I personally love my head cannon that Abyssal is just Infernal but Demons ignores all the grammar rules and only put in punctuation and things in when they feel like it, all just to piss off and infuriate the Devils
Whew, thanks for showing up and repairing linguistic misinformation over three years old. So much of all those campaigns discussed in the thread was literally lost in translation, now finally the faulty origin of the lingua franca can be held accountable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I imagine that a Lawful language and a Chaotic language that use the same letters have pretty much nothing else in common. (No pun is intended, but I like it.)
I imagine Infernal to be written like summoning circles, each word being exceedingly precise with all kinds of elegant, geometric diacritic marks and extra letters to create a unique identifier of subjects, actions, objects, and adverbs and adjectives. I figure the diacritic letters and markings have specific positions around letters that change the meaning, possibly having another Infernal word serving as a diacritic-like mark. Devils' words are their bonds. One must be exceedingly precise and leave no room for loopholes.
I imagine Abyssal to be like extremely abbreviated and poorly written SMS/Text-speak with a completely different base lexicon that is loosely followed. (i think absl 2 b lik txt - compltely diff vocab losely followd.) the same as (Abysal; like short Txt not useing infernal Wordz)
EDIT: I'm thinking that Infernal not only uses a different vocabulary entirely but also different structure like action first, receiver of action second, and actor last with absolutely no passive voice ever. It's just not possible to use passive voice. I also figure that, if more than one word is necessary in a statement, it will be written up-to-down. Words in Infernal can be so precise as to only need one word to convey an entire thought. It is so precise that the size of a word in relation to other words in a statement or document carries extra meaning. If the word is offset slightly compared to other words in a statement or document, the meaning changes. A single letter with all the proper diacritic marks or diacritic words (with their own diacritic marks) might be enough for a statement. It is a difficult language for non-Devils and nigh impossible for Demons without the use of magic.
I'm thinking Abyssal's structure will be more like Common in whatever language the players are using but not using Common words of course, written vertically either right-to-left or left-to-right depending on what the Demon decided to use that time. It is a difficult language for non-Demons and immensely confusing to Devils without the use of magic.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I personally love my head cannon that Abyssal is just Infernal but Demons ignores all the grammar rules and only put in punctuation and things in when they feel like it, all just to piss off and infuriate the Devils
I love this. Imma use Sleight of Hand to nick it and use in my own worlds.
The WotC official Infernal typeface by Daniel Reeve is highly detailed as well as a bit chaotic. It makes for a good alphabet for both devils (who are all about the details) and demons (who are all about the chaos) if they're used in different ways.
The sample below is showing a left-to-right linear writing of the official typeface as is standard for the majority of typefaces. It's good for creating document props quickly, but if it were me (and it's not), I would make it more elaborate than linear writing for either Infernal or Abyssal, which is not something you can do easily in standard word processors or digital notepads.
(Don't bother trying to translate the words in the sample. It's not English in a different typeface.)
Based on the sample, I like the idea of the first letter in a sentence being written in blood and the remaining letters are seared into the parchment. Blood doesn't make for good ink, though. I suppose it would need to be ritually prepared for writing purposes.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The WotC official Infernal typeface by Daniel Reeve is highly detailed as well as a bit chaotic. It makes for a good alphabet for both devils (who are all about the details) and demons (who are all about the chaos) if they're used in different ways.
The sample below is showing a left-to-right linear writing of the official typeface as is standard for the majority of typefaces. It's good for creating document props quickly, but if it were me (and it's not), I would make it more elaborate than linear writing for either Infernal or Abyssal, which is not something you can do easily in standard word processors or digital notepads.
(Don't bother trying to translate the words in the sample. It's not English in a different typeface.)
Based on the sample, I like the idea of the first letter in a sentence being written in blood and the remaining letters are seared into the parchment. Blood doesn't make for good ink, though. I suppose it would need to be ritually prepared for writing purposes.
I have never been able to find official typefaces from WotC. Is there any chance you know where one can download the font?
