#orgoreyn

Since they lack gender, and only have specifically gendered pronouns for phases of kemmer, I think they’d differentiate based on personal relation/level of familiarity with an individual. So you’d have your very formal pronouns, and your informal ones used only with extremely close friends or your kemmering. Given how nuanced shifgrethor is, it would make sense for Karhide to have a very... extreme? Politeness pyramid. Idk smart words rn sorry.

But, to clarify, in Karhide where shifgrethor is their code for everything, being blunt and forthright would be extremely rude. So people would use the formal/High Formal pronouns for individuals, maybe even going so far as to have pronouns that specify rank (ie, above, below, and equal) in addition to formal/informal as well as for different phases of kemmer. So you’d really only use informal-equal with someone you were truly equal with, and informal-above would be pretty rude, as opposed to informal-below which is just. Blatantly being a horrible person to someone. It would be interesting seeing how Genly navigated that considering how much he struggled with the notion that “let me give you advice” is probably one of the highest insults a Karhider can give. I love him, but man he needed more intercultural communication training 😂

Orgoreyn seems kind of like. Extreme Communist Metaphor, so maybe their pronouns are largely plural? And again, there would be that heirarchy, but being forthright isnt as big a deal in Orgoreyn, so I think that amongst the like. Lower tiers of society they’d all probably use the informal-equal-plural pronouns. It also wouldnt be as big of a social faux-pas to use the informal-equal amongst higher eschelons, unlike it would be in Karhide.

I also don’t think they’re Notably Different Languages, given the rather small habitable areas on Gethen. Maybe it would be more like Spanish and Portugese, or German-Dutch. Distinct languages but with enough similarities that they’re linguistically related.

Outer/rural regions probably would have their own dialects separate from each other and the Official Languages. I could see Orgoreyn taking an English Approach to this and refusing to allow Unofficial Languages being spoken. Karhide seems more.... its fine just don’t let us see it.