Although Darkover is a richly realized and detailed world, the two languages are rarely distinguished in the books. They derive, ultimately, from the two languages spoken by the colonists, as described in "Darkover Landfall": Celtic, spoken by the communal colonists, becomes Cahuenga, and Spanish, spoken by the officers and crew of the crashed ship, becomes Casta. The two tongues blend and borrow words from each other. Bradley was not as talented a linguist as Tolkien was, with the ability to invent entire languages and explain their imaginary origins (and indeed, who was?), but the basic vocabulary is quite consistent throughout the books.