Inborn language vocabulary
-Akeem of Magicland, scholar emeritus of historyby Eron12 with Hero Forge'Inborn languages refers to beings that are born with knowledge of a language. Dragons have a very powerful version of this ability with a large portion of Draconic being in-born to them. Even if a dragon couple decides to not raise their children and they just hide their fertilized eggs somewhere and leave the hatchlings to fend for themselves in the wild, the hatchlings in question will know the Draconic language, or most of it at least.If dragon egg is taken by non-dragons and his hatched and raised by non-dragon foster parents, they will still pick up the Draconic language intuitively. If their foster parents try to raise them with a different language, Draconic still remains their mother tongue and the dragon hatchling will essentially grow up bilingual. This means dragons raised with different values in different regions who faced different challenges rarely have problems communicating with each other. Most mortal species who debuted during the the First Age learn Draconic as their mother tongue, but they are still taught this language from their parents and much like how human children learn languages. Long ago, the ancients dragons forced most of the other mortal species that they shared Scarterra with to adopt their language as their own. Other mortal species have a watered down version of this ability."Manifestation
Adjectives are slower to develop than nouns or verbs but they can become very specific and they don't often have straight forward translations to modern English. "Hungry" is an early word that baby dragons learn, that gets further refined into Draconic equivalents of "starving to death", "very hungry", or even "Yeah, I can eat."A dragon won't know the word for "rock" until he understands what a rock is but once a dragon sees a 'rock' and interacts with it, his brain will tell him 'This thing is called 'rock'. Eventually, a dragon will understand 'pebble', 'stone', and 'boulder' as he or she begins to understand different types of rocks. Likewise a dragon knows the word 'food' almost as soon as its hatched but eventually subtleties and distinct arise. 'Food' becomes becomes 'prey' becomes 'fast warm prey' will get refined into 'rabbit'. Verbs too manifest instinctually. 'Fly' comes early to young dragons, but there are different Draconic words for 'fly-retreat' 'fly-chase', and 'fly-float' that come later. Once a dragon enters adolescence, they have mastered every basic abstract concept long ago but he can sometimes learn new words that he always knew. Hypothetically, if an adult dragon grew up without a parent in a remote ocean and never saw a horse over centuries of life, she will still recognize the word for 'horse' the first time she sees one. She won't know anything about a horse's habits or capabilities (or how good the horse tastes), but she knows what this type of beast is called. Draconic scholars estimate that there at least 20,000 words that dragons instinctively know. Some speculate that we may retain ancestral memory of words of things that no longer exist, or at least things that are no longer common."-Gorisonad the Wise, dragonKovenoth AI Headshot by me with Midjourney"We are dragons are blessed by the Nine or by our own greatness with an innate knowledge of our great language. But like all of a dragon's abilities, they develop with age and experience. As a hatchling dragon's cognitive capacities improve, and he will gain the ability to conceptualize more things, his ancestral memory will kick and he will suddenly know the words for this new thing. Once dragons understand the very basic perquisite base concepts, they can start to learn more specific words.Filling in the Blanks on the Missing Words
The same Draconic scholars that estimate dragons instinctively know around 20,000 words have recorded at least 50,000 different Draconic words. Anything that didn't exist in the the First Age will not exist in a dragon's ancestral linguistic memory. This includes "human", "elf", "chicken", and various other mortals and beasts. Swords did exist in the First Age, but they were rare. Dragons do not instinctively know the word for "sword" but they do know "spear". There are things that existed in the First Age that dragons don't have in their ancestral language. Generally the occurred when words and concepts are very specific. Dragons instinctively know the words for "rock", "boulder", and "pebble", but they don't automatically know the words "marble", "obsidian", and "limestone". If a dragon doesn't instinctively know a word for something, he or she will make up a word up. One can approximate "obsidian" with "shiny black rock". A dragon raised by one or both parents will use the words his parents taught her. Dragons will also adopt to words used by their mates, friends, acquaintances, or even enemies. You can sometimes make an educated guess on a dragon's formative experiences by what words they fill in the blanks with. Dragons that can take on humanoid form are likely to borrow words from humanoid's languages and just say "human" or "elf". Dragons that are exceptionally isolationist are likely to call humans "two-leg round ears" and elves "two-leg pointy ears". A dragon with contempt for humanoids might call them "tool-making-prey". A dragon might call a sword "a slashing spear", " fake metal claw" or use the local humanoids' word for "sword". Dragons are infamous for their ability take serious offense over very small accidental insults.. Despite this, dragons seldom get especially worked up over semantics. They will adopt other people's words easily and will generally not make not make a fuss if someone says the "wrong" word.Localization
Dragons have no innate ability to read and write the Draconic language though dragons that can learn to read and write fairly quickly if they put the effort to it. There is a small handful of "How to Read Draconic" books out there that are very popular and have hundreds if not thousands of copies circulating around Scarterra. It's not hard for a dragon to obtain copies of these. And the Fill-in-the-blank words for things like "human", "sword", and the like from these books are the closest thing the Draconic has for standardized words for these things.
Non-Dragons with Inborn Language
Dragons are born with a working vocabulary of about 25,000 words. Kobolds and chimeras are said to descended from dragons in some way and they also have inborn knowledge of the Draconic language. Kobolds are born with about 5000 words in their innate vocabulary and Chimera are born with about 2000 words in their inborn vocabulary covering fairly simple terms. Interestingly enough, kobolds are born with a small number of words that dragons are not born with, mostly representing the kobolds unique family and clan dynamics. For both kobolds and chimera, the vast majority of their vocabulary is learned. Ocumati speak a learned dialect of Draconic but they are born with a few hundred works unique to them. Mostly specialized vocabulary concerning specific types of eyes and vision. Elves have over a thousand inborn words in their vocabulary, in Elven! 1000 sounds like a lot, but the average human five-year old knows about 5000 words. Elves have to learn most of their language by repetition and memorization. Elves have much longer lifespans than humans and this also means they also spend a lot more time as babies which can be exhausting for parents and caretakers, but inborn language takes out some of the guesswork for parents and nannies if instead of "WAAAAH!!!" the baby is saying "TEYKRO!!!!" ("HUNGRY!") or "DORESH!!!!" ("SCARY!") or "NAHKYA!!!" ("Oh my, it appears I have soiled myself. I would greatly appreciate it if someone were to wipe my bottom and then apply a fresh diaper!"). Satyrs, being elf derivatives have this ability as well though they have even fewer words in their inborn vocabulary. Half-elves (and half-satyrs) are born with any innate words. Thus far, no mortal races that debuted in the Third Age seems to have any inborn vocabulary skills though they seem to be able to pick up new languages faster than their Second and Third age cousins with a few exceptions such as tengku.
Type
Metaphysical
Cover image:
by
me with Midjourney
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