God's Tongue

God’s Tongue refers not to the language of the gods themselves, but the language that was spoken on the golden continent in the ancient age before the God War, when gods walked the land side by side with mortals. By the end of this age, called Age of Harmony, different peoples of the Golden Continent had already begun to develop their own dialects, though traditional God’s Tongue was still spoken by the Hylians. When the Skyloftians returned to the surface, it was still their most commonly spoken language and their primary written language, and mostly unchanged, bringing a piece of the ancient world back with them when the other peoples of the surface had already fully evolved their tongues several times over. However, its use among the hylian clans greatly diminished over the following centuries, its decline then quite rapid compared to the stagnant retention of the language during the Age of Sky. By the time the new kingdom of Hyrule was established, the language was considered archaic. Before the Age of Prosperity was over, it was a dead language.

Most contemporary languages on the golden continent can trace at least some of their roots back to this one, and there are still many words spoken today which originate from God’s Tongue, such as the suffix ‘fos’, meaning ‘soldier’. Lizalfos, Dinalfos, and Stalfos are all examples of the suffix’s use. There is also the word ‘demon’, which not many would guess is a word directly from God’s Tongue, unchanged. A demon is understood to be a type of spirit, though in everyday use the word is typically applied to any sort of evildoer. The original exact definition of demon was ‘follower of Demise’. That is why, in the downfall timeline, the worship of Demise was referred to as Deminism, and members of The Church of Demise called ‘Demin’, ‘Deminian’, or ‘Deminial’.

God’s Tongue is still studied by scholars and, being the language most ancient religious texts are written in, which are preserved alongside their more accessible newer translations, maintains its place in the consciousness of modern peoples as the olden language of ancient philosophers and prophets. Depending on their level of education, the average denizen of the modern golden continent may know a phrase or few of God’s Tongue, typically in the form of lines of prayer, or age-old proverbs.