya, and the Northern Feldin of Nelkon. The Cëlacian or Eastern varieties of this branch gave rise to the dialects of most Olgish clans, directly ancestral to the Old Olgish Koine of Enethin’s Belkondíl, Fádin’s Liturgical Middle Olgish, and the Lécaronian Olgish of the Imperial Era.

Etymology and names

The term Olgenam, earlier Olginam derives from the Ortûlékian ethnonym Olgi ‘the skilful ones’ + nam ‘custom, way, language’, from an original root *olg- ‘skilful, artful, deft’. The name was applied to one of the Three Peoples of Ortûlék, ostensibly the ancestors of the Olgs, beside the Géni and the Auli, traditionally considered the ancestors of the Aribelians and Iiles, respectively.

History and classification

Proto-Olgish arises in the Trough of Ortûlék and the surrounding heartland of Belkondíl in the early second millennium B.E.B., presumably spoken by those of the Ortûlékians who remain in their ancestral lands after the Parting of the Peoples. This ancestral variety, while still exhibiting many similarities to Aulish, seem closer to Aribelian-Celdic than the latter, in particular in its lexicon, prompting the assumption that Aulish was the first of the three branches of Ortûlékian to diverge from the others.

A cultural separation of clans settling in the Brethan Valley west and the Cëlac Valley east of the Olgish Highlands seems to have already existed at this time, and the earliest Olgish dialects follow this division, with a Brethanian Olgish or ‘Orinic’ language spoken in Orinion and adjacent areas, possibly bordering still-vibrant Noldorinian kingdoms to the south, and Cëlacian Olgish or ‘Olgish Proper’ predominating in the eastern domains, bordering the Soskish kingdoms in Belkondíl.

With the westward spread of Cëlacian clans, Brethanian becomes increasingly marginalized and by the beginning of the Imperial Era remains spoken only on the Mairn and in a handful of Orinian coastal communities, while the Olgish name comes to be synonymous with the Cëlacian dialects. The term Old Olgish generally refers to all Cëlacian dialects spoken in the Bronze and early Iron Ages, while the western Olgish dialects, including Orinic, are usually referred to as Brethanian.

For most of the Bronze Age, Belkondíl lacks a unified power, and the Old Olgish dialects develop fairly freely, intermixing with each other and local languages as the Olgish domain expands into Geran and the Reknaya. The need for a common high tongue only arises when Enethin restores the Kingdom of Belkondíl at the end of the Bronze Age, uniting most of the old Olgish counties. Enethin’s centralistic policies as well as the compilation of the Book of Belkondíl to evidence his claim to the throne give rise to an Old Olgish Koiné, based chiefly on the influential dialects of Ortûlék, Lágon, and Soskilón but incorporating elements of most other varieties of Olgish.

This idiom remains the language of court and cult, as well as the very definition of an ‘Olgish language’, for most of the early Iron Age. The Lonsorigi are composed and disseminated in this language, so are all royal decrees and diplomatic messages, leading to its use as a universal Olgish lingua franca in most Olgish-speaking areas and its significant influence on the development of the Old Olgish dialects. Only two regions retain an ancestral dialect as their main language, avoiding Koiné influence and establishing what are thereafter treated as separate Olgish languages: The Corbian language in the wealthy Kingdom of Corbin and the Wertian language in the independent Wertian Kingdom on the Geranian Heath. Most of the Olgish colonies in Seligon, Aribel, and the Reknaya, even though their populations speak mostly Soskish dialects, imported and nourished by the restless Soskish merchants and negotiators preceding nearly all Olgish migrations, also adopt the Koiné as high language of their—largely Olgish-born—ruling classes and often Olgish-dominated religious orders.

Beginning in the mid-ninth century E.B., Olgish begins to transition into its Middle stage. By the late eleventh century, the spoken dialects are significantly removed from the holy language still spoken in the temples, and when Saint Fádin, then an elder of the Western Church, seeks to ensure that all temples within his church’s domain carry a complete and canonical copy of the Lonsorigi, he soon realizes that its language ought to be updated to keep its contents accessible to the populace. The translation of the Lonsorigi into Middle Olgish becomes the most significant project of his life, greatly contributing to his eventual veneration as a saint in both major Olgish churches. Like the scribes of Enethin, he is inspired chiefly by the dialects of the Belkondilian heartland, borrowing mostly from the variety of Soskilón, but many of his choices in translation are also his own, creating a dialect of his own that is readily noticeable among the rapidly evolving spoken dialects of Olgish.

