Question about Horns / Antlers

[Cleretic]

Another mystery is that they supposedly have their own language (though this may be attributed to the elementals) and their own myths and culture. Not sure how much of that may be abandoned lore from older versions of the game.

Specifically, their language (seen both in their own names and the names of Toto-Rak and Tam-Tara) is based on the Ainu, an indigenous people of Japan. In-universe the language might have been appropriated from the Duskwight of Gelmorra, but I don't recall where exactly that notion came from. They also started happening after the people that would become the original Gridanian settlers made a pact with the Elementals; it wasn't that the Elementals went 'okay, those guys that're already around, those are our guys'.

White Mage gives you a bulk of the Padjali's story, but once you get to it, Endwalker's tank role quest chips in some helpful info, too.

[MikkoAkure]

Specifically, their language (seen both in their own names and the names of Toto-Rak and Tam-Tara) is based on the Ainu, an indigenous people of Japan. In-universe the language might have been appropriated from the Duskwight of Gelmorra, but I don't recall where exactly that notion came from. They also started happening after the people that would become the original Gridanian settlers made a pact with the Elementals; it wasn't that the Elementals went 'okay, those guys that're already around, those are our guys'.

When I was making that post, I was fact-checking what I had written while looking for things I may have missed and found this from encyclopedia:

[The first Padjal] discards his birth name and takes to calling himself I-Ohok-Pota, which he describes as the sound made by the aetheric waves when the elementals speak unto him. Henceforth, Jorin and his children adopt the surname Pota.

I don't know if that counted as their language or if they just got names that way though.

I wonder how much cultural mixing the Elezen and the Hyur had since they still maintain separate naming conventions and do not mix their races even after the establishment of Gridania. I also wonder what the Elezen think of only Hyur being chosen as Padjal.

It would be neat if the game could revisit and expand on Gridania, Gelmorra, and what all is going on there now and in their history because Limsa and Ul'dah always got the spotlight despite the Twelveswood's setting being more "classical fantasy".

[SannaR]

When I was making that post, I was fact-checking what I had written while looking for things I may have missed and found this from encyclopedia:


I don't know if that counted as their language or if they just got names that way though.

I wonder how much cultural mixing the Elezen and the Hyur had since they still maintain separate naming conventions and do not mix their races even after the establishment of Gridania. I also wonder what the Elezen think of only Hyur being chosen as Padjal.

It would be neat if the game could revisit and expand on Gridania, Gelmorra, and what all is going on there now and in their history because Limsa and Ul'dah always got the spotlight despite the Twelveswood's setting being more "classical fantasy".

I want to say it happens but not as often as you think it would. Just look at how some of the Wildwood treat non Wildwood. Correct me if my memory is wrong, but I want to say the padjal child we meet in the Stormblood whm story had an elezen father. So they're an extremely rare case if I'm correct. I file the Padjal under my beings that stop aging in some form umbrella. As I think of them in the same way as D from Vampire Hunter D or Vampire Princess Miyu. Where both grew and aged normally until their teens. Or late teens in in D's case. That even if they look as though they're forever locked in a youthful state doesn't mean that time isn't able to work on them. I'm not even sure if we know what one looks like if they were to die of old age and not you know being killed while exploring the world like A-Towa-Cant was.