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Worldbuilding: Language of Runeterra

KestrelGirl·7/15/2018, 8:59:18 PM·11 votes·9,715 views

Wow, it's been a while. I've been doing an intensive music workshop this past week... Not relevant but yeah, that's what I've been up to instead of posting more glorious worldbuilding. Fortunately I'm back with more! This time... language! I would be OVER THE MOON if Odin/WAAARGHbobo were able to help me out with this, since we don't know much about many of Runeterra's languages other than Buhru. As a result I've had to mainly focus on different champion and character names to work things out instead of using the stuff I've learned in the linguistics class I took not too long ago.

Common Languages: There is likely not a "common" language, but there may be some varieties of pidgin for universal communication. The most developed of these would probably have been born in Bilgewater, the mother of all melting pots.

Buhru: “Words are built on combinations of Aztec and Ancient Greek, with additional elements of Hawaiian, Aboriginal Australian, and Latin.” This is our Buhru goldmine from Odin: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/OPkqt6tg-waaarghbobo-you-say-you-work-on-champion-languages?comment=00000001000000000000

Ionia's got... actually, a myriad of different languages. EDIT: There are several vastayan languages, but the only one we know (Baraashi, the Lhotlan tongue) is actually loosely based on Finnish. from Odin - "This was a combination of Sanskrit, East Asian and Slavic languages." Then there's the humans' tongue, we'll just call it Ionian. Ionian has several dialects that may sound different between groups, but are mostly mutually intelligible. So some dialects may be more nasal with shorter words and/or cleaner syllables, like Chinese, Japanese, or Korean (Irelia might speak one of these dialects), but someone like Karma might speak a dialect that might use the same/similar syllables but be more fluid.

Noxus has Va-Nox. Hey, at least we know the name of the damn language. There are several other tongues spoken within the realm's boundaries, but Va-Nox (and its older counterpart Ur-Nox) is the tongue of Noxus Prime. This one is tough though. Cassiopeia and Katarina are Greek names but they have a French surname, LeBlanc’s a French surname, Jericho is a biblical reference, Darius is a Persian name, Draven is made up, Vladimir is Russian, and Riven, Talon, and Sion are pretty much plain English. All. Over. The. Place. It makes sense that Va-Nox would be a melting pot considering the sheer size of Noxus's territory, but Ur-Nox is probably a lot of shorter syllables that may have some real-life influences in the Middle East. I will say this: if there's any language that is most likely to behave like the glorious mess that is English, it's Va-Nox!

We know nothing of the Targonian language other than its champions' names, which are almost unanimously Greek - even Zoe! (Diana and Aurelion Sol have Roman-derived names.) Targonian probably sounds pretty Hellenic as a result, though we also have stuff like Ra’Horak which is basically just Egyptian.

Demacian is oddly tricky to guess. Most place names and surnames are English, but names vary from Romance languages to German-ish (Garen and Lux's parents - Pieter and Augatha) to Quinn. Which is an Irish name. I have no idea what to do with this.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Piltovan language were something of a melting pot considering its origins. It seems pretty similar to Demacian at first glance. The aristocratic houses have a lot of Italian-ish names floating around (e.g. Jago Medarda), with some other Romance languages also thrown in the mix (e.g. Camille being a French name). Everyone else (like Caitlyn and Jayce) mixes it up; there are presumably Piltovan terms and names from all over the place because of immigration to the city. Zaunites probably speak a rather bastardized version of Piltovan.

Shuriman has mostly Arabic influences as far as I know, though I could be missing some info.

**Freljordian **has definite Nordic influences. Ornn's teaser song is in "ancient Freljordian," which turned out to make sense in a number of Scandinavian languages. No surprises there.

18 Comments

RiotBioluminescence7/16/2018, 12:58:59 AM7 votes

Have you thought about writing systems/scripts yet? I have made some suggestions (and everything is a suggestion until it's used for realzies) regarding the development of writing systems over the centuries/millennia, how they expanded, mixed, and branched, how there would have been multiple spontaneous inventions of writing in different locations, etc. It's fun to think about :)

I also learned how to write my name (phonetically) in cuneiform! Also fun.

DeathBurst7/16/2018, 1:33:40 AM1 votes

Hey OP o/

I'm 99% sure that Odin has made other posts, similar to the one you quoted for Buhru, about at least Freljordian and Shuriman. You might want to dig a bit in his post history to find them, 'cause I feel you're definitely missing a couple details. Notably, I seem to vaguely remember he gave the list of influences for modern versus ancient Freljordian, and it was 2 really different lists.

But other than that, congratz on a great job :) Keep it up!

Krabohod7/16/2018, 2:40:18 AM1 votes

I think the most "english" language probably is Bilgewater language. And I mean english in the way that it's mostly used. Let's see: prob the most common language due to absolutely enourmous amount of trades - check; an absolute melting pot of languages - check. I mean there are probably 2 languages in Bilgewater. One that comes more from Buhru (more native in a way) and one that was built for the centuries at trade markets, taverns and etc. I think that new Bilgewater language sounds pretty much almost like Va-nox mixed with Pilties' language. Cause it's most likely to be 2 absolute main trade partners of Bilgewater. Also it'll sound nothing like Demacian language at all, cause Demacia do not trade. I'm no language enthusiast, but I feel like languages spread due to trade. That's why I think new Bilgewaterian_(?)_ language is our best attempt at common language.

And Bilgewater language is probably more English sound-like. Sea "empire" that absolutely trade heavy. Sound familiar ;) Va-Nox and Bilgewater are not far away linguistically and probably built on same base like Latin base in English in real life terms.

And btw I always, for some reason, thought that Vastayan language is more Polish or Russian like. Due to that Witchery-feel from Xayah and Rakan login screen and the fact the pair refer to each other as Mieli and Miella; which sounds a lot like russian "Miliy" and "Milaya" which mean "Darling" with sex defined.

EDIT Yup a little miss at Vastayan language. But the fact these two words sound like Russian is a bit cool! (Maybe? Please? :D)

Tesla Effect7/16/2018, 3:54:13 AM1 votes

Give some more love to Slavic languages being inspirations for Runeterran languages.

Nylisa7/16/2018, 2:42:45 PM1 votes

Shurima is a bit tricky to pinpoint, if you look at their architecture as well it does have a certain middle eastern inspiration to it even people's clothing, however the name of the champions and locations are a different story. Nasus sounds Latin but Azir however appears to be Arabic which means power or strength if im not mistaken. we know some of the champions in Shurima are not originally from that region, or atleast their names are taken/changed over time.