#ranah talks mando’a

[ranahan]

Mando’a demonyms: -ad or -ii?

Some Mando’a speakers have headcanoned that the -ii suffix is pejorative (probably because it appears in words like kaminii and aruetii, and a Kaminoan is kaminii but a Mandalorian is mando’ad). But it also appears in neutral/positive words like parjii and prudii, so it could also be analysed as purely neutral agent suffix. Here’s my attempt at a more nuanced interpretation that incorporates both views (and also gives us twice as many words, yay):

The difference between the two forms of demonyms is one of perspective/belonging and degree of emotional affect.

Linguistically, X-ii is more of a neutral agent (“X-ian”), X-ad could be translated as “child of X” as a noun (the most common usage) or also as “having the characteristics of X” or “having the characteristic quality of X” as an adjective (-ad also appears as an adjectival suffix, this is my current working translation for that sense). The neutral adjective would be one with -la/-yc suffix.

In practice

So let’s have some real world examples! Let’s say that I’m born in Sweden (which I’ve translated as Svarya; Svarye would be more faithful phonetic transliteration, but the -e ending kind of looks like a plural and I like the -a ending for place names better… it’s a work in progress. let’s just go with it for the sake of the example). I’m more likely to call myself a svaryad and my neighbours in Finland (which I’ve transliterated as Suumi) suumiise—a purely neutral connotation and used also in news etc. However, if I was an immigration-critical right wing swede, I might call myself and other Sweden-born swedes svaryade but naturalised immigrants svaryiise—a more questionable connotation (but it also could be neutral in some cases: if I was a Finnish-born Swedish citizen who still held sentimental ties to their Finnish identity, I might call myself suumad and svaryii). If I was a racist piece of shit, I might call all dark skinned swedes svaryiise—a pejorative connotation.

A native Japanese might call themselves a nihonad, but western immigrants living in Japan nihonii (somewhat similar to “gaijin”). That would be a whole different context from my Swedish example, with whole another set of connotations. Words for white people or western immigrants are found in many languages and with many connotations, some pejorative, some not. So the implications of the choice between -ad and -ii would entirely depend on who was speaking, where and to whom.

Another situation where you might use -ad instead of -ii is if you wanted to invoke a sense of national pride or unity. So for example, the Finnish right wing nationalist party True Finns would be translated as Haat’Suum’ade. You would also be 600% more likely to see an -ad ending in news around Independence Day, and if there were Ukrainian news in Mando’a, there would be nary a single ukrainii to be seen and instead every Ukrainian would be ukrainad, but all Russians would be rusii. Otherwise newsreaders either give everyone -ii (or in national news -ad for their countrymen and -ii for everyone else), except -ad for peoples (in plural—svaryade would be “the Swedish people”), indigenous people, and national heroes.

For adjectives, if you were talking about Swedish businesses for example, you would use svaryala (or should it be svaryc, hmm…)—a neutral connotation. Svaryad as an adjective would be “having the essential characteristics of swedenness”, so for example, lagom is a svaryad quality and fika is a svaryad custom.

Many words for many Mandalorians

In the Mandalore sector, there would probably be a term with -ii suffix for civic citizens/residents of Mandalore who are not Mandalorians (i.e. have not taken the creed). Possibly mandalasii (from Manda’lase, Mandalorian space—mandalii would probably be Mandallian).

So let’s say you’re addressing a New Mandalorian: you have a whole range of different terms with different connotations and levels of insult at your use. You could call them:

mando’ad, “a mandalorian”, implying that you don’t see the creed as a non-negotiable part of Mandalorian identity and are probably a New Mandalorian or a sympathiser yourself;

evaar’ad, if you held some sympathies toward them or were at least polite enough to call them by the name they call themselves (even if only to their face);

naak’tsadii, lit. pacifist, a member of peace movement (naak’tsad), mostly a Kalevalan/Sundarian term, implying that you’re probably also either a Kalevalan/Sundarian or share those politics;

arakaanii, a Northern/Keldabian word for a pacifist (lit. “against war”), implying that you’re not one yourself;

arakaanad, a little kinder term for a pacifist, more akin to “a child of pacifism” or “a descendant of the pacifist movement” (the dictionary term would be arakaanii, swapping it for arakaanad would soften it—but since -ad is also for children, it could also come off as patronising depending on context!);

mandalasii, if you held the centrist opinion (one of the many) that you’re willing to tolerate the pacifists, but if they won’t follow the Resol’nare, then they should also accept the same rights, responsibilities and restrictions as other residents of Mandalore who are not Mandalorians. The degree of insult would be highly context-dependent—one thing to call them that during peace talks, another in a cantina;

ka’gahtii, “southerner”, a slang term for a person living on Mandalore's southern continent, a Sundarian, or a Kalevalan immigrant or a person of Kalevalan background living on Mandalore—mostly negative connotations implying Sundarian political leanings which you don’t share;

aruetii, “outsider”, if you wanted to be insulting and highlight their ties to the Republic;

dar’manda, “no longer Mandalorian”, which is one of the worst insults out there, if you wanted to highlight them giving up their traditions and say that they’re not even a Mandalorian anymore.

A droid is a droid is a droid

Several Mando’a speakers, myself among them, have headcanoned that the word for droid should be besad, “child of metal”, not beskar’ad, since beskar is specifically culturally important Mandalorian steel. As an aside, I think the prototypical metal for a spacefaring civilisation should be steel, not iron (unless it’s some yet unknown super metal, but let’s go with steel for best usability to actual speakers today). Iron would be the special case of steel, so perhaps it has a different name altogether or it’s called something like ne’tra bes/netra’bes, “black steel”. So my modified dictionary definitions are (shortened here for convenience):

besad (or bes’ad)—droid

bes—metal, steel

beskar—Mandalorian steel

Anyway.

The standard, neutral word for droid is besad. If you call a droid besii, you’re specifically choosing to not use the standard word, and the connotation is pejorative, implying a lack of sentience. Besii is a backformation from besad, switching the -ad suffix (in this context, the English equivalent would be -man) for -ii (which in demonyms can be either neutral or pejorative, but commonly used for outsider groups)—the implication is that droids are not "us", not people. But you could also call a particularly gutsy droid beskar’ad (looking at you R2D2)—implying they’ve got the droid equivalent of mandokar. Or you might perhaps use beskar’ad for an armoured battle droid, because of the word’s similarity to beskaryc, armoured.

In conclusion

If this sounds complicated, well that’s because languages are complicated. Languages are systems of words and metaphors. Words aren’t defined by words in other languages, but by their relationships to other words in the same language. So it’s the choice of which word to use that matters as much if not more as the word itself or its etymology. I hope I’ve caught some of that realism here.

So there you have it: -ii can be neutral or pejorative depending on the context; -ad is empathetic and highlights a sense of belonging. Now go out there and be exactly as insulting as you mean to!

p.s. Yes, I have a whole fat ass table of transliterated country names and derived demonyms and adjectives etc. which I came up when I was laid down with a flu. It’s a work in progress figuring out how to transliterate different languages with different phonologies and different writing systems into Mando’a. I’ll get it out there someday.