The WotC official Infernal typeface by Daniel Reeve is highly detailed as well as a bit chaotic. It makes for a good alphabet for both devils (who are all about the details) and demons (who are all about the chaos) if they're used in different ways.
The sample below is showing a left-to-right linear writing of the official typeface as is standard for the majority of typefaces. It's good for creating document props quickly, but if it were me (and it's not), I would make it more elaborate than linear writing for either Infernal or Abyssal, which is not something you can do easily in standard word processors or digital notepads.
(Don't bother trying to translate the words in the sample. It's not English in a different typeface.)
Based on the sample, I like the idea of the first letter in a sentence being written in blood and the remaining letters are seared into the parchment. Blood doesn't make for good ink, though. I suppose it would need to be ritually prepared for writing purposes.
I have never been able to find official typefaces from WotC. Is there any chance you know where one can download the font?
It is part of a charity fundraiser for Extra Life, facilitated by Dungeon Masters Guild. For noncommercial use.
Any free fonts are not the official one. The only place to legally acquire the official Infernal font is at the DMsGuild site.
(This reply is informative as reference for the discussion of Infernal and Abyssal writing and is not an endorsement.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Just a few comments from the peanut gallery - 1) the primordial dialects are best exemplified by the romance/Latin languages - if you know one you can make yourself understood - sort of - in the others. Years ago I failed first year French because, after 3 years of Spanish 1 in 3 different schools, every time they spoke in French I understood what they said but I always replied in Spanish not French because the words were so similar but I knew the Spanish better. Years latter in grad school I was able to more or less translate a Portuguese science article successfully from the bits of French, Spanish and scientific Latin I had learned along the way. 2) if Abyssal (demonic)uses the infernal (devilish) alphabet ( in whatever way you decide) and devils are fallen/corrupted celestials (at least in some cases/traditionally) does that mean that infernal is actually a corrupted version of celestial? 3) given that abyssal and infernal use the same written language (which is not necessary an alphabet - hieroglyphs, kanji, etc) it might well be that like Chinese they can read each other’s writing but can’t understand each other’s speech.
For mine, Abyssal is a corrupted language originating from Primodial since I follow 4e’s cosmology where the Abyss resides in the Elemental Chaos where the Primordials dwell and the first demons of this universe were corrupted Primordials and elemental. Infernal meanwhile is a corruption of Celestial as Asmodeus and his Arch-Devils were once angels in the cosmology.
Both Primodial and Celestial are themselves corruptions of Supernal, the language of creation that allowed these great beings to literally speak things into existence at the dawn of their existence. They created Primordial and Celestial for their followers to use, removing the powers of creation in the words.
So it really depends on how you view the relationship between devils and demons, and just fiends that just favor one side of the Law-Chaos Axis, or beings that are truly alien and separate from the other.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Just a few comments from the peanut gallery - 1) the primordial dialects are best exemplified by the romance/Latin languages - if you know one you can make yourself understood - sort of - in the others. Years ago I failed first year French because, after 3 years of Spanish 1 in 3 different schools, every time they spoke in French I understood what they said but I always replied in Spanish not French because the words were so similar but I knew the Spanish better. Years latter in grad school I was able to more or less translate a Portuguese science article successfully from the bits of French, Spanish and scientific Latin I had learned along the way. 2) if Abyssal (demonic)uses the infernal (devilish) alphabet ( in whatever way you decide) and devils are fallen/corrupted celestials (at least in some cases/traditionally) does that mean that infernal is actually a corrupted version of celestial? 3) given that abyssal and infernal use the same written language (which is not necessary an alphabet - hieroglyphs, kanji, etc) it might well be that like Chinese they can read each other’s writing but can’t understand each other’s speech.
In reverse order:
Several IRL languages use the same letters but not the same language. English, Spanish (and other Romance languages), Gaelic (now―previously Nordic-like runes called Ogham for proto-Irish), and German and others use mostly the same letters but are very different to the point of not being able to read, write, nor speak the other languages. 5e languages are the same way.
