The peoples of Aetherial do not merely speak differently; each tongue encodes what its people believe a word is. The dwarves cut, the elves break, the Tierfolk bind, the Kirijimans fuse, and the demons consume. Each tongue is partly defined by what the others cannot say, and in every one of them speech and magic are the same act seen from two sides.
| Tongue | People | Sacred act | Magic lives in | Seam mark | Word order |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Durûm | Dwarves (the Khazak) | the cut (permanence) | the sealed carving | hyphen: two stones set side by side | Subject, Object, Verb |
| Sael'aurin | Elves (the Aelduin) | the break (grief) | the clean-broken light | apostrophe: where one light sundered | Verb, Subject, Object |
| Vox Caravela | Tierfolk Confederacy | the binding (chorus) | the bound living voice | none: the road needs no break | Subject, Verb, Object |
| Kensai | Kirijima | the fusion (layering) | the true seam of two layers | the silver thread over the brush-stroke | Subject, Object, Verb |
| Khaurzhûl | Demons | the taking (consumption) | the void answering the drone | no boundary at all | (no fixed order; meaning by erosion) |
| Common (Imperial-Trade) | Humans, trade | none | none | spaces | loose |
Every working tongue has a grammatical "eternal" form that claims a working holds, and every one forbids using it casually:
| Tongue | Eternal form | It claims | Failure state |
|---|---|---|---|
| Durûm | -ûr (cut-eternal) | this will last | toth-hungry: a sealed working whose debtor is gone |
| Sael'aurin | -aen (vael-eternal) | this light broke true | morn-aurin: a guttered song bleeding grey |
| Vox Caravela | vela (said-and-bound) | this oath is held by the line | the chorus falls silent; nothing lingers |
| Kensai | -sae (light let through) | the two layers fell true | zure: the seam slips and the working tears |
| Khaurzhûl | the sinking under-drone | the void is opening | the broken drone; a mortal's droneless top line |
Dwarven magic is debt: only as safe as its debtor. Elven magic is grief: only as true as its mourning. Tierfolk magic is consent in the moment: only alive while the chorus sings. Kirijiman magic is seam-truth: only as safe as the fusion holds. Demonic speech simply takes, with no ritual and no consent.
Each tongue has a form for the person who has lost their anchor. Side by side they are one wound in five vocabularies:
| Tongue | Form | Literal |
|---|---|---|
| Durûm | ka-toth | I, anchored to nothing (a dead carving) |
| Sael'aurin | ae-morn | I, gone dark (a fallen star) |
| Kensai | ware-morn | the grave self, gone dark (body and light fallen together) |
| Vox Caravela | (a line cut from the chorus) | no settled form yet |
| Tongue | Base | Holy count | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Durûm | twelve | three (thrî), the oath-count | the one who swears, the one who hears, the stone that keeps it |
| Sael'aurin | seven | seven (aurin), the full spectrum; three (lira) is sorrow | for the dwarf three binds, for the elf three grieves |
| Kensai | ten (mortal layer), seven (sacred layer) | seven for prayer, three (san) for grief | paper cranes: seven means a prayer, three means a death |
| Original | Durûm | Sael'aurin | Kensai |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ana | An-thrî (dressed with respect; An alone means "one") | Ana (already perfect to the elven ear) | |
| Khazak (dwarves) | khazak | Sathae (a softening the dwarves hear as mockery) | |
| Khor-Udul | Khor-Udul | Soru-Sul | Koro-uru |
| Eldrath | Eldrath | Eldarae | |
| Sa'ana | Sân | ||
| Tierfolk | Tir-bol |
Isle of Magic anglicisation pattern (Sael'aurin to Common): Eldarae → Eldrath, Vael'aurin → Valorin, Sael'enna → Selenna, Lin'morn → Linmorn, Pael'sirae → Pelsira.
al? Vox Caravela.The human trade-tongue is the practical skeleton of the world: ideology-light, counted in base ten, written with Imperial-Trade letters that Vox Caravela also borrows when it must be written. Imperial registries "simply spell what they hear", dropping apostrophes and vowel-colours, which is itself a quiet erasure (see Elven Naming). Kensai keeps Common as its mortal layer. No full reference exists yet.