#mando’a #mandoa #mando’a language #mandalorians #mandalorian culture #star wars meta #mando’a linguistics #ranah talks mando’a #mando'a #meta: mandalorians #mando’a morphology

[izzyovercoffee]

TLJ spoilers under the cut, kind of ... to do with Rey, and more like that conspiracy.jpg I posted the other day.

this is 100% “out there” and “wtf izzy” so. you’ve been warned lmao

now that we got 0 confirmation of Rey's parentage and instead received the “she is NOTHING and from NOWHERE” from a not exactly trustworthy source ... I decided to think about if we have the existence of "Nothing" as something more than just the offense it was meant, and does that “Nothing” exist within the scope of the universe... and the truth is, we do.

Ranah teh Naast, Mandalore the Destroyer.

To recap, upon death past Mand’alore ascend to the stars to join the ka'ra, the council of fallen leaders. As the stories go, they watch over their people from the stars --- the ka'ra --- and so no mandalorians are ever truly alone.

it is ... a different kind of take on the force without ever saying it has anything to do with the Force. Powerful leaders who exemplify their people transcend death to live on among the stars? Who still have influence, in whatever way that means? That sounds familiar already, doesn't it? (if it doesn’t ... I’m talking about Force beings, Force ghosts, as they do exist in Legends and iirc in canon outside of the scope of the Jedi Order).

Naast is Destroyer, and Naas is NOTHING. To destroy is to render unto nothing, to wipe all away, to enact such dramatic change as to destroy and end that was, as well as to begin again from Nothing.

Nowhere. No one. Naas teh Naast.

Ranah teh Naast fought a war to preserve a culture the galaxy tried to snuff out. She cut a swathe of destruction across a system, if not more, that echoed renown for centuries to come, if not longer. 

It would not be the first time someone powerful in the force was born from only one parent.

Anakin Skywalker was born from the Force and one parent. Why not Rey be the same, if we're going full conspiracy.jpg?

On top of that, the name Rey is close to the mando’a words, and name(s), "Riye" or “Riy” --- favor, benefit, good turn; and “Reyt” --- maybe, perhaps, possibly or possibility.

It’s the kind of name that would be considered a “good name” to give --- especially to one that might be considered a “miracle child.” It’s a name that indicates one was born in good luck or under good stars (jate’kara) without directly tempting the fates (as naming a child ka’ra might, or would). 

It would also offer an additional layer as to why she’s so capable when she is so young --- mandalorians begin practical education at a very young age (combat, mechanics, and so on) and by the time we see the child-aged version of her in TFA she would have a fairly high skill competency that would be considered totally normal for mandalorians (and totally abnormal for the rest of the galaxy). 

And it also explains her good luck, her good fortune, and how everything even at their worst moments seem to swing her way --- as she wouldn’t just have the Force on her side, but a guiding light of a certain star shining over her.

"Why is everything always mandalorians, Izzy?" Listen ... 

first of all have you met me?

second of all I’m pissed about the audacity of someone daring to call her nothing and maybe I want to give context to the word “nothing” if we’re gonna go there.

thirdly if Rey is meant to be our analogue of a powerful bloodline to the force that we shouldn’t glorify as related to skywalkers --- if she’s meant to stand on her own, separate, and that which makes her special is that she isn’t related to them ...  then why don’t we just say fuck it and go ham, go all the way with it? 

why not have yet again yet another poor hapless child born from a single parent and the force? 

except the force, this time, comes from a totally different spiritual heritage --- because, after all, to say the force only belongs to the Jedi really is pure vanity.

do I think this idea has even a small shot in the dark? hell no. is it interesting to think about? hell yes. 

And let’s say she isn’t a one-parent-miracle child. why would her parents abandon her?

the thing is ...  mandalorians have a contentious relationship with force sensitivity. thousands of years of manipulation and war and destruction at the hands of Force wielding beings doesn’t exactly ... nurture nor foster the kindest and most open-minded attitude towards those with the Force.

it would not be outside the realm of possibility if, upon learning she really did have the Force, that her parents ... may have left her behind because of it. may have lied and said they would come back for her, and never did. the Force is terrifying, and in unstable times when such things would garner a lot of intense attention --- especially the kind that could bring war? it’s not exactly unheard of. 

Rey looks up to the stars every night searching for her parents, and finds one star that twinkles in such a way to always catch her eye. On one hard, cold night, she wonders if they died, and that lone star is her parent watching down from above. She shakes that idea, because she cannot give up hope --- they will come back for her, they will.

But it’s a quiet comfort, to think she is loved by this star that always shines to catch her eye, no matter the cloud cover or distance she’s traveled. No matter how far she’s gone, or the scenery she’s traded when she finally, finally leaves for the last time. 

Her lucky star. It loves her like she thinks maybe her parents would. 

but anyway, that’s my extremely bizarre theory that is probably better classified as crack. thanks for coming to my TED talk. everything’s gonna be mandalorians 2k18

#izzy talks star wars #mmmmm maybe this also goes under #tbd.txt #listen ... i know how this sounds #i know ok #i k n o w #c: Rey #izzy talks mandalorians

[ranahan]

Mando’a masterpost

Most of my Mando’a linguistic nerdery you should be able to find under the hashtags #mando’a linguistics and #ranah talks mando’a. Specific topics like phonology and etymology are tagged on newer posts but not necessarily on older. I also reblog lots of other peoples’ fantastic #mando’a stuff, which many of these posts are replies to.

I also post about #mandalorian culture, other #meta: mandalorians and #star wars meta topics, #star wars languages, #conlangs, and #linguistics. Not Star Wars content tag is #not star wars. I like to reblog well-reasoned and/or interesting takes on Star Wars and Mandalorian politics, but I am not pro or contra fictional characters or organisations, only pro good storytelling. You can use the featured tags to navigate most of these topics.

Currently working on an analysis of canon Mando’a. Updates under #mando’a project. Here are my thoughts on using my stuff (tldr: please do). My askbox is open & I’d love to hear which words, roots or other features you want to see dissected next.

#Phonology

Ven’, ’ne and ’shya—phonology of Mando’a affixes

Murmured sounds in Mando’a

Mando’a vowels

#Morphology

Mando’a demonyms: -ad or -ii?

Agent nouns in Mando’a

Reduplication in Mando’a

Verbal conjugation in Ancient Mando’a & derivations in Modern Mando’a

-nn

#Syntax

Middle Mando’a creole hypothesis— Relative tenses — Tense, aspect and mood & creole languages — Copula and zero copula in creole languages — More thoughts about Mando’a TAM particles

Mando’a has no passive

Alienable/inalienable possession — more thoughts

#Roots, words & etymology

ad ‘child’—but also many other things

adenn, ‘wrath’

akaan & naak: war & peace

an ‘all’ + a collective suffix & plural collectives

*bir-, birikad, birgaan

cetar ‘kneel’

cinyc & shiny

gai’ka, ka’gaht, la’mun

jagyc, ori’jagyc & misandry

janad

*ka-, kakovidir & cardinal directions

*maan-, manda, gai bal manda, kir’manir, ramaan & kar’am & runi: ‘soul’ & ‘spirit’

*nor- & *she- ‘back’ (+ bonus *resh-)

projor ‘next’

*sak-, sakagal ‘cross’

*sen- ‘fly’

tapul

urmankalar ‘believe’

*ver- ‘earn’

*ya-, yai, yaim (& flyby mentions of eyayah, eyaytir, gayiyla, gayiylir, aliit)

Regional English in Mando’a

#Non-canon words

Mining vocabulary

Non-canon reduplications

Many words for many Mandalorians

What’s the word for “greater mandalorian space”?