In 5e, a tiny minority of Devils are fallen Celestials, not many. It is more likely that Infernal and Celestial evolved independently and Infernal and Abyssal were influenced by each other due to the unending war between them. Yet like the Gaelic languages that once used Nordic-like runes but now use a common alphabet also used by English, it is also likely that the fiendish alphabet used by one was either forced upon or adopted by the other. Gaelic pronunciations are still vastly different from English pronunciations despite now using almost the same alphabet.
Human "primordial" languages go far beyond Latin. Think more like hieroglyphs and Sumerian if you want to get primordial because phonetic/alphabetic writing came later and Latin arose out of a lengthy evolution that branched into other non-Romance languages we have today before Latin was even able to be classified as Latin, but even the Planes have evolved languages in 5e. Even the Primordial language of the Elementals use Dwarven letters in 5e. The 5e Primordial language is also split into 4 distinct, elemental dialects that are difficult for each other to understand excepting those who know the true Primordial language and understand all the dialects. Primordial and Dwarvish are incomprehensible to each other. Even Portuguese and Spanish have a close evolutionary relationship but are distinct enough to be too difficult to understand between them. Simply knowing Latin isn't the same as knowing 5e's true Primordial for the elemental languages. Primordial is fiction. It makes no logical sense for a language to work in bidirectional communication without translation with four languages that can't work with each other.
Unlike Human language that are the product of the mix caused by the ebb of flow of Human movement, the Planes did not get that cultural churning that we did. They are for more difficult to migrate between than a continent or ocean. To point, cultures IRL that evolved mostly isolated from others evolved languages today that are mostly unlike any others. This is likely the same way with the Planes but to even greater degree.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I would probably rule that, if they know Infernal but not Abyssal, or vice versa, they can't fully read the one they don't know, but would be able to recognize it with a fairly low DC check, given the similar alphabets and the constant conflict between demons and devils. If they keep it to research, I might even reward them for diligent study with proficiency in the given language.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Working on a supplement for the adventure-minded. A project including (and crediting) homebrew subclasses from the community, a world of my own design, premade characters, magic items, and even a prologue adventure to start things off!
Past and Current Characters: Morgann 'Duskspear' Solbeard, Hill Dwarf Paladin/Fighter/Warlock; Ephemeral 'Skye' Solbeard, Hill Dwarf Artificer; Zaldrick Lawscrip of Orzhov, Hobgoblin Wizard; Eremys Spydrun, Shadar'kai Monk; Cuchulainn, Wood Elf Blood Hunter.
Indeed I'd do the same you can read it but don't know the meaning of it.
But I do want to add wich might be fun for your world building or player interaction the interaction between the two. With Abyssal being a primordial language spoken by demons with very little culture that rely on scripts and recorded history wich could lead into a long ago history where the two langues were actually very similar with abyssal being the first of the two with Infernal splitting of that. And with Infernal having far more of a written history you could have your player roll an investigation check to actually make out that old Infernal on an devils paper that is just that ancient that it resembles Abyssal.
Giving the players that feel of old ancient lore and mystery
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I personally love my head cannon that Abyssal is just Infernal but Demons ignores all the grammar rules and only put in punctuation and things in when they feel like it, all just to piss off and infuriate the Devils
'Russian' should not be on that list.
No, the Cyrillic alphabet is NOT the same.
Coriana - Company of the Grey Chain
Wagner - Dragon Heist: Bards.
DM - The Old Keep
Whew, thanks for showing up and repairing linguistic misinformation over three years old. So much of all those campaigns discussed in the thread was literally lost in translation, now finally the faulty origin of the lingua franca can be held accountable.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I imagine that a Lawful language and a Chaotic language that use the same letters have pretty much nothing else in common. (No pun is intended, but I like it.)
