Just
21% of the population speak Jommdan as their mother tongue, but High
Jommdan - the archaic form of the language - has a special power of
self-compression: texts written in this tongue abbreviate themselves in the mind of a reader who
already knows something of the subject-matter.
Lrissj
The 34% of Syoomeans who speak Lrissj are to be
found disproportionately among the farmers and dwellers in small towns
on the plains and in the hills. Lrissj is more distantly related to Nouuan and Jommdan than
the latter are to each other.
Other
languages
The three main languages of Syoom are by no means the only
languages spoken on Ooranye. Besides the minor tongues spoken by
isolated groups in both Syoom and Fyaym, there is Quonian, which is not
much known outside its own land, except for the famous word
polikanomv, "tree-lined defensive border".
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