Kommesch
Kommesch was a language spoken in present-day central Dreibach during the reign of the empire of Komm, in the mid-to-late years of the Age of Anxiety.
It seems to have originated as a creole of simplified Dovrash, Gnomish, and the proto-Orokhimshe language Dru'uzh, used by refugees of the Dovrian Empire to communicate with other peoples nearby. The earliest texts recognizable as Kommesch are a set of prophecies written by the oldest known survivor of the Eight Plagues of Dovria, dated to roughly eighty years after the plagues' end.
The language was spoken by humans in the Lüdda River Valley for much of the middle of the Age of Anxiety. By the rise of the Komm Empire, it had become a unique, complex language. Syntax and grammar solidified over the years, and a writing system developed involving a 40-character alphabet (not counting the many double-glyph and triple-glyph combinations). The first halflings, as subjects of the far reaches of the Komm Empire, likely spoke Kommesch to some extent, though the modern Halfling language is more closely related to Ossirian and Low Achlyssian than Kommesch proper.
Formal use of Kommesch seems to have died out sometime in the latter half of the Nachtyears, when the despotic rulers of the Troinekratz Pact made writing a serious crime for their non-orokh subjects. By the time the scholarly traditions of the Age of Integrity-era fortress-towns of the Dovrian Plains started to recover surviving Kommesch texts from archaelogical sites, the script was unintelligible. The language remained a mystery until the dawn of the Age of Complexity, when the goddess Athena granted the Common tongue to all living people across the world. Linguistic breakthroughs of the following several decades revealed surprising similarities between Common and Kommesch, and a plausible working translation system was eventually derived.
Many old expressions and names are believed to have roots in Kommesch, from cultural traditions to geographical features. The Halfling roots "halben" or "halbenbefren," often denoting something traditional or relating to folk culture (such as the traditional dish Halbefrenbrodt), come from the word for halflings used by the humans of Komm (literally "half-sized friend"). Even the name Dreibach (used for the river system before the kingdom and the empire) is believed to be derived from the Kommesch idiom af aul bjan drei Bach, meaning "across the world" or "for a great distance" (literal translation: "on all three great rivers," referring to the river system that spans most of modern-day Dreibach).
It seems to have originated as a creole of simplified Dovrash, Gnomish, and the proto-Orokhimshe language Dru'uzh, used by refugees of the Dovrian Empire to communicate with other peoples nearby. The earliest texts recognizable as Kommesch are a set of prophecies written by the oldest known survivor of the Eight Plagues of Dovria, dated to roughly eighty years after the plagues' end.
The language was spoken by humans in the Lüdda River Valley for much of the middle of the Age of Anxiety. By the rise of the Komm Empire, it had become a unique, complex language. Syntax and grammar solidified over the years, and a writing system developed involving a 40-character alphabet (not counting the many double-glyph and triple-glyph combinations). The first halflings, as subjects of the far reaches of the Komm Empire, likely spoke Kommesch to some extent, though the modern Halfling language is more closely related to Ossirian and Low Achlyssian than Kommesch proper.
Formal use of Kommesch seems to have died out sometime in the latter half of the Nachtyears, when the despotic rulers of the Troinekratz Pact made writing a serious crime for their non-orokh subjects. By the time the scholarly traditions of the Age of Integrity-era fortress-towns of the Dovrian Plains started to recover surviving Kommesch texts from archaelogical sites, the script was unintelligible. The language remained a mystery until the dawn of the Age of Complexity, when the goddess Athena granted the Common tongue to all living people across the world. Linguistic breakthroughs of the following several decades revealed surprising similarities between Common and Kommesch, and a plausible working translation system was eventually derived.
Many old expressions and names are believed to have roots in Kommesch, from cultural traditions to geographical features. The Halfling roots "halben" or "halbenbefren," often denoting something traditional or relating to folk culture (such as the traditional dish Halbefrenbrodt), come from the word for halflings used by the humans of Komm (literally "half-sized friend"). Even the name Dreibach (used for the river system before the kingdom and the empire) is believed to be derived from the Kommesch idiom af aul bjan drei Bach, meaning "across the world" or "for a great distance" (literal translation: "on all three great rivers," referring to the river system that spans most of modern-day Dreibach).
Comments