Dral’Han & derived words

besal ‘silver, steel grey’

derivhaan

hukad & hukal, ’sheath, scabbard’

*sen- ‘fly’ derivations

tarisen ‘swoop bike’

*ver- ‘earn’ derivations

#mando’a proverbs

#mando’a idioms

Pragmatics & ethnolinguistics

Middle Mando’a creole hypothesis

Kinship terms

Politeness in Mando’a: gedet’ye & ba’gedet’ye — vor entye, vor’e, n’entye — n’eparavu takisit, ni ceta

Mandalorian languages

#mandalorian sign language

Concordian dialogue retcon

Mandalorians and medicine, baar’ur, triage

#Mandalorian colour theory (#mandalorians and color): cin & purity, colour associations & orange, cin, ge’tal, saviin & besal

#Mandalorian nature: Flora and fauna of Manda’yaim, woorlarii (whistler), beskaab’sen (bell-bird), beshap (iron wood), galek’tal, unnamed lizard, unnamed, oltaba (mandalorian centipede crab), galkali, skredee (saw jaw), kitat (bucket bird), karikase (star flies, or mandalorian fireflies)

starry road

Other

A short history of the Mandalorian Empire

Mandalorian clans & government headcanons

Names of Mandalorian planets

Mando’a timeline

What I would have done differently if I had constructed Mando’a

Mando’a handwriting guide: part 1, part 2, part 3

Free tactical medicine learning resources for medics & those who write them

FAQ

Can I use your words/headcanons in my own projects? (short answer: yes please)

What’s your stance on Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians? (tldr: they’re fictional and I don’t have one beyond their narrative being interesting & wishing that fandom would have civil conversations about them.)

LGBTQIA?: I’m about a flag short of an entire pride parade. Oh, you meant is this blog safe for you? Yeah, I don’t stand for any shade of discrimination. If I say something insensitive, rest assured it’s because I temporarily misplaced my other brain cell, not because of malice.

Asks under #ranah answers

P.s. Let me know if the links don’t work or something else is wrong (some items don’t have links, they are articles in my draft folder/queue which I’ve listed here so they don’t get lost—sorry for the tease!). Also please tell me if you need me to tag something I haven’t so you can filter it (this blog is for readers—if I was writing just for myself, I wouldn’t bother to edit and publish—so let me know what I can do to make it work better for you). Thanks!

#mando’a #mandoa #mando'a #mando’a language #meta: mandalorians #ranah talks mando’a

[ranahan]

Politeness in Mando’a

Different languages have different politeness strategies. Polite expressions like “please” and “thank you” are very idiosyncratic. You have to learn the correct way to use them in a particular language, because their usage relies on cultural context, not semantic meaning.

I headcanon that Mando’a generally uses these expressions less than Basic does. In Mando’a, you say gedet’ye, ba’gedet’ye, vor entye, etc. when you mean it, not as filler words—they’re rarer, but more empathetic than their Basic counterparts. So mandos can come off as brusque/impolite when they speak Basic; aruetiise as overly conscientious/groveling/unctuous when they speak Mando’a. Can you tell I just love some delicious culture clash?

Here are some of my headcanons about some mando expressions:

gedet’ye

please, I beg you, would you be so kind (polite request—rarer and more empathetic than English “please”)

thank you, please (polite acknowledgment)

yes please, yes thank you, much obliged (in response to questions)

excuse me, pardon

pardon, say again, come again (a request to repeat information—informal, not military)

English doesn’t have a compact expression between “please” and “I beg you”, but that’s the space I headcanon gedet’ye occupies. It’s more empathetic than “please”, but not quite so groveling as “I beg you”. Something like “would you be so kind”, perhaps?

I’m a fan of the idea that vor entye—especially the full version—is taken quite literally. So aruetiise, who have only learned a few polite phrases and not their contexts, can and will go around putting themselves in debt to every jack and jones, much to the consternation and humour of mandos. Natives use either the shortened form vor’e (for informal expressions of gratitude) or gedet’ye (in contexts where English could use either thank you or please: would you like more shig? yes, please/thank you). Gedet’ye is a polite request, but when someone fulfills your request (or teacup) before you can voice it, you can also use gedet’ye to acknowledge the action posthumously—like English thanks! If vor entye/vor’e is too much, use gedet’ye instead.

In situations where you’d ask for someone’s attention with “excuse me” or ask them to make way with the same, gedet’ye also works.

When you ask someone to repeat what they just said, English uses “sorry, I didn’t catch that” (implication: please repeat it). Mando’a uses “gedet’ye” (implication: the thing I’m asking for is what you just said).

ba’gedet’ye

you're welcome (acknowledgement of thanks)

here you are, there you are, there you go (when handing something over to someone)

be my guest, you're welcome, go ahead, that's all right, it’s okay, it’s fine (permission to do something)

OK then, well then, fine (sarcastic)

hello (when answering the phone)

what? (ironic expression of puzzlement, somewhat like English “hello?”)

please, be so kind, go ahead, you're welcome to... (to soften a command or invite your audience to do something, "ba'gedet'ye, ke'sheber", please be seated)

If you’re confused by some of these senses, consider that the expectation is that the first person asks for something/says “gedet’ye” and the second person replies with “ba’gedet’ye”. Gedet’ye is a polite request, so ba’gedet’ye can be understood as granting the request. The sarcasm comes from the fact that nobody asked. You’re essentially commenting aloud on somebody forgetting their manners. “You’re welcome” (implication: not that you asked), or “fine, be that way” (implication: it’s actually not fine but I’ll let it slide for now).

When answering a phone or a comm, the call itself is understood as a request to answer. In this context, ba’gedet’ye can be understood as “please, go ahead (and talk)”. The ironic what? is somewhat like the ironic use of English hello, an ironic expression of puzzlement. Sort of “please, go ahead… (and explain to me what you were just thinking)”.

The last sense, issuing a polite command, is somewhat formal in tone. In practice it’s a nice way to tell someone that your job requires you to be polite, but you better do what you’re told or you won't like the consequences. Again, the implication is that you’re not really asking, but replying to an implied request for permission even if no such thing was actually asked.

#Karen Traviss: like German bitte #me: okay then #here’s some more senses! #mando’a #mandoa #meta: mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mando’a language #mandalorians #star wars #mando'a #ranah talks mando’a

[ranahan]

Middle-Mando’a creole hypothesis

Mando’a is said to be designed to have simple grammar so adults adopted into the culture can learn it easily. But natural languages aren’t designed—that can’t be the in-universe explanation (unless the Taung were doing something real funky). However, creole languages do exhibit simplified grammar (compared to the parent languages) and Mando’a grammar does in fact fit well with what we know about grammars of creole languages.

There is a ready-made in-universe historical reason for why this would have happened too: the Neo-Crusader movement. Within the space of few decades, the Mandalorians went from primarily Taung to the Taung going virtually extinct, clans becoming multi-species/human-dominated and accepting any worthy warriors. Following the Mandalorian wars was also some three centuries of disarray and diaspora. No wonder there was a break in the transmission of the language from the natively Mando’a speaking Taung to their new recruits. That’s the reason that would explain the creolisation. The lexicaliser/superstratum would be Classical Mando’a and the substrata would be the various languages of the peoples conquered/absorbed into the Neo-Crusaders (probably including but not limited to Early Modern Basic and Huttese).

