Eldraic

Eldraic, commonly called Elvish or Elven is the language of the Elves. It is one of the oldest languages still spoken in Astora, and is a favorite amongst arcane spellcasters. Its script is known as Tengwar.
 

Description

Eldraic is known for being fluid in tone, described as elegant and rich to those who hear it, and possesses a broad and varied vocabulary. These traits make it exceptional for ballads, poems, and other artistic expressions, with many practitioners of those arts preferring Eldraic as a medium regardless of their native tongue.
  Eldraic is also well suited for magical theory and practice, owing in part to the millennia of renowned arcane talent for which the Elves are famed. It is second only to Draconic for popularity as the language of choice for arcane writings, and is the greatest factor influencing the proliferation of the language beyond native speakers. While it lacks the legitimately supernatural power of Seldruin, the long dead ancient language of elven high magic, the general consensus is that it is often worth the investment of time to learn it for the benefit it provides in use.
  Eldraic has a limited vocabulary for technical topics such as industry, mechanics, or engineering, and is poorly suited for them.
 

Speakers

In spoken form, Eldraic is used almost exclusively by Elves. It has a broad usage in written form, however, and is the language of choice for many wizards, arcanists, bards, and other arcane spellcasters when conveying magical ideas into written form. This discrepancy leads to an odd case amongst the Astoran languages where a great deal more people are fluent in the written form of Eldraic than its spoken form.
 

Dialects

There are several different dialects of Eldraic, mostly divided along racial or geographical lines. Below are the most pronounced and prevalent of these dialects as they exist today.

• Ithil Eldraic: The most commonly encountered dialect outside of elven enclaves, Ithil Eldraic is the dialect of the Moon Elves. This dialect is faster flowing than other forms of Eldraic, and is often spoken in a quicker cadence, owing to the impulsiveness of its speakers. As it is spoken by those most frequently mingling with non-elves, there are a host of loanwords that have been borrowed from other languages to convey topics frequently encountered with other races that the elven tongue is otherwise ill-equipped to handle.
• Anar Eldraic: Anar Eldraic is the dialect of the Sun Elves. Their dialect remains closest to the original Eldraic spoken in the early ages of the elves, and conveys a propriety and haughtiness well fitting to their speakers. There are almost no outside influences within Anar Eldraic, with it lacking the presence of loanwords present in many of the other Eldraic dialects.
• Sylvan Eldraic: As reclusive as the Wood Elves that speak it is Sylvan Eldraic. It is often asked in jest that if one speaks Sylvan Eldraic and no trees are there to hear it, was anything actually said? While obvious hyperbole, it is indeed a rare occurance to hear its distinct dialect spoken outside of Wood Elf territory, and rarer still to hear it from a non-Sylvan Elf. Sylvan Eldraic has several loanwords from the Sylvan language itself (though not nearly so many as Fey Eldraic), and even a few suspected to originate from the secretive language of the druids.
• Fey Eldraic: One of the great debates of Elven linguistics is the argument between Fey and Anar Eldraic as the more representitive dialect of the original Eldraic. Fey Eldraic was adopted by those elves who chose to return to the Feywild after The Crown Wars, and scholars debate whether the branching dialect is a new form of Eldraic or a return to the original form before the Elves emmigrated to Astora. In either case, it falls behind only Alu Eldraic in its deviation from the rest of the Eldraic dialects, and borrows heavily from Sylvan.
• Avariel Eldraic: Avariel Eldraic is a nearly dead dialect of Eldraic, spoken only by those few Avariel Eladrin that are left outside the Feywild. It has a few loanwords from Auran, but is otherwise unaffected by outside influences, instead taking on its own affectations and idiosyncracies as a result of Avariels isolation from other Elves.
• Alu Eldraic: Spoken by the aquatic Alu Eldarin, this dialect of Eldraic is very nearly a language of its own, undergoing significant changes as it was adapted to use beneath the surface of Astora's seas. It has many loanwords from Aquan, and is the most difficult to comprehend of the Eldraic dialects relative to the rest of the language.
• Dorthanil Eldraic: Common to most of the elves of Tor Dorthanalin regardless of their lineage, Dorthanil Eldraic closely resembles Anar Eldraic, with a smattering of affectations and additions from Ithil and Sylvan Eldraic. While not spoken outside the isolationist nation, it is the most commonly encountered after Ithil Eldraic due to the sheer amount of trade that Tor Dorthanalin participates in with the Human nations of Astora. It is known to outsiders with an ear for elven dialects as Westerland Elvish.

 

Writing System

In its written form, Eldraic uses the Tengwar script.
 

History

Eldraic was brought to Astora with the Elves that speak it during the later years of the Era of the Dawn Powers. Whether it was branched off the Sylvan language, the Sylvan language branched off of it, or if both branched from a shared predecessor is a question lost to time, but it is clear that both have a shared origin of some sort.
  Little has changed in Eldraic since its introduction. There has been a branching into many different dialects, but only the Drow variant of Nimdraic has done so to the point of being recognized as a separate language. Seldruin, the elvish language of high magic, was likely a branch of Eldraic that became its own language, but knowledge of was lost shortly after the fall of the great elven kingdoms.
 

Special

Eldraic has such a depth of vocabulary and sentence structure relating to arcane magic that it is uniquely well suited to such topics. Those fluent in it swear by its purported ability to make both writing and reading arcane instructions, making it a popular second language for those practicing the arcane arts. Any arcane works written in Eldraic grant a +2 bonus to checks to itentify it or to learn a new spell from it (see Spellcraft and Learning New Spells, respectively). They also grant a +2 bonus to Use Magic Device checks to attempt to activate them.
  The lack of suitability of Eldraic for technical topics make it more difficult to work in these areas within the language. Any Knowledge (Architecture and engineering) checks made involving speaking, reading, or writing in Eldraic are made with a -2 penalty.