Languages of the Imperium

Encyclopedia : L : LA : LAN : Languages of the Imperium

---

In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man contains many languages. High Gothic is the official language while Low Gothic is used to describe the many local variations of High Gothic. Lingua Technis is a specialed language used by Adeptus Mechanicus.

High Gothic

High Gothic is the term used within the Warhammer 40,000 universe relating to a language used by the Imperium of Man. The Imperium of Man utilises two official standardised languages that allow for communication between the divirse cultures of the Imperium. These two languages are called Low Gothic, or the common tongue, and High Gothic. Low Gothic is the language used by the majority of the populance. Its origins lie with the languages of Terra, and was the dominant language used by the population of Earth before the Emperor united the tribes of Earth under one banner and began the Great Crusade. As such, it was chosen to be utilised as the common language of the Imperium, and was asserted upon the reconquered cultures during the crusuade. It is to be noted that, although represented by English within the game, Low Gothic is not English, rather an evolved form of whatever language became dominant during the Age of Strife.

High Gothic is utilised as a classical tongue within the Imperium, and is used during rituals and such like. Only highly educated members of the Imperium would ever use the language, and then only when the circumstances dictate.

The Adeptus Mechanicus uses a separate language called Lingua Technis, and it has become the "programming language" of the Imperium. It is used within the logic engines and machine spirits of the Imperium's technology as the higher processing language, and as such is used for inter-communication between machines, and machines and tech-adept.

Low Gothic

Low Gothic is a generalized "catch-all" term for any of the hundreds of debased, corupted, or specialized local variants of the Imperiums standard lingustic form "High Gothic". Literally thousands of daughter tounges, dialects, and cultural variants exist. Most can be divided into a few broad categories, though in most cases there is a equally broad degree of overlap.

Trade Cants are derivatives of High Gothic tooled to efficent use for one specific topic of industry, such as farming, machine work, fishing or war. This is perhaps the most prevelent catagory as many Imperial planets are 'designed' and administered to use one narrow field of effort. (See also: Forge World, Agri world.) The so called "Combat Cants" of the Imperial Guard are based more directly on High Gothic than most of these variants. In some cases however this can become rapid, clipped 'hoc-com' Languages for one or more regiments after they are retired from duty as active wartime cyphers.

Cultural Variants come into existence when a population, or section of a population is isolated from the main Imperial culture for a prolonged period of time. Words are twisted or repurposed to better describe the conditions they must deal with. One of the clasic examples is the Low Gothic Trade Tongue of Catachan which has 52 diferent words for green including 'Sinople' which literally and in use means both red and green at the same time.

Dialects can mostly be attributed to simple expedience. To properly say something in High Gothic can take a very long time if the subject is complicated or at all ambiguous as the language is designed to be exceedingly exacting & precise. Most dialects atempt to spead up conversation by paring down excessive verbage. This does however make the language less clear and exact, which is why High Gothic is preferred for diplomacy and administration.

Lingua Technis

Lingua Technis is an obscure language used by the Adeptus Mechanicus in the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000. In the "present" state of the game, it is only used by the Adeptus Mechanicus for scientific work, but it was the norm among the worlds of the Imperium during the Dark Age of Technology . It was derived from English, European, and Pacific languages spoken during the Dark Age of Technology. In the novel Dark Adeptus (Counter, 2006), the language is however described as a series of zeroes and ones with a metallic edge to it, and is primarily used to command servitors. This gives it a close resemblence to binary coding.

References

Warhammer 40,000 Articles
Main Armies Chaos | Daemonhunters | Dark Eldar | Eldar | Imperial Guard Ork | Necron | Space Marines | Tau | Tyranid | Witch Hunters |

 

---

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

?