Creolisation would neatly explain not just the “easy to learn” example, but also how Mando’a came to lose it’s verbal conjugation system and replace it with simple prefixes/preverbal auxiliaries.

So my new favourite headcanon is that Modern Mando’a started out as a creole (but has since had enough time to reacquire some features not encountered in recently creolised languages). I like this idea because it gives me lots of ideas for how to interpret and extend the existing language in ways that aren’t just “standard English word order because it’s easy to learn”, but SVO because that’s overwhelmingly the most common word order in creole and pidgin languages. And that tense system? They might actually be relative anterior tense/perfect aspect & relative posterior tense/prospective aspect, not absolute past/future (which would by the way probably be really common misunderstanding viz. Basic and L2 learners). Not that it makes that big a difference, but the exact nature of Mando’a tenses is something I’ve been thinking about and this fits the ideas I’ve had.

#mando’a #mandoa #meta: mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mando’a language #star wars meta #mandalorian headcanons #mando'a #ranah talks mando’a

[ranahan]

ad (‘child’—but also many other things)

Ad is one of the most prolific roots in Mando’a. Let’s go through a few of the different ways it can be used in Mando’a words, grouped loosely by different senses ad can take. Again, this is not an exhaustive list, but I’ve tried to include large enough a sample to justify my conclusions.

Child

Let’s start with the obvious: the dictionary definition and immediate related senses.

Ad (n.): child, daughter, son

That’s the dictionary definition. A child of any gender.

Adiik (n.): a child aged 3-13

ad, ‘child’ + diminutive. A child before their verd’goten, you can take the years as a rough guideline or species equivalent.

Ik’aad (n.): baby

Ika + ad. Interestingly, I think this is the only word where the diminutive ika acts as the base of a word, rather than as the suffix.

Bu’ad (n.): grandchild

Probably bah-ad (bah dissimilates > bu, similar pattern as in lots of other words).

Person

Rather like English “man”, ad can also mean “a person”.

Ad’ika (n.): little one, son, daughter, of any age - also used informally to adults much like *lads* or *guys*

Ad + ika, a diminutive suffix that is also used affectionately.

Adade (n.): personnel

This is a reduplication of ad + a plural for good measure. Other reduplications seem to be in the singular, so this is kind of a double-collective, like “peoples”.

Adate (n.): people, persons

The singular “person” is probably adat < ad + nominal suffix -at.

Mando’ad (n.): a Mandalorian

Traviss translates this as “son/daughter of Mandalore” (that’s one way Mando’a forms possessives: by smashing together the possessor and the possessed, like “Mandalore’child”), which would give ad the sense of a child in relation to their background, not just a child in age. But if that was the construction, wouldn’t it be *mand’ad? But mando is ‘Mandalorian’ (both as an adjective and as a noun meaning “a Mandalorian person”), so perhaps a better way to translate mando’ad would be “a Mandalorian person”. Either interpretation works for me, though.

Alor’ad (n.), captain

Alor, ‘leader’ + ad. A leader person, a person who leads.

Akaan’ade (n.): army

Akaan, ‘war’ + ad + e (plural suffix)

Ramikad (n.): commando

Probably “raider”. *Ram-, ‘an attack’ > *ramika, “a little attack” i.e. ‘a raid’ > ramikad, “a raider”.

Kyrad (n.): corpse

Kyr, ‘end’ + ad.

Anade (pron.): everyone, everybody

An, ‘all’ + ad + e (plural suffix)

Ashad (pron.): someone else

*ash, ‘other’ + ad.

Tion’ad: who (lit: what person)

Question word tion + ad, ‘person’. That “lit: what person” is word-of-god from Traviss, ‘nuff said.

Patient

Then we have a bunch of nouns that have nothing to do with people. Ad here probably has the sense of “one” or the patient of an action.

Copad (n.), desire

Cop- + ad, “the wanted one”.

*Gaanad (n.): choice

Gaanad isn’t in the canon dictionary, but gaanader is to choose, so gaanad is probably ‘a choice’. Gaan, ‘hand’ + ad, “the hand-picked one” or “the chosen one”.

Jorad (n.): voice

“One who is carried”. Several Mando’a words related to speaking utilise the metaphor “speaking is carrying” or “speaking is carrying the truth”.

Sarad (n.), flower

Probably sar- + ad, “the blooming one”. It’s the only word from this root in the dictionary, but that’s how it would fit the pattern of other words of this type. Therefore I would construct the verb “to flower, to bloom” as sarir, not saradir (not that there’s anything wrong with saradir as a construction, sarir is just a bit simpler and shorter).

Munad (n.): elevation, height

Perhaps “one who is lengthened (~raised, as *mun- is both ‘long’ and ‘tall’)”. Or simply “the tall one”.

Yilad (n.): array

Possibly *yil-, ‘arrange, put in order’ + ad > “the arranged one”.

-ad adjectives

So far, all our words have been nouns. But -ad also appears in two adjectives: janad and jiriad. There’s two ways of reconstructing what’s happened here: either -ad can also function as an adjectival suffix OR these words are originally nouns that have undergone zero-transformation and have been turned into adjectives without a corresponding change in form. There’s a whole bunch of Mando’a adjectives that have miscellaneous nominal suffixes instead of the usual -la or -yc, so I think the latter explanation is something that best explains these random noun-looking adjectives as a whole. However, one could still analyse -ad adjectives as a pattern that could be extended. I like to think the -ad adjectives have the sense of “essential quality”, but that’s just my suggestion.

Janad (a.): spicy

Possibly from *jan-, ‘spice’ (or perhaps ‘herb’, as janad is probably a milder kind of spice compared to heturam or hetikleyc) + ad.

Jiriad (a.): white, chalky, ashen-faced

Possibly from *jiri, either ‘chalk’ or perhaps ‘any chalky, powdery, mealy substance’ + ad. We already have words for white (cin) and ash (rang), so chalk is the sense I’d use for reconstructing this root.

#mando’a #mandoa #mando’a language #ranah talks mando’a #mando’a linguistics #mando’a words #mando’a roots #mando’a morphology #mando’a etymology #mando’a analysis #mando'a #constructive critism welcome #let me know which roots or features you want to see analysed next

[ranahan]

What do you think is the correct word for "greater Mandalorian space"? I've seen 'Mandalase', don't remember where though, and have been using Tra'Manda in my own fics. Is there anything established in canon/fanon?

Good question! I’ve pondered it myself and the answer I’ve arrived at is that there should probably be several words.

See, what is meant by “the greater Mandalorian space” probably varies depending on the time and the speaker and the context, because the Mandalorian civilisation is a bit like the Roman civilisation: do you mean Rome the city, Rome the administrative region, the Roman Empire, or the Roman world as a cultural area?

For Mandalore we have at least these different senses:

Mandalore the planet (“Mandalore actual” or Manda’yaim)

Mandalore system (which includes at least three other inhabited planets and moons)

Mandalore sector

The entire area of space administered by the Mandalorian government (which is never really defined in canon)

Mandalorian Empire (historical)

The wider Mandalorian cultural area/area influenced or historically a part of the Mandalorian Empire

The indented words are from the unedited parts of my dictionary, so they are somewhat tentative and I’m not necessarily married to them. However this is what I currently have.

#1

The first is easy, the planet Mandalore is called Manda’yaim in Mando’a.

