Wa-an

Wa-an, or the Wa language, was a language spoken by the Wanese, inhabitants of Wa in Kara-Tur.

Wa-an descended from the ancient Han language, as did Koryo and Kozakuran, and possibly others. Wa-an and Kozakuran were closely related; some considered them only different dialects of the same language. There was perhaps 65% comprehension between the two.

Wa-an was abundant with polite expressions and flowery terminology. Etiquette rather than grammar regulated the proper usage of many phrases.

Wa-an was divided up into a number of dialects for each of the Wanese social classes, each with vocabulary most often employed by folk of that class and not necessarily used by others. For example, the farmers and fishermen of the No class spoke No Wa-an, which featured a great deal of agricultural terminology that was not to be found in, say, Lords Wa-an.

The written form of the language was said in legend to have been created by Wa's first emperor, Kochi, the Master of the Peace Tree. In the first year of his reign, the first ever ch'i-lin rose from the waters of the Akano River and presented itself to Kochi. Upon the ch'i-lin's back were a series of characters, from which Kochi created the earliest written forms of Wa-an.