Languages in the world of Deltora

Adin knew that he was the one who must fill the medallions in the belt. Languages in the world of Deltora is in need of more information! Languages in the world of Deltora is lacking Better formatting, better exploration of different languages in the Languages section instead of grouping by nations

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Languages in the world of Deltora
General information
Type Languages, both written, spoken, symbolic and more
Examples Common tongue Swamp dwellers' language Suli's language Dorne language Other languages

Language is the main means of communication in the world of Deltora, existing both in spoken and written form. There is a common language that a large amount of the people of the world seems to share and/or know, although other languages, and dialects, exist as well, such as the swamp dwellers' language in Two Moons or the foreign tongue of the Illican tailor Suli.

Languages

Deltora

Deltorans write in and speak the common tongue. However a lot of uniquely non-English words are used for various creatures, including muddlet.

Maris

The vast people of the island of Maris speaks and write mainly in the common tongue. However, the fish-like people of the town of Maris have several uniquely non-English words for certain things, such as odi or kirrian (worm). Furthermore, the odi hairclips that the Maris make and use as love and marriage tokens, have patterns in them that mean specific things, such as Maarie's odi hairclip which has the pattern for "forever."

Dorne

The vast majority of the people of Dorne speak and write in the common tongue, however the Fellan seems to have developed their own language before the arrival of humans on the isle. The only word of the language with a known meaning is keelin, which means "young dragon". It is however curious to note that the majority of the names used by the Fellan, and even the name of their people, have an -n ending usually in the form of an -an or -en, and in the case of keelin -in. Names seemingly following this convention are fellan, keelin, kirwan, eldannen, oltan, alenan, and, if the rule is stretched a bit, malverlain.

Oltan is possibly an outlier, as it was used for Dorne's capital city (previously Nerra, now New Nerra) a thousand years ago, at a time when it was predominantly human town, however at the time it was still a little more common to see Fellan and more commonly part-Fellan people in it than it is now. It was only seven years into Annoltis or Olt's rule that most of the Fellan left with Eldannen, Olt's brother, to found the city of Weld at Dorne's centre. It is however curious to note that Annoltis, like Eldannen, is part-Fellan.

Petronelle, a half-Fellan, was also the person to name Rye keelin, and was the person who told him the meaning of the word.

It is possible that these clues point towards a Fellan language, but it is unknown.

Trivia

• The common tongue of the world is presented as English in the story, although canonically it cannot be considered English as the world of Deltora is not our own and England does not exist in it. It is simply an identical language which happens to have developed in the world of Deltora. How is unknown. How any words or names are derived in the world of Deltora is not very well known. There are examples of words derived by Rodda from real world languages that the people in the world of Deltora know means or is derived from those words, such as the name Verity which is derived out-of-universe from Latin veritas, meaning "truth", however even though Latin does not exist in the world of Deltora Barda knows that it means "truth." This is an example of Rodda inserting a real world language into the world, similar to how she made the common tongue of the world English. Theories as to how this can be are:

1. A Latin-like language in the world of Deltora exists in the same manner English does.
2. Latin itself exist in the world of Deltora in the same manner English does.
3. It is a coincidence and a few words derived from other languages by Rodda simply happen to mean and/or sound the same as the real world counterparts.
4. It is also possible that the common language of the world is not English but simply translated into English for the audience's sake.

Another example of this happening is the word ak-baba, which is used in foreign islands for huge vulture-like birds, as well as for the mutated versions of said birds, the monstrous Ak-Baba that serve the Shadow Lord. Ak-baba is derived from akbaba, the Turkish word for "vulture." Josef the palace librarian also calls the Ak-Baba "vulturelike" in The Deltora Book of Monsters, and as such it can be deduced that the common language also includes the English word for "vulture".