Manda’yaim: 1 the planet Mandalore, the fifth planet in the Mandalore system, capital world of the Mandalorians; 2 during periods of diaspora, can also refer to other Mandalorian areas or enclaves

haat’manda’yaim: Manda'yaim proper; planet Mandalore in contrast to its satellite Concordia, other planets in the Mandalore system, other Mandalorian worlds, or Mandalorian enclaves of the Mandalorian diaspora

#2

The Mandalorian system we can probably form directly from the word for a star system, perhaps Mando’tolase, lit. Mandalorian system, assuming tolase is also the word used for star systems and not just for other kinds of systems (not sure which way I lean on it tbh). Or Manda’tolase, if you subscribe to the fandom take that the star Mandalore is named Manda (or a variation thereof).

Or people might colloquially refer to the Mandalorian system also as Manda’lase.

I imagine there’s probably some kind of interplanetary law which defines what area of space is considered to belong to a planetary system and what is “international waters”/deep space.

#3-4

The third is what I suppose you were asking about. I’ve seen Manda’lase all over the place, but I don’t actually know where it came from—if anyone does know, please let me know! Linguistically the derivation goes something like this: manda ‘the shared Mandalorian oversoul’ > manda’la ‘having the Mandalorian soul, i.e. Mandalorian’ > Manda’lase ‘all of Mandalorians collectively’. In any case, I rather like it and have been using it myself since it seems about as established as anything in Fando’a.

Edit: Manda’lase appears to have been coined by Batsutousai; thanks for @johamur for pointing it out!

Mando’tra, Mandalorian space could also work. Manda’tra, substituting the word mando ‘mandalorian’ for manda ‘soul’, sounds to me a bit like the emphasis is on the shared culture less than the shared administration. Not that Mandalorians themselves necessarily see a big difference there.

It’s unclear whether Mandalore sector refers to a geographical area or an administrative region. I guess in everyday speech, people might conflate the two and use Manda’lase for both. So you might end up with a definition something like the following:

Manda’lase: 1 Mandalorian space; 2 Mandalorian system; 3 Mandalorian sector (colloquially)

In any case, I haven’t come up with a word for sector I like yet, although it’s on my list of needed words.

#5-6

For the historical Mandalorian Empire, I have:

Mando’alorai (or Mand’alorai): 1 Mandalorian Empire (historical); 2 still sometimes used of the regions that used to be governed by the Empire as a cultural area

alorai (n): 1 empire; 2 realm, domain, holding, governed area

Where alorai is either a portmanteau of alor + veeray, or alor + the same nominal suffix -ai we have in e.g. parjai.

Another option is:

Ori’Manda’lase: Mandalorian Empire (lit. Great Mandalore); Greater Mandalore, the historical region of space once controlled by the Mandalorian Empire

ori’manda’la (a): imperial (of Mandalorian Empire specifically, not other empires); of or belonging to Greater Mandalore, the historical region once controlled by Mandalorian Empire

ori’manda’lase tugoten (n): Mandalorian Empire Revivalism (Revanchism), an ideology on Mandalore that supports the revival of the Mandalorian Empire and a return to Mandalore's conquering days.

ori’manda’lase tugotenii (n): Mandalorian Empire revivalist, a supporter of Mandalorian Empire Revivalism. Tugotenii for short.

I’m using revivalism and revivalist over revanchism and revanchist, because in the Star Wars universe revanchists could be confused with supporters of Revan.

In any case, I think context should determine whether you mean the historical empire as a nation state, or the historical empire as a current area of cultural influence. Most reasonable beings would use Mandalorian Empire in either of these two senses, but then you have the likes of Tor Vizsla, who’d probably use a term with a similar sense to “Greater Russia”, i.e. areas that “should” belong to or be returned to Mandalorian governance.

I have some other scattered words and thoughts about Mandalorian government and citizenship, but this is already pretty long. In any case, that’s what a quick search through my dictionary file brought up, hope you found something to your liking!

#mando’a #mandoa #star wars #meta: mandalorians #mando’a language #mandalorians #mando'a #mando’a extended dictionary #ranah talks mando’a #ranah answers #answered asks #asks

[ranahan]

So I totally missed #lexember. But even so, I thought that while I’m still writing up my morphology analysis and editing the monster extended dictionary (sitting currently at 8,5k entries without duplicates removed—the finished thing will be shorter… I hope), I might try to post at least some analyses & derivations. Let’s start with the common complaint that Mando’a doesn’t have a word for the verb to fly. It does, however, have a root for it:

*sen- (‘fly’)

In canon Mando’a, this root appears in several words:

senaar, (n.) ‘bird’

From sen + aar, an agent suffix which also appears in chakaar (‘robber’) and galaar (‘hawk’). So senaar is basically “a flyer”. I thought that it could be extended to also apply to any other sort of winged creatures, like bats and butterflies, analogously to te reo Māori manu.

me’sen, (n.) ‘ship’

From meg + sen, literally “that which flies”. Colloquially might also be called senaar or just sen.

sen’tra, (n.) ‘jetpack’

From sen + tra (‘starfield; space; sky’).

Now let’s make some derivations!

senir, (v.) ‘to fly’

Simple and easy, because it’s such a basic action.

senyc, (adj./adv.), ‘flying’

Again, let’s keep it simple.

senad, (n.) ‘pilot’

Can equally be spelled as sen’ad. Literally “fly-man, the person who flies”.

ge’senad, (n.) co-pilot

Mando’a has several fun native affixes, ge’/get’ meaning ‘near, almost’. The meaning here could be either “almost a pilot” or maybe “near the pilot, the guy sitting next to the pilot”.

sesen, (n.) ‘fly’

Or, y’know, spell it as se’sen if you like. We’re not picky. Mando’a uses reduplication to derive new words. English doesn’t have reduplication, but it’s rather common cross-linguistically. The meaning is often iterative (which seems to be the case for Mando’a), but it can also have less iconic senses or grammatical functions. In Mando’a, the reduplication pattern is a CV- prefix for roots that begin with a consonant. So here a fly is literally “fly-fly”, because when do they ever appear one by one, instead of in swarms?

#mando’a #mandoa #mando’a language #mando’a words #mando’a etymology #ranah talks mando’a #mando’a linguistics #mando’a ​extended dictionary #mando'a #mando’a morphology #sen #mando’a roots

[ranahan]

Sexism in Mando’a, take two: misandry

We’ve talked before about sexism in the canon Mando’a corpus—particularly misogyny, e.g. words like dalab ‘sheath, scabbard’, or sayings like Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya ‘raise your children, sons strong but daughters stronger’.

But I don’t think I’ve seen misandry covered yet.

jagyc (adj): male (can also mean macho in context)

ori’jagyc (adj): bullying; also bully, swaggering big-mouth - someone who picks on someone smaller

That is, these two definitions equate masculinity with toxic masculinity (or toxic behaviour in general). Male = macho = masculine in an overly aggressive or unpleasant way. Very male = bully; and what’s more, a bully with a fragile ego.

And. Ugh. That’s a step above equating women with scabbards, but that’s a bar so low that going above it is not a compliment.

Are you really telling me that this is what mando men are like? So much so that the word “manly” also means “macho”? And not just to outsiders (many of whom probably find mandos of all genders overly assertive/aggressive), but to Mandalorians themselves? Come on, now. That’s just the tired old “testosterone = bad” argument (no, testosterone does not make men angry or aggressive any more than oestrogen makes women emotional and hysterical).

Outside of the GFFA, this is not something I personally want to propagate. It’s not a message I want to send to young men who are into military science fiction. That being manly means being toxic, that your gender and identity are just the bad things associated with them. Where does that message leave you? Where’s the call to action, to do better than the previous generations? Where are any of the number of masculine virtues or role models to strive for or to imitate? No—that message just leaves you with the message of “you = bad”, because it’s not like any of us can (or should) change our gender identities, which are core parts of ourselves. No boy wants to be a bully when they grow up, but some don’t have any better role models of how to be a man.

So. Let’s do better! Here are some options:

jagyc (adj): male

That is, just remove the part inside the parenthesis (“can also mean macho in context”).

ori’adyc (adj): bullying; also bully, swaggering big-mouth - someone who picks on someone smaller

Lit. “big guy” or “big child”, basically a gender neutral equivalent of the original.

Here are two words from @booklindworm:

orikaanii (n): bully - lit. big fighter /sarcasm

orikaanyc (adj): bullying

Leaning on the sarcasm here: “aren’t you a big fighter, picking on someone smaller than you?”

And from the MandoCreator Language Team (“pretentious”) & Aay’han community (“royal (sarcastic)”):

aloryc: pretentious; royal (sarcastic)

That is, someone putting on big airs, making themselves more important than they really are, and demanding more respect than they have earned. “Royal” is kind of an odd choice of words in English, but I guess what they’re aiming at is “putting on undeserved airs” (i.e. pretentious) or royal in the sense of “a royal pain in the ass” (lit. “leading” or “chiefly” pain in the ass).

I was originally not a big fan of this word, because the neutral adjective from alor, then? But I ended up just deriving it from the root *al- > alyc or ala to avoid possible confusion, and I think that works fine. I’ve come ‘round to it.

ori’shya te buy’ce: too big for their boots, lit. bigger than their helmet

A swaggering big-mouth. You could also say “ori’shya kaysh buy’ce”, but I think the definitive article te does the same job in context, and you avoid repeating the same word (“kaysh ori’shya te buy’ce” instead of “kaysh ori’shya kaysh buy’ce”). Aesthetic choice, really. It’s easier to say in my mouth, at least.

#mando’a #mandoa #mandalorian culture #meta: mandalorians #mando’a language #mando'a #ranah talks mando’a #mando’a words

[ranahan]

Agent nouns in Mando’a

No, not the 007 kind. I mean different ways to derive words for a “doer” in Mando’a. There are half a dozen different ones. I’ve included some examples, but not an exhaustive list of all the instances these suffixes/derivations appear in the canon dictionary.

In no particular order (because tumblr on mobile doesn’t allow me to drag these into a more logical order):

-ad

As a noun, ad means “a child”. It’s kind of hard to say whether it should be analysed as a suffix or as a part of a compound word in derived words. Whichever way, in derived words the meaning is “person”, somewhat like “man” in English words like foreman, fireman, Englishman, etc. In demonyms, it’s perhaps best translated as “a child of…”. It also appears in other types of nouns and some adjectives, but that’s a story for another time.

In canon, it appears in words such as:

Alor’ad, (n.) ‘captain’ < alor (‘leader’) + ad

Ramikad, ‘commando’ < ram’ika ‘raid’ + ad, “raider”.

Kyramud, ‘assassin’ < kyram (‘death’) + ad (ad dissimilates to -ud)

Mando’ad, (n.) ‘a Mandalorian’, “child of Mandalore” < mando (‘mandalorian’) + ad

+1 non-canon example, since I promised to explain my reasoning for deriving the word for a pilot from sen (‘fly’) + ad > senad (rather than one of the other suffixes): it’s not that I think -ad is the only one or even the most common way to derive a noun for a profession—rather, it’s my observation that pilots seem to hold flying as something that’s more than just a job, and more like a part of their identity. And I wanted the word for a pilot to reflect that. So this one is for all the pilots in my family tree.

-ur

Nominal suffix which seems to denote a doer or an instrument (we also get it in gaanur, ‘hand tool’ < gaan (‘hand’) + ur).

Baar’ur, (n.) ‘a medic’ < baar (‘body’) + ur. My take on this word is that it’s rather like English “physician”, which derives (via French and Latin) from Ancient Greek φυσικός, which means ‘natural’ or ‘physical’. I tend to think that baar’la also means ‘bodily, corporal’ (I’m hardly original in this, my dictionary file lists no less that four authors for baar’la).

Cabur, ‘protector, guardian’ < *cab- (‘protect’) + ur

-ii

A nominal suffix denoting a doer, also used in demonyms (but not professional titles, at least not in the small canon sample). My take on -ii is a neutral agent suffix, much like English -er. It also appears in demonyms, which I’ve written about in here. The tldr is that I think it’s a neutral suffix—but it can be derogatory depending on the context.

Parjii, ‘victor, winner’ < *parj- (‘win’) + -ii

Aruetii, ‘outsider’

Kaminii, ‘Kaminoan’ < Kamino + -ii

-aar

Short. Punchy. I don’t know what else to say.

Chakaar, ‘thief’ < *chak- (‘steal’) + -aar, “stealer, robber”.

Senaar, ‘a bird’ < *sen- (‘fly’) + -aar, “flyer”.

Galaar, ‘a hawk’ < *gal- (‘plunge, plummet, dive’) + -aar. Literally “plummet-er” or “diver”, after its characteristic way of hunting.

-an

This is a fun one. As an independent word, it means ‘all’. As a suffix, it has a couple of different collective senses. When forming an agent noun, the best way I can formulate the meaning is X-an > “one who can all X”.

So cuyan < cuyir (‘to be, exist’) + an is not just any kind of a exister or liver, it’s one who lived through it all, i.e. a survivor.

And a goran < *gorar or possibly *gor + an, is not just any maker or creator, but one who can make everything (or everything that counts, anyway), i.e. a smith, an armourer.

Aran, ‘guard’ < *ar- (my best damn guess is this root means ‘against’) + an, so “one who can (stand) against everything”, probably.

Compound words

I’m still working out the compound word rules in Mando’a so take this analysis with a big heaping of salt. Most compound word titles/agent nouns seem to be a combination of a verb and a noun (like English “woodcutter”) and they don’t need a suffix in addition (“woodcut” rather than “woodcutter”).

First we have a couple of N + V (without the verbal suffix) type compounds. This compound noun type is really common in Mando’a in general.

Gotabor, ‘engineer’ < gota (‘machine’) + bor(ar) (‘work’), “machine-worker”.

Meshurkaan, ‘jeweler’ < meshurok (‘gemstone’) + hokaan(ir) (‘cut’), “gem-cutter”.

The V + N compound word type seems equally well attested:

Tay’haai, ‘archivist, reporter’ < *tay- (‘hold, preserve’) + *haai (probably ‘’), either “hold-truth” or “hold-see(ing, maybe?)”. The problem is, we don’t have a definition for haai. There’s haa’it (‘vision’) and haa’taylir (‘to see’), but no haai. The -i is a noun suffix, so that makes me tentatively place that as a noun.

Al’verde, ‘commander’ < *al- (‘lead’) + verde (‘soldiers’), “soldier-leader” or “lead soldiers”.

Demagol, ‘’ < dem(ar) (‘carve’) + agol (‘flesh’), “flesh-carver” or “carve flesh”.

Others

Sometimes what looks like a verbal suffix -Vr is actually a noun. There are enough of these in the dictionary that it’s either not just zero derivation or it’s a really common one (especially -ar).