I imagine Infernal to be written like summoning circles, each word being exceedingly precise with all kinds of elegant, geometric diacritic marks and extra letters to create a unique identifier of subjects, actions, objects, and adverbs and adjectives. I figure the diacritic letters and markings have specific positions around letters that change the meaning, possibly having another Infernal word serving as a diacritic-like mark. Devils' words are their bonds. One must be exceedingly precise and leave no room for loopholes.
I imagine Abyssal to be like extremely abbreviated and poorly written SMS/Text-speak with a completely different base lexicon that is loosely followed.
(i think absl 2 b lik txt - compltely diff vocab losely followd.)
the same as
(Abysal; like short Txt not useing infernal Wordz)
EDIT: I'm thinking that Infernal not only uses a different vocabulary entirely but also different structure like action first, receiver of action second, and actor last with absolutely no passive voice ever. It's just not possible to use passive voice. I also figure that, if more than one word is necessary in a statement, it will be written up-to-down. Words in Infernal can be so precise as to only need one word to convey an entire thought. It is so precise that the size of a word in relation to other words in a statement or document carries extra meaning. If the word is offset slightly compared to other words in a statement or document, the meaning changes. A single letter with all the proper diacritic marks or diacritic words (with their own diacritic marks) might be enough for a statement. It is a difficult language for non-Devils and nigh impossible for Demons without the use of magic.
I'm thinking Abyssal's structure will be more like Common in whatever language the players are using but not using Common words of course, written vertically either right-to-left or left-to-right depending on what the Demon decided to use that time. It is a difficult language for non-Demons and immensely confusing to Devils without the use of magic.
That's just like my headcanon, though.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I love this. Imma use Sleight of Hand to nick it and use in my own worlds.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, not Latin. The point still stands, but it could fall apart because your example selection is bad.
Referring to alphabets...
The WotC official Infernal typeface by Daniel Reeve is highly detailed as well as a bit chaotic. It makes for a good alphabet for both devils (who are all about the details) and demons (who are all about the chaos) if they're used in different ways.
The sample below is showing a left-to-right linear writing of the official typeface as is standard for the majority of typefaces. It's good for creating document props quickly, but if it were me (and it's not), I would make it more elaborate than linear writing for either Infernal or Abyssal, which is not something you can do easily in standard word processors or digital notepads.
(Don't bother trying to translate the words in the sample. It's not English in a different typeface.)
Based on the sample, I like the idea of the first letter in a sentence being written in blood and the remaining letters are seared into the parchment. Blood doesn't make for good ink, though. I suppose it would need to be ritually prepared for writing purposes.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I have never been able to find official typefaces from WotC. Is there any chance you know where one can download the font?
It is part of a charity fundraiser for Extra Life, facilitated by Dungeon Masters Guild. For noncommercial use.
Any free fonts are not the official one. The only place to legally acquire the official Infernal font is at the DMsGuild site.
(This reply is informative as reference for the discussion of Infernal and Abyssal writing and is not an endorsement.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Just a few comments from the peanut gallery -
1) the primordial dialects are best exemplified by the romance/Latin languages - if you know one you can make yourself understood - sort of - in the others. Years ago I failed first year French because, after 3 years of Spanish 1 in 3 different schools, every time they spoke in French I understood what they said but I always replied in Spanish not French because the words were so similar but I knew the Spanish better. Years latter in grad school I was able to more or less translate a Portuguese science article successfully from the bits of French, Spanish and scientific Latin I had learned along the way.
2) if Abyssal (demonic)uses the infernal (devilish) alphabet ( in whatever way you decide) and devils are fallen/corrupted celestials (at least in some cases/traditionally) does that mean that infernal is actually a corrupted version of celestial?
3) given that abyssal and infernal use the same written language (which is not necessary an alphabet - hieroglyphs, kanji, etc) it might well be that like Chinese they can read each other’s writing but can’t understand each other’s speech.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
It will mostly depend on how your cosmology work.