This Liturgial Middle Olgish, or ‘Fádin’s Tongue’, quickly spreads across the Olgish-speaking world, largely thanks to the success of Fádin’s new Lonsorigi. Both the Western and Eastern Olgish Church adopt it as their holy language, and upon his accession as Emperor of all Olgs, Beldárin Fadhérún declares it the official language of [[Lécaron|his empire]. It is this clerical role that keeps Fádin’s Middle Olgish preserved as the ubiquitous formal language in most of Elondor; in particular, its use among the Imperial Office of Magic and Augury cements its position as the language most commonly used in Olgish prayer spells.

The Middle Olgish dialects, meanwhile, proceed with their rapid evolution, now under the label of a ‘Lécaronian’ Olgish. But even in its earliest days, they are already a minority language group in Fadhérún’s diverse empire, most of whose provinces have long relied on various forms of Soskish as a lingua franca. Even though the most widely used clerical language, by the early 6th century, only four of the old Olgish languages remain spoken in Lécaron, Lécaronian in Orininon and areas of Geran, Wertian on the Geranian Heath, Brethanian on the Mairn, and Corbian in Corbin. Additionally, the Feldin of Timburgh have spawned their own offshoot of Middle Olgish, the Northern Feldic language (which is entirely unrelated to Southern Feldic, an Avalian language). In L.R. 540, finally, Emperor Ésôrin the Wise declares Soskish the official spoken language of the Empire, obliging all imperial offices to make themselves accessible to Soskish speakers and reducing Olgish to a purely written function.

Lécaronian Olgish almost fully disappears over the following two centuries and is replaced by nearly all speakers with Lécaronian Soskish; it remains a popular language among the Olgish clergy and nobility, and, more rarely, Eskosi Olgish nationalists in Seligon. Brethanian, Corbian, and Northern Feldic remain in constant use within their fringe domains, while Wertian experiences a boom in popularity in the late 7th century, spurred by the Geranian independence movement.

Structure

While perserving much of the ancestral Ortûlékian vocabulary, Olgish grammar differs greatly from that of its sister languages. The complex Proto-Ortûlékian verbal morphology is truncated heavily, and by the time of classical Old Olgish, nearly all feature coding has moved from the head to the dependant. The Olgish languages retain, on the other hand, the hallmark ‘Ortûlékian lax affixes’, referring to a tendency of all or most affixes in Ortûlékian languages to allow attachment to all or most word classes, often with slightly different meanings depending on host class.

A morphological number coding system seems to have been absent in Proto-Ortûlékian, or, if present, at least highly irregular and incoherent. Like Aribelian-Celdic, the Olgish languages evolve their own forms plural expression based on a large set of affixes, simple but varied ablaut pairs, and other, irregular form changes. While the coding strategies observed are starkly similar to those in Old Aribelian, they are applied independently, and few Olgish-Aribelian cognates share plural forms, further supporting the notion that Aribelian and Olgish are somewhat more closely related to each other than they are to Aulish, possibly innovating the morphological principles underlying plural coding together but not implementing it until the dialects had fully separated.

These highly idiosyncratic plurals are stubbornly preserved in both great formal varieties of Olgish, the Old Olgish Koiné and Liturgical Middle Olgish, but undergo a significant degree of regularization in most spoken varieties of Olgish, in particular Wertian and Lécaronian.

Writing system

A variety of scripts have been used to write the Olgish languages. The Olgs likely first came into contact with writing in the late 3rd millennium B.E.B., when the Western Sosks expand their territory into Belkondíl, but the Old Besokian Abugida itself is never used to write Olgish, either found to impractical for the commonly clustering language or kept intentionally inaccessible by the Soskish ruling class.

The first Olgish writing does not appear until a millennium later, during the Age of Towers, in the form of Olgish runes carved in wood and stone. This writing system is likely based on earlier number symbols developed over the previous centuries. Among the first known inscriptions is the Menhir of Nambara of the lower Ilathw, but artifacts of writing are soon found all across Belkondíl, evolving into an Old Olgish alphabet by the time of Enethin. As part of his review of the language, Fádin develops his own variant of the alphabet optimized for writing in ink, particularly calligraphic works. This Olgish calligraphy, in part due to its use in Fádin’s Lonsorigi, gains great popularity and is itself adapted into a script used for coal and stylus writing, the Lécaronian alphabet, the Empire’s most widely used writing system.