Alor, ‘leader’ < *al- (‘lead’) + or

Hibir, ‘student’

Mirci’t, ‘prisoner’. Honestly, this one has a noun suffix that’s otherwise exclusively applied to things, not people. Proceed with caution if you want to take it as an example.

This is my (not exhaustive) analysis based on Traviss’ word list and other works, but I am of course not Karen Traviss and neither do I have access to her notes. If you disagree on something, let me know in the comments or even better, post your own analysis as a rebuttal.

#mandoa #mando’a #mando’a language #mando’a linguistics #ranah talks mando’a #mando'a #mando’a morphology #mando’a analysis

[ranahan]

Ven’, ’ne and ’shya—phonology of Mando’a affixes

Many Mando’a affixes have forms that alternate depending on the phonological environment. Mando’a suffixes that end in a stop, elide the stop before a consonant. Suffixes that end in vowel, elide the vowel before a vowel.

So what about suffixes that end in a nasal? In the dictionary, ven is technically always ven and does not alternate depending on the next word. The reason seems to be that Mando’a allows nasal (or sibilant) + stop combinations, so it doesn’t get elided before a consonant.

But what about before another nasal? I figure there are two options: either it gets elided and becomes ve’ OR it gets pronounced with a double length. So before an n, the two n’s would be pronounced /nː/—for example ven’nau’ur would be pronounced /venːɑʊ̯ʔʊɾ/. And before an m, the n would be pronounced as another m /mː/ (nm is really hard to pronounce, so this is what tends to happen at least in the natural languages that I happen to speak)—so for example ven’mareyir would be pronounced /vemːɐɾeɪ̯ʔiɾ/. Same thing would happen to ’ne, the superlative: “most difficult” would be either umaane /ʊmɑːne/ or umaan’ne /ʊmɑːnːe/.

Perhaps both options are true for different dialects. I like me dialects in conlangs.

Mando’a also allows sibilant + stop combinations, so what about affixes with sibilants? We have ’shya, the comparative, and in the dictionary we have a couple of examples of it attaching itself to a base ending in a sibilant:

chaaj’yc, far > chaashya, further

dush, bad > dush’shya, worse

Why are those different. Why. They are also different in a way that doesn’t make sense. In many languages, the comparatives of good (good, better, best) and bad (bad, worse, worst) are irregular while other comparatives are regular. The reason is probably the frequency: good and bad are really common words and so are their comparatives, so the forms get preserved and drift apart with time. The opposite has happened here: worse is regular, further irregular. So I propose that dush’shya should be dushya and have changed it in my dictionary.

Following this logic, other words ending in s, sh, ts, ch, or j would also get that sound elided before ’shya. I’ve also treated h as a ”weak” consonant, so it elides in some environments that other consonants (or glottals) don’t. For example, kih > kishya.

But what about stridents, or affricates that aren’t sibilants? In Mando’a, those would be /φ/ and /v/. So for example, is more free mav’shya or ma’shya? Maybe it depends on how articulate the speaker is: chaav’shya when one is speaking clearly, chaa’shya when one is speaking fast or mumbling… But since it would be pretty hard to guess what ma’shya is supposed to be, I guess the standard practice is to leave the v in place.

#mando’a #mandoa #mando’a language #ranah talks mando’a #mando’a linguistics #mando’a phonology #mando'a #mando’a morphology

[ranahan]

I headcanon that there are actually several Mandalorian languages.

First off, all the various diasporic dialects of Mando’a that are more or less mutually intelligible (many are, but not all speakers of every dialect can understand all other speakers of every other dialect). I headcanon that they’re all called Mando’a but there’s a lively academic debate going on whether they should be called different dialects or different languages (the question whether Concordian Mando’a is a dialect or a language is covered on every Mando’a linguistics course). Regardless of what you call them, no one can agree on the number of different Mando’a dialects/languages. I think of the various Mando’a dialects like the Scandinavian languages, or Sámi languages, or Finnish-Karelian-Estonian, but those are just some of the language families I’m familiar with so you’re welcome to make your own comparisons.

Dadita, which is basically Mandalorian Morse code. But I headcanon it’s degenerated to consist almost entirely of provords, (military) acronyms and other abbreviations and cannot be learned by learning Mando’a and Dadita alphabet alone—you have to learn it as a new dialect of its own. Clones have their own version called Didi (thanks @crispyjenkins !).

Mandalorian sign language which is related to but not the same thing as

Mandalorian field sign, the hand signals used by Mandalorian soldiers.

#mando’a #meta: mandalorians #mandoa #mandalorian culture #mandalorian language #dadita #didi #mandalorian sign language #mando'a #mando’a language #ranah talks mando’a #mandalorian headcanons

[ranahan]

What I would have done differently

Nobody asked, but I was thinking about this the other day so you get it anyway. I think I’ve mentioned previously that I’ve reused parts of an old conlang project that happened to have basically identical design goals for my version of Mando’a. So I got to thinking, what were the bits that didn’t make the jump to Mando’a? Or in other words: what did I do so differently it wasn’t compatible with canon?

To be clear, these are just idle musings about conlanging, not a serious proposal to make changes to Mando’a.

More elaborate pronoun system

My conlang had a more elaborate pronoun system inspired by Sámi and Polynesian languages.

Singular, dual (for battle buddies), and plural number

Obviate, distal, and further distal pronouns (like English this, that, yonder)

I don’t know if mandos make heavy enough use of the battle buddy system to justify the dual number, so no hard feelings about that. But I am a little disappointed about tossing the obviate/distal/further distal distinction—that would seem like a really handy feature for discussing e.g. terrain or strategy, or a handy way to distinguish between multiple people that isn’t gender. Imagine if English she/he/they (sg.), but she referred to somebody standing close by, he referred so somebody a little further away, and they referred to somebody who isn’t present. My conlang actually had this distinction in basically all persons, but that’s another story because some of the combinations are not intuitive.

Also considering how much time mandos devote to squabbling about who is or isn’t a proper Mandalorian, you’d think Traviss would have given them an inclusive/exclusive “we” distinction like Polynesian languages, lol. But maybe it’s better that they don’t have it.

Absolute direction

Cardinal directions (north/south/west/east) instead of left/right. Some aboriginal Australian languages have this feature and it’s extremely cool. But while it made sense for a language spoken by outdoorsy people on Earth, I’m less sure about using it for spacefaring Mandalorians, since there are no cardinal directions in space.

I did however, retcon it in a bit. Mando’a has two sets of left/right words: staabi/payt and kad/kal. So if you use kad/kal for armour pieces, presumably you would also use it for hands (since that’s where it comes from: sword arm and blade arm, since apparently mandos don’t do shields lol) and other parts of a person. So what would you use staabi/payt for then? I thought that could be starboard/port, which is basically absolute direction on shipboard. It could even be extended for buildings etc (absolute orientation relative to the main entrance—or just use cardinal directions). So basically a person has a swordarm and a sidearm side that are relative to them, but they’re going to take a bow/stern/staabi/payt turn inside a ship, and that’s always going to be the ship’s bow/stern/starboard/port of the ship, not theirs.

tldr: I found it a little odd that there are two left and right words in Mando’a, but I think that could be explained by mandos being a nomadic culture and using starboard/port more often and for more things than e.g. English does. Also fun opportunities for “lost in translation” moments, lol.

