Gith Languages

Perhaps here at Planewalker we could come up with something.

Well, actually the "color pool" is our name for the "thing" that can send a planewalker to another plane. Githyanki word for it may have totally different meaning, i.e. "planar portal", or something. Though it would be good to know about tactile (and other) sensation and perception... If there's nothing in the books, we might have to come up with this all by ourselves - that is, planewalker.com staff.

Aye, there are genuine differences between each of these things. But in the long run the githyanki words will have the same basic *meaning* as any other language's word - X means X. Wither it has a different shade of meaning (this is an upper planes color pool vs. a lower one, or this is a safe color pool vs. an unsafe one) ... or wither the same word can be used for two similar but differently names in another lanaguage things is a little trickier.

I suspect given that the githyanki are planar aware, that they do have different words for each of the different things as noted to be different in english/common. Unlike a prime who may have to have the difference between a vortex and a portal explained to them. For the githyanki, with color pools there may be more than one word each with a shade of meaning.

This is probably the wrong place entirely, but I have a quick question as I delve through here (my linguistic skills clearly aren't up to too much right now):

How do you say "password?" and "long live the Queen!" in githyanki?

PS - yes, I know she's dead

Thanks

Cheers. Much appreciated.

I'll add you to the Special Thanks To section in Desire and the Dead.

i put the picture of the Gith Alphabet on my Myspace.... heres a link

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=...

Possibly, but an illithid made from a githyanki "body donor" is a standard illithid in all respects. After ceremorphosis, there's nothing left of the original body except a general humanoid form, which is more or less the same whether the victim was human, gith, or drow. You can't really tell what it was originally, though height and build could probably give you a clue.

Gith'illid sounds like a decent name for them, though.

Well, the above lexicon defines "graith" as the Githyanki word for barbarian, so it'd be any race that hasn't earned the githyankis' respect. So most human cultures would be graith, but it's possible that some - maybe Netheril and Imaskar during their height, or the Suel and Baklunish empires of Oerth, the Alphatians of Mystara, maybe the people of Sigil - would have impressed them enough to not be graith, except among the most elitist of githyanki. Similarly, aboleths, ethergaunts, tsnng, and other unusually powerful civilizations wouldn't be. It still would depend largely on the society in question. There are "graith" aboleths who do little more than rule cults of primitive slaves, but the Abolethic Sovereignty of Toril is certainly not graith. There are "graith" grell who do nothing but hunt vermin in caves, and there are also civilized grell with fleets of spelljammers led by philosopher-kings. There are graith beholders, but the hive-cities of H'Catha in Realmspace are formidable beholder civilizations. There are graith illithids, and there are entire illithid worlds that the githyanki consider to be their greatest threats. Most dopplegangers would be graith, but it's certainly possible there are worlds where dopplegangers have established mighty empires whose clever infiltrators fool even githyanki warlocks.

In general, I think "graith" might be equivalent to "Clueless" in planar cant, referring to societies without the ability to walk the planes or travel the worlds in large numbers, who the githyanki don't consider a threat. While learning some basic things about portals and the planes might be enough to let a basher stop getting called clueless all the time, it'd take a lot more to get a githyanki to stop calling you graith. Just knowing your way around isn't enough - bariaur are graith, because they're not really civilized, or a substantial threat. Being able to kill githyanki isn't enough - being a barbarian doesn't mean you're not tough. You have to come from a society that's magically adept, able to make world-crossing fleets, and honestly scares the githyanki a little. Not that every non-graith society is going to bring down the githyanki empire, but they have to be groups the githyanki are reluctant to attack. Sigil is non-graith, I think, because the Lady of Pain has earned their respect (and reminds them a little of their own queen), and it does have some pretty civilized features that rival Tu'narith.

Sounds good to me.

We'll have to make something up, I guess. Maybe K'k'klestal for Mount Celestia (lots of phlegm in the word, so it sounds like they're spitting in disgust), and I don't know what a good name for the Prime would be. Obviously they wouldn't call it anything like the Prime, since the Astral is primary for them. But the Prime is where they (mostly) go to give birth and raise their young, as well as where their race originated, so it'd have the connotation of "infected nursery." Maybe Yan'shim, so it sounds a little like child-birth, but also sounds different enough so that "githyanki" doesn't sound like it means "Gith-Prime."

The following vocabulary is also fan-made (by me), but I'll include it in this thread for completeness:

/forum/expanded-githyanki-vocabulary

In the context of the BoGr campaign on this site, githyanki renegades are often called Emissaries. This is because the githyanki often send their renegades as messengers to various barbarian cultures, with the understanding that it's frequently a suicide mission.

I figure that the githyanki have a large number of creative (mostly derogatory) words for renegades: heretics, unbelievers, traitors, infidels, etc., with the word used depending on how the githyanki ended up becoming a renegade in the first place. There should be a word or two for githyanki who avoid 'retirement.'

I respectfully disagree with Rip on what would be considered graith or not. I don't think that being an experienced planewalking human, dwarf, etc. would make that much difference to the githyanki mind. Planewalking graith are still 'heathen god-slaves,' don't understand the critical importance of fighting the Great Enemy, may associate with githzerai, may originate from cultures that are highly offensive to the githyanki mind, and usually don't have a solid grasp of githyanki culture in general. The things that would make a githyanki respect an outsider would be things like being a noted illithid slayer (which will definitely earn a humanoid some tolerance). I think that typical humanoids of Sigil, for example, would certainly be considered graith. A graith may earn respect (by being an illithid hunter, by being noted for being fierce in battle, and so on), but is still a graith. A powerful, advanced culture (the Netherese, drow, etc.) may be noted as 'worthy' (and may actually frighten the githyanki a bit) but still remains barbarian.

My personal take on it is that if it's approximately humanoid in appearance, not too weird to the githyanki mind, not gith, and not draconic, it's a graith. Things that are non-humanoid or 'too weird' are referred to by words that roughly equate to 'monster' or 'thing' (I use the word k'ya or kiya).

To answer the specific question about a doppelganger, it'd be considered a graith while the githyanki believe it's actually a human/gnome/whatever, and a monster/thing after a githyanki realizes it's a doppelganger.

I'm wondering if the githyanki should have a specific word for aberrations -- specifically, for those aberrations that are not illithids but would upset githyanki sensibilities for being similar-looking in some way or keeping slaves, for example. (Aboleths, for one, who have tentacles, spend a lot of time in water, are psionic, and keep slaves.) They might also have a specific word (neither graith nor 'monster') for immortal exemplar beings such as fiends.

I have also created a few githyanki terms/insults as well, though I am not certain how well they 'mesh' with the current list....

Nice to see all the Gith-kids debating slang