Thonthal is a North-Central Continent language, first spoken in the end of the first revolution by peoples that have formed Leykarya. It is thought to have evolved from several languages of the Western Dantrian Civilization, possibly based on a language in Central Dantria, since New Dawn travelers spoke a similar language and eventually adopted Thonthal. It is the state language of Leykarya and was the state language of Darda and Xornerian.

As Leykarya used its seafaring capability to establish international ties, Thonthal spread to several other countries as a useful foreign language: peoples that traded with Leykarya began benefiting from sharing Thonthal, and it became a lingua franca first in the south and then in the north. Thonthal is not commonly spoken in Yammoe.

For a number of historical and linquistic reasons, Thonthal's evolution has been very slow. Over the course of more than 3000 years it hardly changed, and its most ancient forms are still readable by modern speakers. Various forms of Thonthal did evolve much faster in isolation from Leykarya, like some Thonthal versions in Loodori and the neighboring area of Rowlow.

Thonthala is a term used to denote the body of literature written in Thonthal.

Thonthal is known for its unique feature of glottalizing duplicate consonants in cases when the word starts with one.

For instance, the word “teamatian”, which would normally be read as /tiːmætiən/, is actually read by replacing the second “t” with a glottal stop: /tiːmæʔiən/. This is because teamatian starts with a “t”, which renders any “t” in the middle of the world glottalized.

Breaking that rule is permitted in some cases, but would generally pose a problem of significant miscommunication.

In some cases, pronouncing duplicate consonants might be used as wordplay, especially when naming created objects or concepts, like the Darda confederation, which is pronounced as /'dɑrdə/, a play on the word /'dɑrʔə/, meaning “hope”.

In some words, pronouncing duplicate consonants will activate the second meaning of the word, which is usually the magnified version of the first meaning. An example would be the word “marme”, which is “step”. Pronounced with the second vowel, it would mean “stairs” (a “set of steps”). Adding an additional consonant to the end of the word - “marmem” - will further magnify the meaning to “a long staircase”. Dropping the middle consonant, but retaining the ending one works for some words and activates additional meanings. In this case, /mɑrʔəm/ might mean “a stand” (as in, a support of some kind). However, these additional meanings strongly depend on context, could be easily misunderstood and are rarely used, although knowing them and being able to invoke them might speak to someone's deep knowledge of spoken Thonthal.

A whole set of words, especially those related to family, would be considered insults towards one's family if consonants are dropped. For instance, the word “mother” would be “henha” /'hɛnʔʌ/. Pronouncing the second “h” would be a grave insult towards the interlocutor's mother. Confusingly enough, this would not be the case when uttered by a daughter or granddaughter towards her mother or grandmother and would instead convey daughterly love.

There exists no special symbol in Thonthal to indicate this spoken rule. This might lead to potentially losing information when committing speech to writing, which is why written Thonthal is usually slightly different to spoken Thonthal and creates a stylistic gap between the spoken and written language, with the written language sounding either more formal and pedantic or, conversely, very flowery and poetic.

For instance, in written Thonthal “marme” would only have a meaning of “step”, and if one wants to say “staircase”, the word “tirtoir” would be used, which means “staircase”. Using “tirtoir” in speech would sound a bit too formal, unless it is used to denote a very special staircase, such as a palace staircase or a staircase of extreme value to the speaker. But describing an ordinary staircase at one's house would usually require one to say “marme” /mɑrmə/.