The Planar Common tongue

[ripvanwormer]

(note that in the following essay, I'm making a lot of things up - I'm not attempting to stick to what is known in canon)

The issue here is Planar Common, the dominant language in the City of Doors and other human-dominated planewalker communities on the planes. Where did it come from?

The Planewalker's Handbook (page 101) said that Planar Common descends from the Prime Common tongue, brought to the planes by prime explorers. In fact, it says "the earliest planar settlers from the Prime," which suggests that this couldn't possibly be the modern Common Tongue of Toril or Oerth or Krynn. In fact, it probably couldn't even be a human language. However, the Planewalker's Handbook also says "it remains understandable even by the greenest primes," which suggests that it actually *is* the same Common spoken on prime worlds - at least, on one of them.

The question, then, is which Common tongue is the ancestor of Planar Common? There are, as it happens, several.

Torilian Common is descended from Thorass, which is a pidgin of Jhaamdathan, Jotun (the language of Torilian giants), and perhaps other influences. While there have been many Common-speaking planar explorers from Toril over the centuries thanks to that world's plentiful supply of planar portals, I'm unaware of any Common-speaking planar colonies dominant enough to force planewalkers in Sigil and elsewhere to know the language. If Sigilians ever sought to learn Torilian Common, it was solely to communicate with people from Toril. And Sigil, as we know, long precedes the advent of Torilian Common, or even the Empire of Jhaamdath whose language inspired it. Sigil is at least 10,000 years old, while Jhaamdath was founded around 7,000 years ago.

Common on Oerth is a relatively young language is a mixture of Suloise and Oeridian tongues combined with Ancient Baklunish to become an ideal language of trade. It is no older than the Great Kingdom of Aerdy, which was founded a little more than seven hundred years ago.

Still, Sigil and the planes have doubtless known many different "Planar Common" languages across the millennia.

Until 10,000 years ago, the nation of Azlant is thought to have been the very first civilized human nation, "uplifted" by aboleths so that those alien beings would have servitors among the dry realms. The Azlanti reached incredible magical heights and colonized a number of planes. It is said that pale reflections of their domain exist on hundreds of worlds, and examples of their architecture have been discovered on planes as diverse as the Plane of Water and the Abyss. Azlanti were a common sight in the City of Doors 10,000 years ago (especially as refugees from the Earthfall that destroyed their prime kingdom flooded the streets), and the archmage Shekelor was said to be among their number.

One of the greatest and longest-lasting of prime-based planar empires was Imaskar, which began its planar explorations beginning in around -8120 DR (9,490 years before the Faction War in Sigil) until the empire's fall in -2488 DR. In -4370 DR, a plague decimated much of the Imaskari Empire, suspected by some to have been sent by the Lady of Pain in retribution for Imaskari magic tampering with the City of Doors. At its height, Imaskar had colonies on countless worlds and planes, and it's not unreasonable to assume that their language made up the Planar Common of its day. Imaskar succeeded Azlant as the greatest mortal empire on the planes.

The next empire of note was Netheril, also from Toril, who explored the planes and ultimately colonized the Plane of Shadow via their city of Thultanthar circa -339 DR. Another Netherese city, Selunnara, is now in the Gates of the Moon in Ysgard. The Netherese began exploring the planes extensively during their Age of Discovery beginning in -1205 DR (2574 years before the Faction War). While Netherese planewalkers were a relatively common sight during this period, they did not construct any colonies of note until their gods moved the cities of Selunnara and Thultanthar into the planes just before the destruction of their land.

From around 3,000-2,000 years ago the Alphatians, natives of the doomed world of the same name, colonized a number of planes in the Great Wheel and elsewhere, and replaced Imaskar as the preeminent planar-aware empire in the Outer Planes. During roughly the same period, the dyoph armies of the Isles of Woe on Oerth conquered the City of Brass and thus began their centuries-long domination of inner planar travel. The Baklunish empire on Oerth warred with them for decades, their armies clashing only on other planes, but the doom of the Isles of Woe ultimately came from elsewhere. In the Deep Ethereal, the reclusive ethergaunts took exception to the probing of the Mage-Priests of Woe into their culture, and sent a terrible plague that only ended when the Isles of Woe was swallowed whole by the waters that surrounded it, and disappeared into the Ethereal and the ethergaunts' clutches. With their Isles of Woe nemesis out of the way, the Baklunish had less reason to travel the planes in numbers, and neither did their rivals the Suloise, and the colonies founded by both peoples slowly escaped their control. Still, the Suloise and Baklunish of Oerth remained a fairly strong planar force until the destruction of both their empires a millennium ago. For part of the following millennium, the Alphatian-descended Flaemish people were busy wandering the Outer Planes, traveling between planar communities and doubtless making their tongue commonly heard among planewalkers.

Having shifted from an Azlant-derived Planar Common to an Imaskari-derived one to a Netherese-derived one to a mingling of the tongues of the Isles of Woe, Alphatia, and the Suel and Baklunish, to a Flaemish patois heard in many planar burgs, the last 500 years have clearly seen one Prime Material civilization influence the planes more than any other, and that's the world of Ortho, from which the Harmonium hailed. Particularly in the last two centuries, the Harmonium have dominated not only their own world, but perhaps a dozen colony worlds, the gate-town of Fortitude, and the entire plane of Arcadia to the extent that their philosophy has changed the basic structure of the plane. Of course, they've also risen to become one of the 15 great factions of the City of Doors, which decides what will be the Planar Common tongue more than anywhere else.

