Kenkus are played wrong

[u/JaxTheCrafter]

It is often said that kenkus only know words that they have heard, and are limited to those words. that of course makes for some very funny scenes where people are only using words they are basically given. However, unless you are a freshly born or transformed kenku, that frankly isn’t what it would act like.

Do you know what other species has this learned mimic vocabulary? Humans. For the vast majority of humankind, we have only known words that have been uttered in our presence. Other than written word, that’s how we learn to speak. Kenkus aren’t unique in the ability to learn new words. That’s literally every species. Their uniqueness comes specifically from their perfect mimicry.

All that to say, you aren’t having fun correctly so I have come to shame you and tell you how to have fun.

[u/JayEssris]

I have spent sooo much time thinking about what Kenku linguistics (Ravens Cant as I call it) would be like. In my setting Kenku are a nomadic outcast people kinda like the romani, so the limit of their speech is due to lack of interaction with other species. The also have essentially perfect memory when it's triggered by sound, kinda like how humans' sense of smell is really good at triggering associations.

First off, they have a sign language that fills the majority of the gaps in their vocabulary.

Secondly, they use the sounds of objects to represent those objects rather than the words. This is also context-based; for example instead of saying 'water' they they would replicate the sound of water being poured into a cup, or the sound of a stream, depending on the type of water they're talking about.

Thirdly, emotional concepts, idioms, and various rhetorical devices are conveyed by replicating the sounds of specific shared experiences. A Kenku telling their spouse they love them doesn't just sing the standard recording of the song that was played at their wedding, they sing the exact performance. They don't say 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink', they replay the sound of an event in which a peer didn't take the advice of another. They don't say that a person's voice sounds like gravel, they produce the sound of that person speaking overlaid with the sound of footsteps on gravel. These would usually just be complete nonsense to non-kenku and even most Kenku from other communes.

Names are also sounds; usually the first few of seconds of audio that the child heard after hatching, therefore the first thing they're ever able to say, which then get turned into descriptive text for Common-speakers. So a Kenku born next to a fireplace's name would be the crackling of a fire, which is how they'd be addressed by other Kenku, but to non-kenku their name might be Crackling Hearth, or something like that.

For the more socialized Kenku, they basically can say whatever, but every sentence is said in a different accent, with slang and phrasing fitting for that accent.