Selected Chapters

from
A study of the ancient and modern languages in Daleth
an unfinished manuscript by Master Ij’lan Zuchstaba

“Many treasures can be found
in the mists of timeless tales”

About Giantian and its influence on the Sudzi

The oldest known languages in Daleth is Giantian. What is left of this languages is written on stones. The language holds no connection to any other known old language. However, the old language of the Sudzi bears traces of Giantian.
The Giants took their language to Daleth as they arrived, and they took it with them as they left. The Sudzi have copied some elements of the language when they had contact with the Giants. As Tuggs became more important, Giantian was forgotten. Sudzi never wrote their languages, not the old Sudzian, nor the copied Giantian.

An older language for the Sudzi?

It is not known what kind of language the Sudzi had before they learned Giantian. No trace of it is left. Modern Sudzi do not know any ancient languages. Their names have no echo of older times. They interact with their ancestors in modern languages, claiming the communication is more important than the language which carries it.
It bothers me. How can a group of humans like the Sudzi loose their language in such a radical way? It occurred to me as if the Sudzi had never spoken to one another before they were forced to do so by the coming of an enemy, the Giants. At least, the Naglani never used a spoken language before their contacts with other people.

The old language of the Naglani

There are many facts to indicate a certain truth: the Naglani never had a spoken language before they learned Tuggs. They had a whistled language. They whistled to each other to communicate. They still do so, in the night and as a secret language.
The whistles are not as complicated as words. To interact in a modern world, the Naglani have to use Tuggs (or another language). The whistled words are single words with only one kind of sound in a range of pitches. Sequence of pitch dictates the meaning of the word.
Naglani have never told me what the whistles meant. Not even when I asked them so. They hold their language just as secret as their night life. Like they belong to each other, the whistles in the night.

How the Naglani learned Tuggs

In the early days of Daleth and the first communities of Naglani and Sudzi in Daleth, the Portal was opened and a Poorterian people -now long forgotten in name and nature- arrived in Daleth. They spoke a strange language, and brought with them a highly developed culture.
In their contacts with these first Poorters, the Naglani and Sudzi soon learned their language, which they called Tuggs. This must have been difficult, for Tuggs is not the easiest language to learn.
But the newcomers disappeared and left the Naglani and the Sudzi to communicate in Tuggs. Only some songs and sagas have survived the ages about the strange Poorterian folk, but their languages has survived to this day.
The oldest songs of the Naglani are in “Old Tuggs”, a language that is clearly the language of a people who do not fully understand grammar and vocabulary of a new language they just learned.

Outnumbered by Poorterian

As the Portal opened more and more in the beginning of the Dark Ages, more and more Poorters came to Daleth and set up a civilisation. It was in these times that the Naglani left large parts of Daleth and isolated themselves in more remote parts as the Taycha and Skaunsric.
But as trade developed, the Naglani learned Poorterian as they where outnumbered by the newcomers. In contacts with the Sudzi, Tuggs became less important. The Sudzi had better contacts with the Poorters and learned their language much quicker.
During the isolation, the Tuggs of the Taycha and Skaunsric were separated and developed dialects.

The rise of Tuggs as the Language of Science

In more recent years, Tuggs became the language of science as they needed a language to describe the new devices. It was also necessary that a kind of secret language was used in science - common people were not to learn the disturbing things that they would not understand with their simple minds. All universities teach Tuggs, but the best is the University of Ciniz. In Ildritz a “scientific” dialect of Tuggs has been developed to learn the language quicker.
Many scientists do not know enough Tuggs to have small talk in that language with a Naglani. And Naglani in university claim to have to learn a complete new language.