For mine, Abyssal is a corrupted language originating from Primodial since I follow 4e’s cosmology where the Abyss resides in the Elemental Chaos where the Primordials dwell and the first demons of this universe were corrupted Primordials and elemental. Infernal meanwhile is a corruption of Celestial as Asmodeus and his Arch-Devils were once angels in the cosmology.
Both Primodial and Celestial are themselves corruptions of Supernal, the language of creation that allowed these great beings to literally speak things into existence at the dawn of their existence. They created Primordial and Celestial for their followers to use, removing the powers of creation in the words.
So it really depends on how you view the relationship between devils and demons, and just fiends that just favor one side of the Law-Chaos Axis, or beings that are truly alien and separate from the other.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
In reverse order:
Several IRL languages use the same letters but not the same language. English, Spanish (and other Romance languages), Gaelic (now―previously Nordic-like runes called Ogham for proto-Irish), and German and others use mostly the same letters but are very different to the point of not being able to read, write, nor speak the other languages. 5e languages are the same way.
In 5e, a tiny minority of Devils are fallen Celestials, not many. It is more likely that Infernal and Celestial evolved independently and Infernal and Abyssal were influenced by each other due to the unending war between them. Yet like the Gaelic languages that once used Nordic-like runes but now use a common alphabet also used by English, it is also likely that the fiendish alphabet used by one was either forced upon or adopted by the other. Gaelic pronunciations are still vastly different from English pronunciations despite now using almost the same alphabet.
Human "primordial" languages go far beyond Latin. Think more like hieroglyphs and Sumerian if you want to get primordial because phonetic/alphabetic writing came later and Latin arose out of a lengthy evolution that branched into other non-Romance languages we have today before Latin was even able to be classified as Latin, but even the Planes have evolved languages in 5e. Even the Primordial language of the Elementals use Dwarven letters in 5e. The 5e Primordial language is also split into 4 distinct, elemental dialects that are difficult for each other to understand excepting those who know the true Primordial language and understand all the dialects. Primordial and Dwarvish are incomprehensible to each other. Even Portuguese and Spanish have a close evolutionary relationship but are distinct enough to be too difficult to understand between them. Simply knowing Latin isn't the same as knowing 5e's true Primordial for the elemental languages. Primordial is fiction. It makes no logical sense for a language to work in bidirectional communication without translation with four languages that can't work with each other.
Unlike Human language that are the product of the mix caused by the ebb of flow of Human movement, the Planes did not get that cultural churning that we did. They are for more difficult to migrate between than a continent or ocean. To point, cultures IRL that evolved mostly isolated from others evolved languages today that are mostly unlike any others. This is likely the same way with the Planes but to even greater degree.
I love Etymology, even fictitious Etymology.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I would probably rule that, if they know Infernal but not Abyssal, or vice versa, they can't fully read the one they don't know, but would be able to recognize it with a fairly low DC check, given the similar alphabets and the constant conflict between demons and devils. If they keep it to research, I might even reward them for diligent study with proficiency in the given language.
Working on a supplement for the adventure-minded. A project including (and crediting) homebrew subclasses from the community, a world of my own design, premade characters, magic items, and even a prologue adventure to start things off!
Past and Current Characters: Morgann 'Duskspear' Solbeard, Hill Dwarf Paladin/Fighter/Warlock; Ephemeral 'Skye' Solbeard, Hill Dwarf Artificer; Zaldrick Lawscrip of Orzhov, Hobgoblin Wizard; Eremys Spydrun, Shadar'kai Monk; Cuchulainn, Wood Elf Blood Hunter.
Indeed I'd do the same you can read it but don't know the meaning of it.
But I do want to add wich might be fun for your world building or player interaction the interaction between the two. With Abyssal being a primordial language spoken by demons with very little culture that rely on scripts and recorded history wich could lead into a long ago history where the two langues were actually very similar with abyssal being the first of the two with Infernal splitting of that. And with Infernal having far more of a written history you could have your player roll an investigation check to actually make out that old Infernal on an devils paper that is just that ancient that it resembles Abyssal.
Giving the players that feel of old ancient lore and mystery