#The thing is just that.. i Don't have ancient elvish worked out as a language and I knew I wanted to put text on it

[1randomweirdo]

Any language nerds out there? I was thinking this morning of Esperanto - the so-called universal language (perhaps there are others, but this is the one I'm familiar with) I was wondering if it would really work (assuming the goal is to make it so we can all understand each other all the time*) Language evolution is a funny thing. See, look at existing languages. The difference between, say, British English and U.S. English - same language, but they evolved differently, a continent apart. Or how Mandarin and Cantonese are so different that if you speak one, odds are you don't understand the other - and they're both Chinese dialects spoken *in the same country*. Look at how slang evolves in the U.S. alone. My point is, I don't think a "universal language" would work. It would change over time, depending on where you live. A word or phrase gets mispronounced and suddenly, that's what the phrase is now. But it only happened in one area, so the change doesn't become universal. Before you know it, we're all speaking different languages again. It's just interesting to me; it demonstrates, to me, how a noble cause can go sideways pretty quickly. It's probably a good thing it didn't really catch on, eh?

But it also makes me think of "fictional" languages (except they're not so fictional if people are actually using them. Soooo, proto-languages?) like Klingon, Dothraki, Tolkien's Elvish/Dwarvish, etc. These have been around for less than a century; they're comparatively new. When will we see these evolve? Or are the fluent speakers gatekeeping it so that no change can happen? (I have no idea if they are, and I'm unfamiliar with these languages so I've not personally observed if changes have happened) Don't know about the creators of Klingon and Dothraki, but surely professor Tolkien would have appreciated how language changes over time? (Then again, his stories are meant to be mythical pasts, so perhaps the language shouldn't change/evolve because it's ancient - like, Latin is considered a dead language, so it has stopped evolving, right? Is Elvish the same?)

I don't know. What do you all think?

*I'd always been told its purpose was to be universal; perhaps its actual intention was to do away with gendered language? I don't know a ton about it, so my whole mini thesis here may be way off base. So, grain of salt 😜

Edit to add: it also occurs to me that not everyone can learn Esperanto anyway, because, for many reasons, not everyone can make all the sounds of a new language

#language #nerd #geek #language nerd #etymology #linguistics #linguist #linguists #word #words #pondering #Esperanto #Elvish #Dwarvish #Klingon #Dothraki #Tolkien #Star Trek #Game Of Thrones #Lord Of The Rings #the silmarillion

[icewindandboringhorror]

A notebook I decorated as a gift for someone lol. Basically sort of like a thought diary but one that would be kind of traditional in Avirre’thel culture?? idk I just like working my pre-existing fantasy worldbuilding stuff into things I give to other people lmao. The text says “keteda tu iyedeh thedlasi adutaki” or basically like, “book of chilly morning thoughts". “Chilly morning thoughts”/”cold thoughts”/”morning thoughts” (sometimes shortened to iyetheadu, or ithedlaki most commonly, though there’s always 700 ways to abbreviate everything in Avirrekava cause you know they’re just,...Like That) is basically a term to describe contemplative or introspective sorts of thoughts. The type of things one may think whilst trudging through the snow alone in the very early morning as the sun rises over some vast isolating stretch of land (which for them and the climate where they live, usually is just miles of snow), or during the peaceful solitude of the earliest morning where you’re the only one awake as the rest of the world sleeps. Nobody is sure where the term really came from or how the meaning has changed, but it’s usually used as kind of a broad catch-all term to refer to stuff like appreciating the small things around you, little flowers or the taste of your tea, mindfulness and perspective taking, etc. More recently it’s also been used as a mood term or trait that can be applied to people or things, meaning they’re feeling/cause one to feel introspective (with a positive or uplifting connotation), eager (usually for the future/the life plans one makes at 3am), or appreciative in a calm sort of way. 

