Orcish Languages

The orcs of the southwestern corner of Aketi began as nomads who were made up of small tribes. Some of them were more mobile than others, following herds of grazing creatures across the wideranging plains, while others chose to settle in the western mountains or in the damp forests near the coast. As time went by, they interacted with each other now and then, but formed their own collections of local cultures. Orc tribes in the mountains felt a kinship with other mountain tribes, and so it went for tribes in other regions. A number of dialects grew over time from the mother tongue they had all originally shared as the the populations spread, grew, and spent less time interacting with the other cultural groups.   While most individual tribes still had their differences from others in the region, all tribes of a region eventually sounded distinctly similar compared to other groups. Though the core tongue was similar between them all, there was so much morphology in the pronunciation and context and pattern of speech that it could be quite difficult for two orcs from tribes separated by a vast distance to communicate any sort of nuanced concept. Had the tribes continued to keep to their own regional groups, it was possible that each dialect would have with a little more time been recognized as its own distinct language.   After the years of conflict when the various cultural groups were more or less gathered together into one empire, the dialects of the tribes who had borne the worst of the fighting - or the tribes who had the least status in the eyes of the victors - slowly grew out of fashion and fell by the wayside. Smaller towns and especially those on the fringes kept their dialects alive, but the main dialects of the empire were those used by the most powerful group of tribes - the Mardeach.   Síochar was the dialect spoken by the Mardeach, who hailed from the arid areas near the eastern side of the plains, and was generally used by officials and in major cities - and therefore in trade. Most outsiders or those who only visited Laidír often mistakenly assumed that there was only one orcish language. Laidír's leading class preferred it that way and encouraged the idea of Síochar being the only true tongue of Laidír, but that impression could not be further from the truth.   Another notable dialect is that of Dóchagh, which was used by another group of plains tribes known as the Ceachtaka. However, they had been a fierce enemy of the Mardeach whom eventually become the Laidír leading class, and upon their subjugation the Ceachtaka were given the rank of serving class. Their dialect became looked down upon as 'the coarse speech of a servant' and was frowned upon in the polite company of the higher eschalons. After a series of uprisings, the Ceachtaka finally won a higher social standing, and in the present day those descended from the Ceachtaka are not considered to be a subservient class. Their long history with the Mardeach still leads to tensions however, and Dóchagh, while relatively widespread, is still not used by Laidír's ruling class.    

Table of Laidír Dialects

   

Dialect Name	Cultural Group	Where the Culture Lived	What it Sounds Like
Síochar	Mardeach	Dangerous arid area east of the plains	sharp, attentive
Dóchagh	Ceachtaka	Abundant area in the center plains	smooth, rolling
Chiúanr	Liunerr	Farming land in the southwest plains	trilled, hearty
Slíabemh	Forois/Crannr	Spread across the western mountains	extended, repetitive
Breachoil	Seaolie	Scattered in the wet southern forests	round, warm