Is there significant difference between the Desert Giants and Plains Giants spoken language? Are they the same or are they two dialects of a common tongue? Could they be two totally different languages entirely?
Do you think that Giants would have a written language?
I agree with Pennarin in that Desert and Plains giants probably only use pictograms that allow them to convey simple ideas: danger, water, do not disturb
, etc. But Beasthead giants are much more intelligent, so they might have an alphabet. If so how complex would you believe it to be?
As a general rule, writing systems are better if they aren’t “complex.” It is much easier to write with the simple phonetic Roman alphabet used in English than it is to use thousands of Chinese characters. If the giants are using pictograms they would have to memorize a different character for each word they want to write. That would mean only the most educated of their clan could write anything more than a few words. Probably only the shaman would fall into that category.
Is there significant difference between the Desert Giants and Plains Giants spoken language? Are they the same or are they two dialects of a common tongue? Could they be two totally different languages entirely?
I would say that at one point there was just one language for giants, but that several dialects have sprung up. The farther away two clans of giants are, no matter which sub-race they are, the harder it would be for them to understand each other.
In the DS3 release, each race has a language section, but there doesn't seem to be a collated list anywhere...
In the DS3 release, each race has a language section, but there doesn't seem to be a collated list anywhere...
Check the download archives on athas.org's website for previous versions of DS3. One of them has in the Skills and Feats section a list of all living and dead languages.