On kandra language

[+robardin]

Something just occurred to me while making a recent post involving ancient beings dealing with language drift on Scadrial: shouldn't the kandra's native language be Old Terris?

I mean, sure, kandra who go out "on assignment" would have to learn whatever the current dominant language of the Final Empire was (to speak like whoever it was they were meant to mimic), which was apparently mostly based on Khlenni (?); but since each generation of kandra is raised in the Homeland, and there have only been eleven or twelve generations since the First Generation who were Rashek's Terrisman packman buddies in origin (wakka wakka!), what else would they have spoken to the Second Generation while raising/instructing them, and wouldn't it have been natural for them to then speak that language to a newly conscious Third Generation, and so on?

Maybe all kandra have "kept up" with the changed language of the Final Empire (based on kandra returning from assignment) to use as a lingua franca so that it's easy for kandra who are sent out on assignment to be up to date after a gap time of resting in the Homeland. But even the First Generation?

At the very least, it feels like there should be a "cradle language" for kandra that amounts to a close variant of Old Terris, a mamaloshen if you will. And perhaps it was close enough still to "modern" Terris that Sazed could speak and understand freely in the kandra Homeland in HoA.

[Shaukan-son-Hasweth]

Do we know what language they speak in the books?

I'd assume that kandras would speak all languages and dialects known to them in that time. After all they have a huge livespan and imitating others is literally their purpose. Even the first generation should have learned this. They had a millenium to practice.