Language HCs

Tagged as Daud, Corvo Attano, Farley Havelock, Teague Martin, Emily Kaldwin, Lydia Brooklaine

Creator: Multiple

Description:

Morley is Celtic, serkonos is Latin, Gristol is Western European/English, Tyvia is Eastern Europe/Russian/Mongolian

Oh lord the different dialects too. Two people from opposite sides of Gristol speak the same language but some words don’t mean the same thing so they’re “???” makes sense!!! especially being based on England!!! the northerners make no sense!!! Northern Gristol is a mess of Germanic languages. Only reason Havelock isn't Danish is bc I settled for having him speak Old Norse in my Iron Age selkie AU

KSJDJDJS thinking about Morley being based on Ireland,,, Dublin vs Kerry accents. PLEASe where is the glaswegian accent in morley?? Sirs?? OH OH OH I hc that a lot of Scottish accents come from the north of Morley, it kinda plays a part in Call of Honor and everyone thinks the main character is from Fraeport (he was born and raised mostly in Elgin but moved to Glasgow as a young teen)

Don’t even get me started on Serkonan. They get Latin-based languages (Spanish, Italian, a little French) and they can get by with super basic conversation but the rest’s just guess work. Corvo's Cuban Spanish vs Daud's fucked up Italian. i go for serkonos -> primarily spanish and italian, i think french to the north and perhaps used to be french speaking around dunwall but that was chased off. GOD greek as well somewhere in serkonos (like. the name sounds greek itself djshadsa) - maybe to the islands to the west??? look. i know that we all have our own hcs about serkonos' language and that most people see it as either spanish or italian but hear me out: brazilian portugues

Tyvia is like... they got Russian. They got Ukranian. They got Polish. And Kazakh and Uzbek and. Some Finnish too maybe?

Thinking about an au where each Isle has its own language, but Gristol is seen as the ‘main’ one since that’s where Dunwall and the Throne are. So corvo has to learn Gristollan real quick, and even decades later he still has a serkonan accent on some words. Martin’s learned to cover up his Morleyan accent to blend in, but his singing is still very heavily Morley

I hc that Martin has a stronger accent when he's angry or drinking

Havelock had hide his accent to be taken seriously bc people in Dunwall could be so xenophobic that not even Redmoor was Gristol enough for them (even though he was literally born in Dunwall). He still speaks Gothic (German) fluently though, and he actually prefers it to the main Gristolian language bc it feels more natural.

Havelock and Lydia arguing over the books in hushed German... divine

Emily grows up with Gristollan and Serkonan, and when asked the difference she doesn’t understand the question. bilingual from baby-form emily good yes

Daud and Corvo would definitely have completely different accents (but to gristolians they’d sound similar). Corvo and Daud barely understand each other if they were to speak Serkonan

I headcanon that since Daud went all around Serkonos in his childhood, his accent is a right mess. He'll pronounce some word with a typically Karnacan pronunciation, and in the same sentence pronounce a word the Culerran way. also hc daud knowing some pandyssian language from his mother (im being general but there would be a lot. probably arabic or smthng bc of like his name indicating his mothers heritage). Oooh yes pandyssian being Arabic, like not all of pandyssia bc its HUGE lmao but the specific part dauds mum came from??? yes

Corvo trying to pinpoint where Daud's from by his accent but he rolls his Rs like a Karnacan, keeps his Ss short like a Culleran, uses Bastillian-styled numbers but puts the tonic accent on the penultimate syllable like a Sagguntan pirate. And that's not even mentioning the mixed up vocabularies and idioms. It drives Corvo absolutely insane.

they’d have different words for food too and get in meaningless arguments about it (assuming they talk to each other). Some words mean different things. At some point one gets that bilingual moment when he's looking for a word in Gristolian and only remember the Serkonan, and the other tries to help but the word has a different meaning depending on the region so he's only making things more confusing instead.

Daud would be saying a word that’s just normal to him and Corvo would be like “???? You don’t just say that?????”

Corvo hears Daud call a pain au chocolat a chocolatine and he murders him on the spot. them having completely different words for rice because regional recipe reasons. Them cooking together and it takes hours because all the recipes, half the utensils and most of the ingredients have different names.

Archives:

corvo's captain during his first year in the city watch: attano- you speak serkonan! what is this man saying?

man: [speaks rapid-fire serkonan]

corvo:

corvo: [shrugs]

captain: what?! i thought you were serkonan

corvo: i am, but I'm karnacan. this guy's from cullero. i have no idea what he's saying

captain:

captain: [probably something racist]