Okay, I mentioned shit about ‘official’ languages, so let’s do a little poking. A bit of history, a bit of basic info, few names because I’m lazy.
Okay, to understand Imperial Osmosian- the most common Osmosian language by several miles and the one that’s programmed into universal translators- you need to know the circumstances in which it came around.
I’ve mentioned The Hunting before. This is the Osmosian name for the multi-millenia period following the greater galaxy discovering Osmosians and Osmos V existed. Between their powers and the vast amount of metals and precious stones available on the planet, it went very very poorly for them. Like ‘capture what you can, kill what you can’t, dig out the dens, salt the earth’ levels. It was a very long period, a very difficult period, for most of which the majority of Osmosians lived in slavery and the majority of those who didn’t lived a life of fighting to maintain their own safety and freedom. A lot of shit went on, from slave revolts, to planets and systems declaring the enslavement of Osmosians enslavement and illegal, to mining operations on Osmos V getting destroyed, and so on and so forth. But the real meat of why Imperial Osmosian exists and in the form it does came from the cultural genocide amongst enslaved Osmosians.
By the beginning of the final war, the vast vast majority of enslaved Osmosians could not have told you anything about their history, their species, their ancestral cultures. It’s a downside of being a species that primarily lays eggs and can technically be raised from hatching to toddling with a heat lamp, a pile of rocks and metals, a dish of water, and the occasional slice of liver laid over their back. The typical way slavers handled their breeding was to knock out the dam, take the eggs, put the dam back to whatever they were using them for, and rear the chicks like factory farms rear turkeys. Most escaped slaves had never seen an adult Osmosian before their escape, and most had never seen another Osmosian at all after their teens. This is part of why The Hunting lasted so long, not only were the Osmosians incredibly outnumbered by enemies with often superior tech, but it was difficult for escaped slaves to organize en masse. The final war was the one where they finally managed it on the scale they needed while getting access to and figuring out the tech they needed to succeed.
Which finally brings us to the language thing. Originally the various Osmosian forces were working independently, though as they got in touch with each other they started forming a web of alliances as it were. It was inevitable that this web would eventually extend out to Osmos V and the largest rebelling force on the planet. Now until this point the Osmosian forces had been relying universal translators and Galactic Standard to communicate- most only spoke the languages of their captors or the regions in which they’d found refuge, and overlap wasn’t great- and this had been vexing the people in charge. They’d wanted something to help unify the lot, and a way to communicate that wouldn’t be picked up on by literally everybody they were fighting. Getting in touch with the homeworld offered a solution, this new addition spoke a surviving Osmosian language, one that wasn’t in translators due to the ongoing bigotry around them. Future-Emperor Stagoff, the head and face of the whole war, quickly saw the value of this. Something to help everyone reconnect with their lost history, something to unite them, something their enemies wouldn’t understand messages in. Quickly it was ordered that all Osmosians involved in the war effort learn this language, as well as all children, and they did.
The language spread among the Osmosian forces, and since the number of Osmosians off of Osmos V- therefore learning the language- dwarfed the number still on the homeworld by orders of magnitude, when the war was over and the Empire so named, Osmos V returned to, it was the most common language in the Empire. But it wasn’t the same as the language it had started as. As said before, everybody was coming in from different worlds and different languages and so the one that was returned to Osmos V had so many fucking loan words in it. The ‘official’ language didn’t, the one you used for work, but in day to day life, people continued to use a lot of words they’d grown up using. Because of their wide usage and how they spread, when the language of the Empire was being codified to go into translators, these words were included as they were the way the species was speaking.
Over the more than 2000 years since the language has evolved and changed, the loan words have shifted and altered to fit in better, the base language has evolved with time as languages do, but at it’s heart Imperial Osmosian remains the same- a melting pot of languages emulsified with the unifying history of the species. Most Osmosians speak at least a little Imperial, as most Osmosian shit is in it and if you want to watch a movie or something, well. Still, if you’re outside the Empire it’s probably best to default to the local language, as most Osmosians there will probably speak and understand it better anyway.
Imperial Erinaen [’Traveler Talk’]
Like with the Imperial Osmosian, to understand why Imperial Erinaen is the way it is requires you to know a bit of history.
Carit are amazing creatures theorized to be from an entirely different dimension. They’re primarily organic shapeshifters with a degree of teleportation ability who form loose psychic bonds. They have a base form and a larger form, the second of which is not only capable of flight- even interstellar flight- but also contains a hollow area which can be used to hold cargo or riders. There’s more to them, but this is the base information you need to know about these domestic animals that are by far the most widespread and culturally significant on Eri. You need to know these things to understand a key fact.
Erinaens had high speed travel before they had written language. They had high speed global travel and trade ages before they made first contact. They had a very low tech level as determined by the greater galaxy, but they’d already been up close to their moon. First contact was literally made by a teenager who got their hands on one of the large trade carit and decided to see just how far from Eri they could go, all but crashing into an alien vessel that hadn’t even known Eri existed nonetheless that there were people there.
