Span Tongue

When a single misunderstanding can incinerate your home and massacre thousands of your countrymen, you want to be sure you're clear on your idioms.

— -Ahnerik, Historian

Span Tongue was the common trade language of The Claiming. As empires rose, strengthened, and looked toward expansion, they needed one language to span all barriers.

A Dead Language

It has been thousands of years since anyone spoke Span Tongue as a language, and the devastation that has repeatedly swept Karos in the intervening time has ensured that any specifics of the language have died out too. What little is known is that the first empires developed the language as a means of trading, forming alliances, and averting wars. They traded in it, and what few written records of transactions and diplomacy between the empires exists is written in this language.

A Common Origin

The various races of Karos came into existence. They have nothing in common, and most will be only to happy to reinforce it. However, remnants of the original common tongue have survived the millennia to be spoken in shattered snippets by members of nearly all races. While they often cannot communicate in the languages of the modern era, these snippets provide at least a modicum of common ground.

Idioms

Several groupings of idioms exist in common. Below are a few of the most common:

Blessings

• Fela thu erthatum - "May you feel the world's pulse."
• A hope for growth and prosperity
• Na Grovan Wyldrli - "Don't Grow wildly."
• A desire for caution and contemplation before rash act
• Stenda thu a'tura haiga - "May your towers grow high."
• A call back to ancient empires - a blessing of strength

Curses

• Becuma mista - "Become as mist"
• A desire to see an enemy dissolved as ancients were often by runaway magic
• Thu Platalan - "Flatlander"
• An insult that intimates a lack of power (or virility)

Common in the Home

• Eta thu naiburai - "Eat your neighbor."
• Often said by parents as a way to convince children to do something in their best interest
• Donad dragun za - "A dragon did it."
• A sign of exasperation when no one will admit to having done something - often children (or paladins)