Languages of Golarion


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


So I have been working on developing some of the languages of the various regions of the setting to work into my games. I feel like this would give a little flavor - instead of saying, "The ancient wizard says something in Thassilonian", as a GM I could actually say something in...Thassilonian, whatever that may sound like. So far, I've gotten as far as breaking down the runes into letters and/or sounds, based on some of the names and words I do know.

Do any of you have any languages you have developed? I am thinking of doing ancient Osirian and Varisian next. I would probably base these on the actual ancient Egyptian and Roma languages, changing some words and sounds slightly. Skald could be based on Old Norse, Tian languages on Chinese/Japanese/Korean and so on. For languages that do not have an "earth-equivalent" I would have to be more creative. For fantasy races, there are obvious starting points. But for monstrous races...has anyone ever developed a kobold language, for instance? What does the dark folk tongue sound like? Giant?

I don't think I want to develop an entire grammar and dictionary, but a few phrases would be useful. Are there existing resources, or should I just read up on linguistics and start developing my own? A languages of Golarion phrase book would be a great player companion or campaign setting book.

EDIT: I have found some useful inspiration when I searched some older threads, but I'd like to know if anyone else has some different ideas.


There have been several threads on this if you dig a bit. It boils down to three camps.

1. Those who have no problem using real world languages in place of fictional ones and don't really care if they get it right so long as it sounds foreign

2. Those who want to make fictional languages and don't really care if it's nothing but a gloss of English.

3. Those who are fine with saying "X uses Y language to say Z" and feel if a language is to be explored it should be done properly with tons of effort to make a decent language with proper grammar, orthography, prosody, etc. etc.

You can guess which camp I'm in.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Lost Omens Campaign Setting / General Discussion / Languages of Golarion All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion