Harpy Language, Loretober Day Two! (Patreon)

When I first created Kree, I wanted him to communicate almost only with body language to give him a sense of otherness from humans. However, as I began developing a harpy society with their level of intelligence, it made more sense that they’d have a much more advanced communication system; one that uses bird-like tones and a wide range of meaningful body language.

So, how do harpies speak?

Harpies speak to each other by using strings of sounds/calls that have different meanings based on pitch, tone, and context. The phonemes (aka sounds used in a particular language) each harpy dialect uses are based heavily on the areas they live. For instance, the names of other creatures are often originally based on the noise that the animal makes, like an onomatopoeia. Parts of a creature's call may even be used in different words that have literal or symbolically similar meanings. I.e. Sounds from the word for boar may be present in words like stubborn or protective.

Along with vocal speech, harpies also use body language to convey their feelings and meanings. Their body language can include the ruffling of feathers, head tilts, ear tuft twitches, wing movements, facial expressions, etc. An extended version of this body language includes the use of their hands and feet to sign out specific words. Harpy sign language is not only for deaf harpies, but for communication between all harpies, even those with a different vocal dialect. Harpies tend to move around a lot, so having a (mostly) common language to speak with others who come from far away is a necessity.

Can a human learn harpy language?

Although it would be incredibly difficult for a human to speak a vocal harpy dialect because of the limits of human imitation, it may be possible for one to learn very basic harpy sign language that uses hands and feet, with added (human specific) movements meant to imitate ear tufts, wings, etc. As for harpies, learning human languages is fairly easy since they can easily imitate and are very much built for memorizing and giving meaning to sounds.