#Also curiously the elves have a term 'afternoon mind' which is to describe a contemplative state like what you'd have lounging on your #balcony eating fruit in the cool lazy early afternoon (very common for elves and especially higher class northern elves who #probably spend about 80% of their time lounging on balconies hghg) so they could have come from a similar place #Seeing as the avirre'thel and modern elves both come from ancient elves #they do share some terms or have certain language similarities at times. though their cultures have evolved past each other to #the point that it's a bit rare. it still happens. Perhaps in ancient elvish there was some term like 'sunny day thoughts' or 'sunny mind' #which then evolved into both '(chilly) morning thoughts' and 'afternoon mind' #I say speculatively as if I don't entirely create this world and couldn't just decide that exactly this happened gghgh #''PeRHAPS the ancient elves did this! hmm we will never know!'' like.. yeah.. we could.. just decide that that;'s how it happened #and then that's officially how it happened.. thats how worldbuilding works you fool ghghg.. I love to chronically talk about my world #as if it's something I'm speculating about and have no true control over ghghh.. #but ANYWAY.. i hate their writing the hardest thing about conlangs is making a script that makes any damn sense since like.. #I don't want it to be too complicated because they write quickly and simply so it needs to be simple easy strokes and straight lines #but at the same time that's like.. what SO many langauges are made up of.. it's really hard to think of line combinations that aren't #just recreating existing symbols or something that already are in an earth language lol.. #though honestly i think most of it is just that I have a chronic inability to write neat ever in my life so it ALWAYS looks bad #no matter what I write because I can't make something not look sloppy/misaligned/etc. Like of course the text is going to look weird to me #if I can't write it evenly or consistently. I really want to make my own font so I couild see it typed out spaced evenly and neatly #but it's hard because they have a syllabary not an alphabet so.. kind of like how with japanese they dont have a separate symbol #for 'k' and 'a' they just have one for 'ka' .. so idk how you would map that to an english keyboard in a way that makes sense #ANYWAY THOUGH.... I'm still going to use my primitive form of the script on things for now until later I get it a way I like it lol

[inheritance-cycles]

Hello! Mexican Eragon fan again XD (my name is Val btw). Some things that are different from the top of my head:

-The way Saphira calls Eragon. She calls him pequeñajo in Spanish, which is teasingly loving, way more than just "little one". Little one is what you call like, a baby. Pequeñajo makes it feel like you're also mocking the baby for being weak and little.

-I keep thinking about it as "your Eragon" vs "My Eragon" but well. When my Eragon talks about his love for Arya, it comes across as much more humble and shy, almost yearning, than your Eragon. It might be because we have more words for love and the degree of love.

-The ancient language was really hard to conceptualize (I don't know if it was the same for you) so I think of words different. For example, Alagaesia sounds like a single, coherent word in English right? I had to split it. The gae sound and sia sound are GA-EH and See-ah for me so the whole word becomes a mouthful.

-Brom talked a little more foreign than the other characters. So did Oromis and Arya. I think the translator made Eragon talk in normal Mexican words more on purpose for us to feel familiar, and the others much more strange and magical.

-Glaedr speaks strange too. But different from the elvish characters. He speaks kinda old fashioned?? Like the words he said felt a little stilted and out of touch.

-The jokes didn't translate well. Inheritance Cycle, my beloved, had such bad jokes that were absolutely translated and lost all relevance.

-Orrin talks to Nasuada in the formal pronoun usted but also switches to informal when he's angry and I always thought he was a real jerk for that

-My Eragon feels a lot more humble and a lot less arrogant, but he's the same in the first book. He's such a little asshole and I love him so much. But from what I've seen, the feeling of your Eragon is of someone who has gained power and now treads the world more carefully because of it; my Eragon always had this feeling of childishness and humility and I also think that has to do with the formal and informal ways of speech.

-Saphira is the funniest character because she talks like a human but also like a cat would

-The way Roran loves Katrina didn't translate as well (I think?) and comes across as preachy rather than adoring

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, since I also left all my books elsewhere and I can't really access them right now, but yeah I gotta say, what a strange and wonderful experience it is to share Eragon. The only chance I ever had to kinda share it with someone was when I worked at Gandhi (our Barnes & Noble ?) for a summer and got to recommend it to a customer. I really thought it was like, a frankly unpopular book. But I've always loved it.

This is fascinating! Thank you Val for taking the time to do this!

I want to learn Spanish now just so I can read the series with a new understanding.