• The Immortal Tongue of Fairy: Spoken in the modern age by a vanishingly small number of individuals only the most ancient fairies who still venture into the Wood — this is the language of the most elevated denizens of the fairy realm. It is a language of such primal potency that its honeyed tones may be understood by all beings, mortal and immortal alike. No mortal may speak the undying tongue and those who attempt to study its treasury of words are beset by madness and misfortune.
• High Elfish: The language of the fairy nobility (the Cold Prince and his retinue, for example), a derivative of the immortal fairy tongue. The predilection of fairy nobles for the outlandishly baroque is reflected in their speech, which is regarded by human scholars as the most fiendishly complex language ever devised. Due to this intricacy, this tongue is, unlike its ancestor, in no way comprehensible by other beings. Even fairies of the lower castes find it impenetrable.
• Sylvan: The common speech of the fairies and fairy-kin of Dolmenwood, also a distant, debased form of the undying tongue. Learning this language is within the intellectual grasp of mortals, even though they invariably sound like fools when speaking it (to the endless amusement of its native
speakers).
• Caprice: The native tongue of the goat-folk of Dolmenwood: a crass
(almost bestial) language of bleats and gurgles which may be understood on a rudimentary level by mundane goats and sheep. Though it is of utterly different origin, caprice has come to share a small number of words with the sylvan language.
• High Caprice: A language evolved among the goatman aristocracy of the High Wold, encompassing greatly simplified elements of the High Elfish tongue and the more erudite components of low caprice. On balance, this tongue is of equivalent complexity and expressiveness to the languages of humans. A large canon of literature exists in this language, written at times in a reduced form of the High Elfish script and at times in the scripts of men.
• Ancient Drunic: The sacred tongue of the Drune folk who entered
Dolmenwood some 2,000 years ago. This esoteric language was, at that
time, already of great antiquity. It is now virtually a lost language, only found in the most secret and antique records of the Drune.
• Drunic: The direct descendant of the ancient Drunic tongue, this language and its intricate script are a closely guarded secret of the Drune. It is used for everyday communication among the Drune and also in ritual, scripture, and historical records.
• Liturgic: A language of entirely foreign extraction which is now widespread through the expansions of the Church of the One True God. Nonetheless, it remains a purely scriptural language and is seldom spoken outside of sermons.
• Old Woldish: The language of the folk who entered Dolmenwood and
founded the Kingdom (now Duchy) of Brackenwold. Although Old
Woldish is no longer spoken, its study is common among the well-
educated and an extensive body of historical texts exists, especially in the libraries of Castle Brackenwold.
• Woldish: This is the modern tongue spoken by most of Dolmenwood’s
inhabitants. Practically, it may be treated as a dialect of the Common tongue which is spoken in the wider world beyond the Wood.
