I have been scouring the FFG forum (without success) for a post I had seen weeks ago about Beastman language. One of the posters said he uses customized lines from MacBeth when the beastmen are talking or when attacking. He listed three or four examples. If anyone has this could you re-post? Hopefully the original author will chime in!

I do hope FFG upgrades the search function and layout of this forum.

This is what I found:

In the Beasts of Chaos Armybook, we have the following passage:

• "(…); each arriving chieftain scratches his name or mark onto the central stone in the crude Beastman version of the Dark Tongue, known simply as the Beast Tongue, and his warband sets up camp." (p. 14)

Regarding that I couldn't find any canon lore description on the fly, so I'll just go with two fan-based wiki definitions:

• Beastmen generally speak a corrupted and guttural form of the Dark Tongue of Chaos. This is a language that a sheep (with the proper intelligence) can learn, as some Beastmen lack proper speaking organs.
  ( http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Language )

and

• Dark Tongue
  This language is used by followers of Chaos, and is required to articulate certain aspects of the Warp. Dark Tongue can be complex, as mutable root words are further modified by prefixes and suffixes. Beastmen speak a crude dialect called Beast Tongue, incorporating the local human tongue and animal snarls. Understanding Beast Tongue requires a Routine (+10) test against either Dark Tongue or the local human language. Traces of Dark Tongue are evident in Norse, and to a lesser extent Kislevian.
  ( http://warhammerfrp.wikia.com/wiki/Language )

The next one contains a *SPOILER* for "The Gathering Storm". Read at your own peril:

In the Gathering Storm, the NPCs communicate with a beastman bray-shaman called Foaldeath who speaks Reikspiel. He is the mutated child of a (deranged) human mother and was abandoned by her in the woods as a beastman cur. He made his way up the ranks of a beastmen herd that took him in. His voice is described as such:

• His voice is deep and raspy, with a hollow ring to it - as if someone was speaking into the empty skull of some large animal. (TGS p. 28)

He addresses the PCs:

• When the figure speaks, it's in a voice that rasps and crackles, as if unused to speaking at all. "I hope you can help us. She is correct; time is running out. This very night Izka the Madtooth comes to destroy the works of Man. He will not stop until no stone stands on another, until all the gods of Man are cast down and destroyed. You must (…)" (TGS p. 29)

In other words, he's quite articulate. Bray-shamans would be the 'scholars' of a herd, so to speak, but his special heritage might be the reason for his intellect. Either way, this serves nicely as a template for interaction with beastmen.

When the herd attacks somewhere, frenzied howls are all you'll get out of them linguistically, of course ;-)

Well, this should be something to work with for starters.

I made that post. My beastmen use dark, shakespearean quotes from both the hiding, taunting cover of darkness and int battle . My players are/were not keen on finding out what skryne yer bones' meant

There are a couple poems in the Beasts of Chaos wfb books. Check there first.

So wise so young, they say do never live long

jh