Vershi

Origin

Vershi is a Southern Yusati language that originates from the Ancient desert tribes of Florentia and outlying mesas. This language is considered a lingua franca (bridging/ common language) in the region, allowing people of any and all backgrounds ranging from merchants and hunters to kings and princes to understand each other through a shared tongue. Named after a pseudolegendary figure of Desert oral tradition of the same name, it is closely related to the Desert-elven tongue, but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other language-speak, particularly the overarching abstract Yusati dialect of Common-tongue, as well as by the various minor languages of the tribes that roam the desert. No major, non-desert influences have considerably altered the early Tongue, though some basic 'slang' phrases have been incorporated from the Valois and Elven languages, due to the recent political atmosphere that has encompassed the area.

The language has formally developed over the course of 500 Tsels, however it is unknown when the language was first inscribed into the Desert culture as a staple of speech, formal or otherwise. Oral traditions tell of a figure by the name of Vershi who was the one to bring articulation to tongue, after slaying a beast with 100 mouths and tongues as part of a rite of passage, 'learning the names of all things in a single breath, sweetly singing as the taste of wine' that is akin to the speech of Elves. Since then, the language had been used as an informal conglomeration of words and simple phrases. Alongside the alphabet, the introduction of many Common phrases into the language occured, many if not all of them originating from the Yusati dialect. The Vershi alphabet would be lost with the fall of the Tashar, however the linguistic influence of the Classical Vershi would leave a profound impact on the desert tribes of the region, most abandoning their localized languages in favor of Vershi, seeing it as a beneficial advantage when dealing with other tribes or trading with other settlements.

Description

The nomadic tribes of the Wuxine have a most impeccable ability in speaking the language, as it is the lingua franca of the region from where they hail. However, outsiders that attempt to grasp the language can face a moderate amount of difficulty, as the phonetic structure of the language is a mixture of Elven and Yusati-Common, introducing both formal and informal grammatical rules, vowel symbols as opposed to letters, indicative possession rules, and consonant phonemes that are more denti-aveolar and fricative/stop. The lack of a codified alphabet from which to study from is also a harrowing prospect for those wishing to learn without the assistance of an individual who knows Vershi.

The Code of Vershi, also known as the Vershi alphabet, does indeed exist, yet no examples of how the alphabet looks currently exist. The alphabet is thought by scholars to be a merger between Common and Elven-script, with wide, curving letters, vowel symbols, and letters with 'dot-notes' denoting their various forms when in a particular part of a word or set of words. This separates the Vershi language from others, as the use of runes and glyphs as a foundation for the language does not exist.

Basic Phrases

• Sairf (Hello)
• Erish (Goodbye)
• Sahib (Friend)
• Vashir (Tree)
• Thizan (Sand)
• Heran (Horse)

The World of Aethius • The Multiverse of Aethier