It seems clear, then, that Planar Common currently owes more to the common tongue of Ortho than anywhere else. As long-lived as many planars are, it's certain that words from older tongues will still survive, but for the most part Ortho sets the standard, to the extent that "even the greenest prime" from the world of Ortho can get by on Sigil's streets.

(Some of the liberties I took include working Azlant, from the Pathfinder world of Golarion, into the history of the Great Wheel, inventing a planar war between the Isles of Woe, Baklunish, and Suel, and incorporating Mystaran planar history smoothly into Planescape)

[agathokles]

Since you are taking into account Mystaran history, it's worth noting that 5000 years before the present, the Alphatian world was already rather civilized (though the Alphatians themselves were warlike barbarian sorcerers, most likely), and the Blackmoor (Thonian) civilization was more or less at the "classical" level, with mages powerful enough to access the outer planes.

GP

[Chimpman]

This is great work rip!

I'm not sure about the distinction between Alphatian proper and Flaemish language. Essentially these are the same people with a differing magical emphasis (Followers of Air vs Followers of Fire). It's possible that after centuries of separation (after their home world is destroyed) the two tongues drifted apart enough to be called different languages, but I'd imagine that they could be very similar as well.

[Havard]

Since you are taking into account Mystaran history, it's worth noting that 5000 years before the present, the Alphatian world was already rather civilized (though the Alphatians themselves were warlike barbarian sorcerers, most likely), and the Blackmoor (Thonian) civilization was more or less at the "classical" level, with mages powerful enough to access the outer planes.

My vote is for Thonian to be the basis of Planar Common

Even Greyhawk fan works seem to suggest that the Arneson-Era Blackmoor was sometime in GH's past.


Havard

[agathokles]

This is great work rip!

I'm not sure about the distinction between Alphatian proper and Flaemish language. Essentially these are the same people with a differing magical emphasis (Followers of Air vs Followers of Fire). It's possible that after centuries of separation (after their home world is destroyed) the two tongues drifted apart enough to be called different languages, but I'd imagine that they could be very similar as well.

Not necessarily, though, as the Old Alphatian Empire was a multicultural, planet spanning civilization that could have easily included different ethnic groups retaining local languages totally unrelated to the Alphatian "common".

GP

[ripvanwormer]

It hadn't occurred me that Blackmoor might have had planar colonies (well, not Mystara's Blackmoor; Greyhawk's City of the Gods in Greyhawk's ancient Blackmoor has a canonical tie to Mechanus and the Fraternity of Order). I imagined them with extraplanetary colonies, but even knowing their "technology" was partly magical, for some reason I've never seen them as expanding much into the planes. But, of course, they might have.

There's actually a fairly good case for Alphatia as Planar Common. With possibly thousands of years of Old Alphatia colonizing the outer planes, then centuries of Flaems wandering around them keeping the language alive and useful, I can imagine the Harmonium just giving up and learning Alphatian, since everyone's already speaking it anyway. Alphatian has the advantage that it's still a living language spoken by thousands of powerful wizards who can travel the planes whenever they want. On the other hand, the colonies might have gone isolated and "native" and everyone might have forgotten Flaemish as soon as the Flaems disappeared, so it could go either way, especially with other magical civilizations as rivals.

I could also note the value of Greek in the Outer Planes, given the prominence of the Greek realms and pantheon, and the number of planes whose name derive from Greek.

There's also fourth edition's Bael Turath, the devil-allied empire with colonies in many worlds. Its language would probably have been pretty prominent, when the empire was extant (around 600 years ago).

[Big Mac]

Spelljammer gets the same problems with "Common" that Planescape does.

I remember seeing a debate about certain words in a campaign setting, once and someone pointed out that "Common" was not "English" and therefore people could not make assumptions based on the workings of the English language (because everything we were reading was "translated into English by the designers of the world").

If you run each campaign setting, as its own thing, you can give them all imaginary trade languages. It is really only the transitive settings that have to face this.

I've seen some people propose for Spelljammer, that people should understand the local languages when they travel to a new crystal sphere. I'm not sure I agree with this, but it would mean that anyone entering Krynnspace would automatically have their understanding of Common translated into the local Common.

And by the same logic, people who travelled onto individual planes, would also have their understanding of Common translated into a local Common.

I think that logic potentially falls down, because if you have a strong Greek influence on certain planes, I would expect Greek words to leak into that plane (as well as the culural values).

But I suppose that if (as a scientific thought experiment) you kidnapped a thousand real Greek people, brainwashed them into speaking Klingon and hypnotised them into thinking that they were speaking Greek, they could continue to have a Greek society that had a strong culture underpinned by what they believed to be the Greek language.

[ripvanwormer]

In Spelljammer, I'd follow the same principle as above and look to the powerful inter-sphere organizations to see which is the most likely to spread and maintain a common tongue popular enough to reach throughout the known spheres.

Possibilities include:

- The Temple of Ptah (Egyptian)
- The Celestians (Oerth Common)
- The Path and the Way (Kao te Shou)
- The Company of the Chalice (Gandorin Common)
- The Pragmatic Order of Thought (Oerth Common)
- The Elven Imperial Fleet (Elven)
- The Seekers (Compendium Common)

If it were to be decided that Compendium was originally colonized by the Seekers of the Arcane from Oerth, then there'd be a very good case for making Oerth's Common Tongue the trade language of the Known Spheres. Elven would be very useful to know, but elves tend to be a bit elitist and they don't like to mix their pure language with the mongrel words of spacefarers. In addition, you could get a nice Firefly vibe going if Kao te Shou curse words were ubiquitous in wildspace.