Common Tongue
The Common Tongue or Common Tongue of Westeros is a language commonly spoken in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There are regional accents, as "Pyp had travelled the Seven Kingdoms with a mummers' troupe, and bragged that he could tell what you were and where you'd been born just from the sound of your voice",[1] but there is no lack of comprehensibility, in any region. Some regional accents can be geographically limited to a single city, as King's Landing.[2]
While some free folk who live beyond the Wall understand the Common Tongue, many clans instead speak local languages.[3] The Thenns, for instance, speak the Old Tongue and can only speak a few words from the Common Tongue.[4]
Language
The largest dichotomy of speech appears to be between the lowborn and the educated, most likely due to a long history of prescriptivist tutors for the highborn young. For example, Mariya Darry corrects Amerei Frey's use of the word hung to hanged.[5] There are differences that are not exhibited in the orthography, as it is possible to distinguish highborn from low accent merely by listening: "Doran!" called some highborn voice. "To the spears!"[6] These differences encapsulate both highborn vs. lowborn as well as regional dialects:
- "How could you tell I was of noble birth?" [Sam asked].
- "The same way you can tell that I'm half Dornish." The statement was delivered with a smile, in a soft Dornish drawl.[7]
Mycah the butcher's son's few lines shows the lowborn patois:
- "She ast me to, m'lord," Mycah said. "She ast me to."..."It's not no sword, it's only a stick."[8]
Another stablehand in the Red Keep has other non-standard usages: "She don't know me," he said, "but I knows her, oh, yes...I says, come."[9] One of the Mountain's men uses the colloquial past tense of eat, et.[10]
The isolated Vale mountain clans of the Mountains of the Moon have little difference in their speech.
- Shagga glowered, a fearsome sight to see. "Shagga son of Dolf likes this not. Shagga will go with the boyman, and if the boyman lies, Shagga will chop off his manhood."[11][12]
Quotes
"I swear it," she said in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms that by rights were hers.[13]
- Daenerys Targaryen to Jorah Mormont
- thoughts of Tyrion Lannister
References and Notes
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 26, Jon IV.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 37, Brienne VII.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 15, Jon II.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 26, Jon III.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 30, Jaime IV.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 2, The Captain Of Guards.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 45, Samwell V.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 15, Sansa I.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 50, Arya IV.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 27, Jaime III.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 56, Tyrion VII.
- ↑ Languages Corpus at DothrakiWiki
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 72, Daenerys X.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 1, Tyrion I.