I hope to kick off the sharing of some of these words with three of the most commonly used in Tiaera. As many of you who have read Realmwalkers and other writings in the past, I like using words that are considered
archaic - meaning that they are very old and rarely ever used anymore. When I began writing fantasy fiction years ago, I learned that English or Old English became known as
Common in Middle Earth and D&D worlds
. This makes it possible for various races and peoples to be able to communicate. Universal Communicators were not yet invented like the ones used in Star Trek. So aside from the elves speaking their elvish and the dwarves speak their dwarvish, etc... almost all in such fantasy worlds grew up to speak some Common (or universal language). Those of you who enjoy writing historical fiction/non-fiction might find these archaic word posts useful in order to give that
Old World feel to your stories. I welcome any comments from you.
According to a WOW wikia: "Common is derived from the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. In that game, the Common
tongue is a lingua franca, or a universal language, spoken natively by
humans and bilingually by other races. The concept is derived from
Westron, the "common tongue" of Tolkien's Middle Earth, hence the name.
It is the language of humans, halflings, half-elves, and half-orcs . The Common tongue also has great hints of the Icelandic tongue."
When John and I began RPing and writing stories, I started doing more research about archaic words and I find them very fascinating. I recognized many words from the King James Bible. But I wanted Realmwalkers to be easy to read while incorporating words that the Tiaerans spoke whenever they used Common. I tried to use words that were used before the 15th century, the earlier the better. I usually checked such words with the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
So here are few words to start us out today.
Afore = Before
chiefly dialect
Middle English, from Old English
onforan, from
on +
foran before — more at
before
First Known Use: before 12th century
Aught = Anything, all, everything, at all
Middle English, from Old English
āwiht, from
ā ever +
wiht creature, thing — more at
aye,
wight
First Known Use: before 12th century
Beseech = To beg earnestly, to implore
Middle English
besechen, from
be- +
sechen to seek
First Known Use: 12th century
