Stone's Throw

[Andreas Amell]

"That's not-- you export goods and resources. Not people. That's slavery," Andreas says firmly. "Or invasion and exile, if you're not getting paid for it, I guess."

[Charon Tethras]

"Export, Expatriate, same basic word. Identical in Necril."

[Andreas Amell]

"That... huh. That makes a sort of sense, I suppose." Andreas ponders that a moment as he takes a bit of steak. "Given the while dynamic between their views on living, corpses and undead.":

[Charon Tethras]

"Well, languages don't have viewpoints, per se, and the language has been fleshed out pretty well by living mortal necromancers," Charon hedges. "But it's true that Sweetwater has the most speakers in the region and we -- they -- often write laws that cover both living and dead bodies equally."

[Andreas Amell]

"Languages absolutely have viewpoints. They're the living expression of what the culture that speaks it is focusing on, what's important to them. They're a window into the mindset of the speakers, a..." Andreas trails off, blushing a little. "Err, sorry. Grandpa and Grandne are both, uh, really into languages. Like a lot."

[Charon Tethras]

"Sure, but the language itself has no viewpoint. The viewpoint of a Necril speaker in Sweetwater is going to be different than the viewpoint of a Necril speaker in Nyra."

[Andreas Amell]

"Actually, that's not entirely the case. Or rather, umm, how did ne explain this?" His voice trails off near the end, a distant look in his eyes. "I'm probably not going to get this entirely right but it's like... Okay, to start, most sages divide languages into three groups. The first is divine; not celestial or whatever, but the real speech of the divine. That's... really advanced stuff and not germane to this topic. The other two are mortal and magical. Mortals languages drift and change over time and by region, like you mentioned, but magical languages don't. Or rather, they do change-- well, aside from Nawatul, which is evidently so precise and expansive that you can express any concept, even new ones, by adding modifiers to already determined words or something? I don't know, I've never even considered learning that or Protean. Way too complex, seriously." He pauses a moment. "Where was I..?"

[Diligence]

"Something something magical languages don't change but actually do?" Dil offers. 

[Andreas Amell]

"Right, yes thank you! Magical languages change, but all at once. By which I mean, if vampires in Sweetwater adopt a new word for... I dunno, a new style of shirts or whatever, vampires everywhere will know it. Even ones in other Planes. Really neat, huh?"

[Charon Tethras]

"That's not so much a language thing as an extraplanar being thing. It only works on outsiders and undead and stuff."

[Andreas Amell]

"Right, it only works with magical sourced languages, for the native, innate speaks," Andreas confirms, nodding. "Of course, that leads to the question of whether one considers their innate knowledge to be the defining characteristic of the languages 'true' form."

[Charon Tethras]

"Mortals make most of these new words, so it's not like they have a newer scroll, they just keep amending their old one when new ones come out."

[Diligence]

"Wait, there are scrolls now?" Dil asks, not catching the jump to metaphor as he often does.

[Charon Tethras]

"Metaphorically," Charon lets him know. 

[Andreas Amell]

"I'm not sure I follow," Andreas admits.