Nowadays a mid-sized carit can take you around the circumference of Eri in a leisurely few hours. Going to a new continent is like going into town. Not as accessible due to having to, you know, have the specific carit (most families don’t, household carit are fine enough for them but don’t get large enough for passengers) but still an incredibly common occurrence and it’s not difficult to get a ride. The result of this is that Erinaens essentially evolved alongside globalization. Different colonies are still distinct from those distant from them, but there’s always been a lot of cultural interchange from literally everywhere, leading the place to seem more like a unified species than they actually are.
Which leads us to language. There’s a few important things here- 1) The Erinaens have been, from damn near the start, dedicated to presenting a unified front. They aren’t a unified species as it’s generally known, but they go out of their way to present as one to the greater galaxy, mostly as a safety matter. 2) When they were accepted as a distinct people, languages were requested for use in universal translators, and they of course wanted to present themselves as unified, see above. 3) They already sort of had a language for that.
You’ll note the designation of ‘Traveler Talk’ up there at the start of this section, that’s the proper name. Individuals who did a lot of traveling ended up picking up bits and pieces from a wide variety of Erinaen languages, and eventually a sort’ve pidgin language was formed among traders and travelers on Eri, combining bits and pieces from around the planet. When asked for a language, this is what the Erinaens turned to. The language was taken, adjustments were made, and it was codified as the ‘official’ Erinaen language. As with all languages it’s evolved in the millennia since, gaining a lot of loan words from primarily the Osmosian Empire to fill in gaps where the Erinaens just didn’t have a concept.
Nowadays you can generally expect most Erinaens to speak enough, though it’s more common in more tourist heavy areas. Most Erinaens in Erinaen territory speak primarily in their own distinct home tongue, sometimes with Imperial Osmosian as a second language, sometimes with Imperial Erinaen as a second language. Most Erinaens you meet outside their territory will speak Imperial Erinaen to some degree or other, but again, generally good to default to the local language. If they don’t speak it well enough, trust they will let you know.
The situation on Ha’n is a tale as old as time. Motherfuckers A gain power. They decide that having that power means they can run roughshod over Fuckers Just Making Do B. Everything goes to fuck for everyone who is not Motherfuckers A.
The good news is, Perison women aren’t prone to overseas travel, and Perison men aren’t prone to conquering territory, so these things were typically restricted by continent.
The bad news is, industrialization caused so many problems.
It goes like this: Group A, who may or may not have already been a big name, has the resources/trade access to get together the best possible tech in their region. Group A proceeds to use this to take over as much of their continent as possible. Even when Group A eventually collapses under their own weight, the impact of their rule remains for a damn long time.
Now, as with all species prone to warfare, Ha’n had been through a load of these cycles. The problem, was that industrialization made keeping a grip that much easier, things more violent, places had whole capitalism bubbles, and by the end of the last period of ‘fuck, everybody grab as much as they can’ you had nearly entire continents having spent ages under singular rule, with dominant languages being forced on fuckers. Which they still could’ve recovered from, but First Contact came not too long after and with it a drive for the whole of the planet to make alliances with each other and present a unified force. These languages that had been forced on large swatches became an easy way to maintain consistent contact, and having a singular language from each region meant less work for fuckers trying to work together in what became a single unified government.
Nowadays, Ha’n has plenty of minor, local languages, but pretty much everybody learns the major language of their region. If you visit Ha’n, know what continent you’re going to and that’ll tell you what language to go for. When dealing with Perison offworld it’s harder to tell and generally best to go with the local language or Galactic Standard, which most Perison who leave their homeworld learn.
Major Languages of Hasiel [’The Trader Calls’]
Hasiel is a planet with a kajillion languages, or at least a kajillion dialects.
The major languages of Hasiel, the languages that ended up in universal translators, are the languages of the coasts. They’re trade tongues, hence the ‘proper’ name of ‘Trader Calls’. Essentially, whichever river system had their trade expand furthest up and down their coast? Their trade partners picked up the language for use in trading over sea. There wasn’t really any trade across seas and oceans, because Lenopan biology makes traversing open water like that incredibly dangerous, you generally didn’t get many people reaching the other side.
As a result of this, there’s actually a lot of ‘major’ Lenopan languages. They followed the coast down until they either reached a point it wasn’t worth going past or they bumped up against more influential traders, and their languages spread accordingly. The languages didn’t tend to spread far upriver though- all things move harder upriver- and so these languages were generally left as secondary or tertiary languages of coastal regions, The river systems and their nearby water bodies all have their own languages, though the dialects seem to change with every fork, and these languages are rarely if ever known off of Hasiel itself.
Visitors are advised to stick to coastal regions, as communication gets harder the further inland and upriver you go. What language you’ll run into will vary wildly, but a universal translator should be able to handle things for you no matter which of these languages you come across. When dealing with Lenopan off of Hasiel, it’s recommenced that you default to the local language, as the odds of any language from Hasiel you choose being one they speak is very low.
