Languages of the Imperium

In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man contains many languages. High Gothic is the official language while Low Gothic is used to describe the many local variations of High Gothic. Lingua Technis is a specialized language used by the Adeptus Mechanicus.

High Gothic

High Gothic is the official language of the The Imperium of Man. Its origins lie with the languages of Terra, and was the dominant language used by the population of Earth before the Emperor united the tribes of Earth under one banner and began the Great Crusade. The language is considered a "higher class" language, mostly used by highly educated members of the Imperium. As such, it was chosen to be utilized as the common language of the Imperium, and was asserted upon the reconquered cultures during the crusade. High Gothic is utilized as a classical tongue within the Imperium, and is used during rituals and such like. Only highly educated members of the Imperium would ever use the language, and then only when the circumstances dictate.

Though Latin is used to represent High Gothic in the official fiction published by Black Library it has been stated by high ranked Games Workshop officials that this is not the actual language, and is instead used to simulate what High Gothic would sound like to a Low Gothic speaker.

Low Gothic

Low Gothic is the language used by the all of the populace of the Imperium of Man. It is not really one language, but is instead a generalized "catch-all" term for any of the hundreds of debased, corrupted, or specialized local variants of the Imperium's standard linguistic form High Gothic. Literally billions of daughter tongues, dialects, and cultural variants exist.

Cultural Variants come into existence when a population, or section of a population is isolated from the main Imperial culture for a prolonged period of time. Words are twisted or repurposed to better describe the conditions they must deal with. One of the classic examples is the Low Gothic Trade Tongue of Catachan which has 52 different words for green including 'Sinople' which literally and in use means both red and green at the same time.

Dialects can mostly be attributed to simple expedience. To properly say something in High Gothic can take a very long time if the subject is complicated or at all ambiguous as the language is designed to be exceedingly exacting and precise. Most dialects attempt to speed up conversation by paring down excessive verbiage. This does however make the language less clear and exact, which is why High Gothic is preferred for diplomacy and administration.

Trade Cants

Trade Cants are derivatives specialized forms of Low Gothic tooled to efficient use for one specific topic of industry, such as farming, machine work, fishing or war. This is perhaps the most prevalent category as many Imperial planets are 'designed' and administered to use one narrow field of effort. (See also: , .) The so called "Combat Cants" of the Imperial Guard are based more closely on High Gothic than most of these variants. In some cases however this can become rapid, clipped 'hoc-com' Languages for one or more regiments after they are retired from duty as active wartime cyphers.

Proto-Gothic

While technically a separate language, Proto-Gothic is in many places used as nothing more than yet another variant of Low Gothic. Proto-Gothic is the original language from which High Gothic was derived. Represented in the fiction by Old English, it is a holdover from an earlier era of civilization. Found on backwards worlds and sometimes among the most extremely erudite of the Emperor's followers, this archaic tongue has been all but erased by its advanced, refined successor High Gothic.

Lingua Technis
Lingua Technis is an obscure language used by the Adeptus Mechanicus. It is currently only used by the Adeptus Mechanicus for scientific work, but it was the norm among the worlds of the Imperium during the Dark Age of Technology . It was derived from English, European, and Pacific languages spoken during the Dark Age of Technology. In the novel Dark Adeptus (Counter, 2006), the language is however described as a series of zeros and ones with a metallic edge to it, and is primarily used to command servitors. This gives it a close resemblance to binary coding, and as such it has become the "programming language" of the Imperium. It is used within the logic engines and machine spirits of the Imperium's technology as the higher processing language, and as such is used for inter-communication between machines, and machines and tech-adept.

Some writings in the Black Library also suggest that there are multiple dialects of Lingua Technis or other machine languages in use by the Adeptus Mechanicus. For example, in Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy, savant Uber Aemos attempts to decipher an Adeptus Mechanicus transmission dump and speculates upon it being a member of the Mechanilingua family of languages or 'one of the Servitorware' scripts.

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