High Arumnic

“Inherited from the Holy Tongue of the First Empire. High Arumnichas become a powerful unifying force throughout the Covenantal Nations. Filtered through the scholastics of the Holy Church. Heard now from the icy shores of the Frostfangs to the tropics of the Shattered Seas, from East to West as far as the Holy Church may take it." - Ecclesiarch Sanwar Ashenbow   "A language of supreme pedigree, in much the same way as a proud wolfhound may be with great time and effort bred to become something short, dull, and stupid."

Philus Longshanks Sutor - Satirist

High Arumnic is the most commonly spoken language across Tenembria, and is the effective lingua francalanguage for all major races and cultures. Nearly every child born within the Covenantal Realms will learn to speak this language from childhood if not as their first language than as their second language. taught in schoolhouses, and major centres of learning across the continent. The language even grows beyond the borders of covenantal society, taught by missionaries and merchants as a means of communication with the savage tribes at the fringes of civilization.   High Arumnic is said by non-speakers to sound formal and halting, often derided as unpoetic and serious. However, all will admit to the better features of it. It is supremely simple to learn, its grammar and pronunciation rules are clear and easily learned and it's lexicon is intentionally kept free of excessive idioms and cultural expressions. It is said that with daily instruction a child can become conversational in Arumnic in a matter of days, and an adult in a few weeks.   It's script is likewise simple, with 6 vowels and 11 consonants (and a single diacritic semi-consonant 'h'). Easily learned and written with simple and logical shapes and patterns.   During the Golden Peace of the Old Empire, The native language of Arumnia came to be widely spoken commonly across Tenembria carried by its missionaries, merchants and its conquerors alike. However even in those days, many critiqued the utility of the language, in particular it's over complicated tense structure and tendency towards highly idiomatic expressions. Old Arumnic Runes too, descended from the Priest-King runic, were criticized as a script that relied too much on assumed pronunciation and had long ago drifted from properly referencing the sounds of words it spelled. All this and more led to Imperial Scholars in the latter half of the Golden Peace to begin the process of creating a new language that would serve greater utility as a language across the Covenantal Realm.   High Arumnic arose as an intentionally constructed language; one intentionally designed by the Covenantal Church to facilitate and simplify communication between the realms of the faith. It's development was formalized in the 863rd year of the Covenant, and began dissemination throughout the Empire shortly after, however it initially faced heavy resistance in adoption. Many would criticise the language as overly simplistic and analytical, the ease of learning notwithstanding many in the Imperial Bureaucracy felt it was unnecessary and the Imperial Household refused it any credence. This was in part a result of most folk within the Empire having come to adopt the transitional Middle Arumnic around this time, which was seen as a more natural devolution.   However in the aftermath of the The Great Scourge and the subsequent The Arumsfall , the collapse of Imperial political authority and rise of the Church's hegemony over the remaining Covenantal Realm saw a resurgence in support for a common language. This effort was compounded as the intelligibility and utility of Middle Arumnic began to erode away due to the increasing discord and influences of newly settled groups, by the time of the Fifth Scourge, Middle Arumnic had already evolved into the myriad of mostly intelligible "Low Arumnic " dialects, and High or Church Arumnic became increasingly favoured for communication between communities.