So I've been thinking about the languages in Dragon Age, and I've come to a couple of conclusions and questions about it. Let's get some things first though. The languages in Thedas that we know of are: Fereldan, Orlesian, Ander, Tevene, Rivani, Antivan, Arcanum, Qunlat, Elvish, & Dwarven. Ok, now that we've gotten that out of the way, onto my thoughts.
Given how Fereldan is essentially English, and Ander is essentially German that would make them related languages. In case you don't know, English is a Germanic language & thus is related to German (Seriously, a lot of words are similar: "und, and; ist, is; ich, I; wasser, water; father, vater; mother, muter; etc). Meaning Fereldan and Ander would have had a common linguistic ancestor at some point, but are now two separate, but related, languages. If you think they're too far apart to have related languages, there is a good example of this in the real world. Icelandic is a Germanic language in the Scandinavian family with Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish. Iceland was settled by the Norwegians in the 10th century and eventually Icelandic became it's own language. Even though Iceland is hundreds of miles from Scandinavia, and even England, it's still related to English, German, Danish, and the other Germanic languages.
One question I have is: are Tevene and Arcanum the same language or is the relationship between Arcanum & Tevene similar to the one between Latin & Italian? Essentially, was Arcanum the old language of the Imperium, and it evolved into Tevene? Similar to how Latin was the old language of the Italian peoples (once the Romans controlled the peninsula), but eventually evolved into Italian?
Though Tevene seems much more based on Latin than Italian. So perhaps it's a modern form of Latin? Regardless, French, Spanish, and Italian (amongst others) are based on Latin. Their Thedosian counterparts - Orlesian, Antivan (and maybe Rivani?) - should then be based on Arcanum. Meaning Tevene, Orlesian, and Antivan are related languages as well.
Just thought I'd share my thoughts and start a discussion. If anyone can answer my questions about Tevene & Arcanum, please do. And, while I'm at it, does anyone know if Qunlat is based on a language or if Bioware came up with it on their own? At first Welsh popped into my head, considering how Qunlat repeats letters, but I thought about it and it didn't work. Welsh & Qulat both repeat letters, but Welsh tends to repeat y, l, n, w, & r. Whereas Qunlat tends to repeat a.
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