Sperethiel

Sperethiel is the fictional language of the elves in the role-playing game Shadowrun.

A number of words from Sperethiel are present—as loan words—in Or'zet.

Within the world of Shadowrun, Sperethiel is supposed to be a unique language isolate, related to no other language or family of languages. In reality, the authors borrowed heavily from Irish for many of the words or phrases given as examples. E.g. Tír na nÓg and Tír Tairngire relate to concepts of Irish mythology. On the other hand, the word inventory is not very fleshed out, and many words or morphemes are not cognate with Gaelic, but are new combinations somewhat suggestive of that language.

Sperethiel is described as a very complex language with a number of subtle variations enabling expressions of different levels of formality and rank between speakers, much as in Japanese.

Some commonly known Sperethiel words

• Carromeleg - The elven martial art
• celenit - non-elf (insult)
• goronagit - an elf who isn't part of an elven group (insult)
• goronit - barbarian (insult)
• li-ha - "Isn't that so?"
• liayah - "Sure" "I'll do it" "I agree"
• Rinelle - rebel, deserter
• sielle - "Yes", literally "It is the way of things"
• tech - common swear word, equivalent to "drek"
• wineg - ork or troll (insult)

References

• Tir Tairngire

Links

• Uncle Ancient's Sperethiel Dictionary