Anonymous asked: Are any of the languages for your dnd campaign tonal? I got way too invested in linguistic worldbuilding for a campaign I’m playing in and decided that our elvish is ridiculously tonal, to the point where you’re practically singing every word.
Ahhh that sounds so cool!! None of our languages are tonal because I’m trying to balance Cool Linguistics Stuff with making the languages accessible to the players (and since I don’t know any tonal languages myself I’m not convinced I could do them justice)
However! I did decided that in our setting Primeval, the original language of the elementals, is a conlang called Solresol. It’s based on the musical scale and as such it can be *entirely* tonal! I think it’s a really cool idea and works well as a language for elementals–a lot of them don’t really have mouths or other speech organs, but they can still ‘speak’ solresol in the whistle of the wind or the crashing of the waves. It’s rare for humanoids to know the full language, but common for those who live close to areas of strong elemental activity to have traditional songs whose tunes are requests to the elements for blessings or protection.
