ESG (technically it's LGE - Là Glostèan Empyraean - but I chose to keep it simple and produce intresting acronyms) was the result of several years of soldiers from across the Empyraeum trying to determine the location of the mess tent or latrines during the Bloodless Conquest. Six million soldiers, artisans, merchants, and the numerous other professions that support what was effectively a mobile city, two hundred and fifty languages, many more dialects…Greek was no longer the predominant language of this force of unequalled size and people had to communicate.
It started with various pidgins and cants, a word here, a phrase there - this thing is called that and you say this in this fashion, it costs this many – but, eventually, words and phrases started to integrate and spread, especially those not meant to be heard in polite company! Soldiers are rarely know for their smooth tongues and gentle manner, after all.
Nobody really knows how it started, it was not recorded, no one group sat down and decided, it ws purely organic osmosis and people doing what people do best; taking what they have and making it work. Eventually, a universal argot started to emerge; every soldier knew it and you can be certain that everyone who made a living taking their wages away from said soldiers knew it. Alexander got to hear about it when his Kalshodar and Dracograth (many of whom, such as Neshaa, were not Greek by birth and had struggled to learn their King's speech) started to use it and he was delighted, he took it as an omen; his cultural melting pot blending together nicely, no longer were they Greeks, Perisans, Sythians, Celts and so on; they were something new and were creating something new together. He knew this boded well for the Empyraeum to come.
With each country conquered and each fresh batch of recruits added, the flavour of the argot changed as the shiny-faced young men and women in search of adventure added their own languages and dialects to the mix.
So delighted was Alexander with this developing language that he made his first formal edict to the new Empyraen Senate, the task of formalising this argot into what would become Empyraen Standard Greek. The greatest minds of the whole Empyraen descended on Alexandria-The-First and debate with lively and passionate. Alexander smiled to see it because, once again, people from all over the new Empyraen were, after a fashion, working together and, once the bruises had faded, forcing a unified identity into being.
Empyraen Standard Greek or ESG was formalised on Gameliom 25th, EA7. The first Lexicóm Empyrean was produced and distributed from Manchuria to Eiré over the following years, to schools, libraries, and town/city halls.
Of course, individual nations kept their own versions, brought by soldiers or merchants who were either returning home or starting a new life elsewhere. ESG is the formal language of the Empyraeum but there are hundreds of vulgar dialects thereof.
To practise;
"Nera ú chalk mug siú éjookaíd drúsa" - An ugly conman finds little business
"Gwyn-ía espry, gage. Sui oy-toy shy yonks anoí." - Dude, Gwy’s (he is) gone. He surely got captured ages ago.
"Shy itú tevo-éi kat dú la-choir, ma geall" - That sneak is a police informer, I’m sure of it!
"Itù laebh tì èjookàid gamma orì anoì!" - You’ve been staring at that book for three hours now!
[Note; for the purposes of invention, we have focussed on five languages, together with some artistic license, to create ESG. Those languages are the ones we felt worked best together and made the most coherent combination. Ancient and Modern Greek, Nepali & Burmese, Gujarathi and Sanskrit, and Scots/Irish/Welsh Gaelic.]
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