#but thats pretty hard to replicate the only thing would be like long non exposure or containment to any UV lights/energy

[isaacathom]

fun commoners-speaking-elven facts, i guess :p

basically, northerners are the most likely to be competent at elven. they’re the most exposed to it in regular experience, especially in big cities and closer to he eastern border. most people know some small phrases, like Hello and How are You and Do you Speak Common, Please. the basic stuff. knowing some really specific phrases, like how to ask for price and names for certain materials is also common in most markets.

westerners have a lot lower of an exposure to elven on average, with non-city folk pretty much guaranteed to not know any or only the very basics, pronounced awkwardly. but they try hard. in the southern ports, which are the most likely to see elven traffic, many shop owners and merchants learn extremely basic elven to make the travellers ‘feel at home’. the elves find it really endearing, honestly. elven trade to the west is actually booming in part due to the generally well-intentioned demeanour of the citizens. also because theyre kinda running out of shit to do with the north, yknow?

southerners have a similar level of exposure to the north, perhaps less (but definitely more than the west) but they are renowned for being shit at it. you’lll get the basics and thats it. if you cant respond in even broken Common to ‘can you speak Common’ they arent gonna try to work with you. theyre just gonna shuff you off. seeya. theyre the most likely to just use the closest Common sound to an elven one, which iiiiissssnt ideal for most of those matches. 

n and ŋ, for instance, are two distinct phonemes in elven. common only has n. so for north and west, theyll often get.... enthusiastic in attempting to replicate a ŋ w/o practice, often resulting in a very elongated n sound. south will just use a regular n sound. which causes issues. south will substitute tʃ for  ʃ on its own (also bad call). for tl, south makes its best effort yet with a ‘til’ sound, but thats true of most common speakers.  ʒ is a sound that common doesnt have, so south substitutes for z. which elven also has. so, whoops. and so on. its great fun.

the biggest offenses are probably with vowels, because common only has five vowels and maybe like, two diphthongs (mostly in informal speech or quick contexts. careful speech does not have diphthongs, really, or smth). and elven Does. diphthongs and vowels for days. crazy. havent decided on all those yet but lets just say that southerners have a reputation for refusing to elongate vowels (since elven has vowel length contrast, this is a Big Issue) and for switching around how they pronounce the “additional vowels” based on context. its dumb.

ne thing western common does, actually, is it handles long vowels in a rhotic way. so instead of actually extended the vowel, they add an r to the end of it and create consonant clusters like rn and rng. and rtl, which is just, What the FUck is that. but since untrained common pronounces tl as a solo syllable til thing, thats not.... the worst it could be. a sort of rt.il scenario, which is fine since rt is a valid common cluster im p sure. yea. this is actually mostly ok, since r doesnt appear in the coda for elven, only in the onset, and it is still distinct from the short vowels. exceeeeeppt when a long vowel (a, for instance) is then followed by an onset r in a word, or even a sentence. westerners will often emphasise the r and itll come across. or if they recognize thats going be an issue, they will actually lengthen the vowel the ‘proper’ way. itll sound fucking weird, cause of their accents, but they try, god bless em.

diphthongs are a nightmare for all parties. generally northerners can sorta get it, but will resort to pronouncing the two components separately if they need to (and since elven always has an onset, this is basically ok for understandability). westerners will try sometimes but the two component method is very common. southerners will sometimes two component, but especially if it involves the “additional vowels” it devolves into a mess of elongated vowels and deliberate mispronunciation. its insane. an absolute nightmare.

the whole point of all of this is that warzen speaks elven as though he comes from a northern or even eastern background, despite also really obviously being a southern nobleman, and this confuses the Shit out of everyone. his speaking solid elven would be sort of weird even as a northerner, but the fact he’s southern nobility is just. ??? holy shit

#it would probably be more impressive if someone like Rien - who is western poverty outside city limits - spoke good elven #but Rien doesnt. Rien barely knows the basic phrases. If they had a reason to they would though #but if you met a poor westerner who spoke elven thatd be fucking Miraculous like thats some Insane Unbelievable shit #story blogging #cano fe yula #im almost there w/ the elven phonology. just getting the vowels and then gonna do a pass on consonants to see if i wanna add anything in #might have a look at spanish to add a lil extra stuff idk