I know Katapesh is supposed to be a very cosmopolitan place where all cultures collide (and trade). Still, I wonder if there's supposed to be a lingua franca, used for most of the trading, in the city and the surrounding hinterlands. I initially thought it was Osiriani but the old campaign setting lists the Kelish language first. I guess it could also be Common/Taldane. Personally, I think the such a nation, at the crossroads of many cultures, should have its own bastard language made up of the mix of many others, much like the real world Zanzibar is supposed to have given birth to Swahili.
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I know Katapesh is supposed to be a very cosmopolitan place where all cultures collide (and trade). Still, I wonder if there's supposed to be a lingua franca, used for most of the trading, in the city and the surrounding hinterlands. I initially thought it was Osiriani but the old campaign setting lists the Kelish language first. I guess it could also be Common/Taldane. Personally, I think the such a nation, at the crossroads of many cultures, should have its own bastard language made up of the mix of many others, much like the real world Zanzibar is supposed to have given birth to Swahili.
I like that idea! But I think the language of the leading traders would be mainly Kelish because the rebuilding of Katapesh ocurred during the Keleshite occupation of Osirion, and because Katapesh's main trading partner is Qadira. The language of the common people would be more of a mix of Kelish and Osiriani, with some Taldan and Vudrani loan words. People in outlying regions and along the southern border with Nex would speak the Nexian dialect of Osiriani* with fewer Kelish words mixed in.
*I think that Nex would use Osirion as the base of its langauge, but have extensively modified it based on Nex's own independent history, such that an Osirion visiting Nex would have a hard time understanding anyone "because of their thick accents".