I wonder if there's a Y'nari language.
No. The Y'nar are a racial group, like Asians. Koreans and Japanese and Chinese languages have little commonality.
Also, I love this language discussion, and I apologize for not going into it more in my previous books. I should note that while Erlin is kind of a 'common tongue' across the hemisphere, where most people can speak at least a few basic phrases badly in order to trade, etc., in Jaiman, Rhaya is what most Jaiman natives would be taught first. (Unless I am contradicting something I wrote years ago, which is possible!)
Language skills are some thing that should be important, and I finally put some in the new edition of Eidolon, making that important distinction between writing and speaking skill.
I am thinking that in a rustic town like the one we are creating the ability of local PCs to have much knowledge of written languages. In the home they would have access to things like a "family bible" or books their parent and grandparents used to learn to read. But the cost of books would be prohibitive. Those PCs that come from the Big City, Rapata, would have a more in depth knowledge of the written word.
So, based on this information the local language would be a dialect of Rhaya. Is there a listing of those someplace?
Also, I will ensure almost all of the merchants have at least 2-3 levels in Spoken Erlin. This would give them the ability to at least get the price of a good or service across to travelers.
This is why I love RM. I can add depth of character to the characters. Even people raised in the same town can be widely different, as they would be in real life. I was born in Hawaii and move to California after my Father died in Viet Nam. Trust me the culture shock was huge! And in the small town there were several different cultures that remained separate. One culture was the Mexican population that spoke Spanish and were very close knit. Then there was the Caucasian population that spoke English and were somewhat loose than the others. I remember some stores where the language used was Spanish and we spoke enough to be able to get what we needed. So I have an idea on how to try to paint this picture.
I am so glad RM gives me the tools to represent this mix of cultures and languages. I envision a marketplace in the town square with various languages and dialect being spoken during the weekly market. Some of the people speaking in broken dialects trying to haggle over a basket of fruit. Too much detail?
-BP