Anodites don’t have a verbal language. Yeah when everybody kept going ‘but no where are you from’ they pointed at a planet to shut them up, but they’re a deep-space species and sound does not travel well. Instead Anodine is a language of light and color. Imagine if cuttlefish could glow and knew morse code, that sort of deal. By altering their own brightness and changing their colors Anodites can communicate with each other over vast distances- which is part of why, despite being a social species, they constantly seem to be alone. For an Anodite somebody speaking to them from the moon is about the same as somebody speaking to you from across the livingroom. As a result conversations in Anodine tend to be far slower than verbal languages on a planet, but the fuckers live for an eternity and a half so having to wait a few hours for a response doesn’t really bother them.
It’s advised that you don’t try to speak to an Anodite in Anodine if you meet them, if nothing else because unless you are one of a very few species you won’t be able to. Anodites as a rule don’t bother trying to communicate with non-Anodites in Anodine anyway, and with how old they can be most know at least one other language in which they can converse with you. Keeping a universal translator handy is suggested, as there’s no guarantee the language they speak is one you do.
Please picture that we had to suddenly abandon Earth. Most of humanity didn’t make it, it’s a ragtag load of people all fighting over what we should do next, and having a really hard time of it because nobody understands each other. This fucker only speak Swahili, this fucker only speaks Vietnamese, this fucker only speaks French, and so on. Eventually, a leader arises from the chaos, gets everything under control, and declares that she is going to solve this language crisis.
Everybody’s learning Latin.
This is kinda what happened to the Incurseans. Everything went to fuck, not even a downward spiral so much as a plummet, and out of the resulting chaos came the head of the first Great Incursean Empire, now known simply as the Incursean Empire except on official paperwork. Emperor Joia did a lot of good things, she kept her people together, she ended the panics, she made sure everyone was fed and taken care of (by leading raids on other planets- really they were more a pirate fleet than an Empire at this point but don’t tell them that), but she also decided that everybody was going to follow her religion. And that religion came with a traditional language, like Catholics working in Latin. So she made her religion the official state one and to ensure there wasn’t any ‘oh no we’re totally going with this we promise’ shenanigans instated the attached language as the official state one. You could not speak anything else in public, which certainly helped with people learning the religion because for a while most people didn’t know the language enough to speak freely and had to talk in fucking scripture.
It’s been a long time since then, the dynasty has changed many many times. There have been five different state religions. But the language has actually managed to stick around. The name hasn’t though, due to a period where the state language was completely shifted to something entirely different. Unfortunately for the Emperor who made the change they didn’t manage to wipe out the language that came prior and so after a few generations it just got reinstated since everybody was still using it anyway. Chose a period of otherwise relative leniency so, bad timing. But the original name itself was lost in the shuffle, so now it’s just known as Incursean, after the Empire.
Every individual of the Empire speaks Incursean. On their held planets you’ll find pockets keeping native languages alive, but even then Incursean is the Official Language. On the other hand, few people outside the Incursean Empire speak Incursean. Generally only those who do regular work with them, typically from their trading partners. Still, if you meet an Incursean outside of the Empire and imperial matters, it’s best not to try to speak to them in Incursean. There’s actually thriving populations of Incurseans who have no affiliation with the Empire, despite the stereotype, and as a general rule they won’t speak Incursean. If they somehow speak any ancestral language of theirs, it’s more often from before the destruction of their homeworld, and often in things like folksongs and little household rhymes.
It will shock nobody to know that Khoros has a singular dominant language because it once was ruled by a singular dominant force. I know, Tetramand, conquering people, who’d have thunk?
Once upon a time there was a lordling with great ambitions. Cruel ambitions. This lordling proceeded to conquer the entire damn planet over the course of many, many years. Lordling’s descendants kept hold of their rule for several generations, forcing things like singular religion and singular language and a ridiculous level of taxation, that sort of ‘evil dictator for eternity’ sort of shit. Rebellions and civil wars were regular occurrences. Constant occurrences. They started overlapping. They started getting nesting dolls of rebellions within rebellions within civil wars. Nothing and nowhere was safe. It was chaos of the highest order.
The Incurseans were watching with their equivalent to popcorn to see the planet made uninhabitable by their own actions. It almost happened!
Khoros was ravaged by the wars, full ‘Mad Max’-brand wasteland apocalypse situation. It took many generations to build back up to where they are now, a number of kingdoms of various size trading territory back and forth in still endless warfare, of which the most powerful and most expansive is the Red Wind kingdom.
And somehow, though all of that, the language maintained.
Everyone was starting from the same point, is the thing. So while the language changed from region to region, with no other languages to mix with it it more became different dialects of the same language than it split into more languages. So, rather than fully replace the original language that was already in translators, what was there was altered to better fit the most common changes over time. Khoron is still the most common and ‘official’ language on Khoros.
As a result of that, every individual you meet on Khoros who speaks will speak Khoron. It may be a dialect, but it will be Khoron and more or less understandable. Tetramand you meet off Khoros will also probably know at least some Khoron, though how much will vary. Still, in this case you probably aren’t going to go wrong making an attempt.