Aspects

My language had essentially a four-way verbal conjugation, where each verb was marked for stative or progressive and atelic or telic aspect (and you might already guess, but adjectives were actually just one conjugation of verbs). Time was marked by adverbs.

Progressive vs. static aspect—compare “I’m dressing up” vs. “I’m dressed”/“I’m wearing (it)”.

Completive/telic aspect—marking task completion, compare “I shot at the bear (but the bear may still live)” vs. “I shot the bear dead”.

I don’t think having a few conjugations would add that much complexity to the grammar. Kind of the contrary, actually: you need some way to express these things anyway, so I find encoding them in the verb phrase to be a rather simple solution. The progressive/static aspect can also shoulder some lexical load, allowing you to make double use of some verbs (like dress/wear being expressed by the same verb).

I wouldn’t do aspects exactly the same way in Mando’a as I did them in my old conlang. But I would perhaps add a preverbal or sentence final completive particle (like in some creole languages) and some easy and common way to talk about non-punctual aspect (probably a locative expression).

#mando’a #mandoa #mando’a language #mando'a #conlang #conlanging #ranah talks mando’a

[ranahan]

*ver- (‘earn’)

Not entirely my own analysis, but rather something I’ve picked up from various Fando’a dictionaries and expanded upon.

Let’s look at canon instances of verd and its derivations first, then *ver- without the d, then some non-canon derivations, and lastly a bit of Mandalorian history for those who care to read that far.

Canon: verd & derivations

verd (n): soldier

I think this is a contracted form of ver-ad, ‘one who earns’ (see this post about agent nouns or this post about ad for more), making this construction equivalent to English soldier. Soldier comes (via French) from Latin soldarius, lit. ‘having pay’, ultimately from solidus, the name of a Roman gold coin. So this word refers to the traditional Mandalorian trade of working as mercenaries, which is probably the original meaning of this word.

And then we have many derivations and compound words with verd:

neverd (n): civilian

“Not a soldier”

verd’yc (adj): aggressive

Not a bad quality in Mandalorian culture! You could also translate this as spirited, decisive, bold, audacious, daring, or go-getter.

al’verde (n): commander

“Leader of soldiers”

ver’verd (n): mercenary

This is etymologically funnily enough “mercenary-mercenary”. Such doublets happen all the time in natural languages though, as the original word changes meaning.

Canon: *ver- in other words

*ver- also occurs in:

ver’alor (n): lieutenant

“Paid leader” or “hired leader”. Comparable to Commissioned Officers, I think, hence the translation as lieutenant (mando ranks probably aren’t exactly the same as ones in any particular country on Earth). Possibly represents e.g. the permanent command staff of a mercenary company, rather than the rank and file who might contract for a season or for a specific campaign. Traviss describes mando military organisation as “a flat pyramid”, e.g. lots of people at the bottom, few on top; so this probably refers to fewer people than English CO does.

veriduur (n): courtesan, sex worker

“Paid spouse”

ver’mircit (n): hostage

“Prisoner for money”

beroya (n): bounty hunter

This could be either be-roya, “of hunt”—or it could be ver-oya, “pay hunter”. The v and b sounds are very close to each other, especially if you pronounce v as a bilabial fricative /β/, and the sound change v > b is very plausible. So it’s possible that *ber- is an alternative form of this root, or that beroya was loaned into “standard Mando’a” (no such thing, I know) from another dialect of Mando’a where that sound change has happened.

Non-canon derivations

vere (n.): wages, payment (from Tuuri)

Lit. “earnings”.

berir (v): to pay, to buy (from Oyu’baat)

By analogy to beroya.

berii (n): buyer

From ber + ii.

verar (v): to earn, deserve

Two verbs from the same root, diverged meanings. Happens all the time in natural languages. Gave it a different vowel so it wouldn’t get mixed up as easily.

verdin (n): merit, reward; share

From ver-din, sort of “earnings given” or “give what’s earned”. From here you also get verdinyc ‘meritorious, rewarding’ and verdinir ‘to reward, merit’.

verdir (v): to work as a mercenary

Lit. “to soldier”, but keeping the original sense of verd here.

vergam (n): uniform

Whatever monkey suit you’re paid to wear that’s not beskar’gam.

A history lesson

When thinking of these derivations, I went back to the time of the Mandalorian wars. (And my theory of Modern Mando’a being a creole language that developed in their aftermath.)

So consider the Taung: these are the ancient Mandalorians, who have come to worship war in itself (or in other words, have come to see waging war as an expression of the divine). They’ve conquered large swathes of the galaxy and slaughtered entire peoples in this pursuit. But war is a hungry beast that gobbles up both men and machines, so this warfare must have taken a toll on the Taung even if the plunder fills their coffins.

So the revelation that Mandalore the Ultimate receives on planet Shogun is probably honestly less about other races being worthy of being Mandalorians*, and more about the strategic insight that if instead of total slaughter they assimilate the conquered peoples and draw from them to fill up their ranks, they can go on to conquer indefinitely.

*At this point there’s already a precedent for adopting other races as Mandalorians (e.g. the Mandallian giants), but I think that before the Neo-Crusaders, it was probably rather marginal. It didn’t cause significant changes in the culture, and they were probably assimilated slowly and in small numbers, and so learned the language more or less perfectly. It isn’t until the Neo-Crusaders that assimilating other races becomes widespread (otherwise it wouldn’t be a revelation). And the more the Taung conquer, the more peoples they assimilate and the less they have the time and resources to teach them the language and their ways as they themselves become diluted among the ranks.

Also, let’s be real: while Mandalore the Ultimate is said to have decreed that the recruits be treated equally among the clans, many of those recruits were probably not there voluntarily, but rather given the choice of being conquered/slaughtered or joining up. I’m sure many people saw joining as an opportunity to move up in life (better to be a Mandalorian warrior than a poor Rimmer), but many we’re probably shanghaied into service and some were little better than slaves.

And so the Mandalorian armies swell, and conquer, and conquer, reaching as far as Coruscant itself. They seem unstoppable until the Republic employs the desperate doomsday weapon on Malachor VI, which cripples the Mandalorian army and leadership. In the aftermath, the Mandalorians probably can’t hold on to their entire newly conquered Empire, so many areas are retaken by the Republic or otherwise secede. Without those resources and the continuous conquest they can’t pay their armies, so now there are lots of disaffected and unemployed soldiers, who turn mercenaries.

And these aren’t your honourable mercenaries ala Jaster Mereel yet. Rather, they are displaced and disaffected people who have no other trades or possibilities to ply them in the war-torn galaxy. So they take any jobs and if there are no jobs, do a bit of plundering on the side. This diaspora and disarray lasts for the next 300 years or so. It takes several centuries and galactic wars of cultural change, before Mandalorians have grappled with the after-effects of the Mandalorian wars, turned from worshiping the old gods into believing primarily in the Manda, turned their focus from conquest into thriving in adversity, and developed the philosophical tradition of military ethics that eventually produces Jaster Mereel and his likes.

All of this to say: when we’re thinking about the etymologies of Modern Mando’a words, we should be thinking of these first few generations of non-Taung Mandalorians. But when we’re thinking of the definitions of the words as they’re used today, we should think of the cultural change that came afterwards. So for example: verd was probably originally a mercenary, but over time came to mean a soldier. Verdin was originally “loot, plunder” or one’s share of it that whoever was in charge of the payroll doled out after a campaign (based on one’s role, performance, etc). In time, it became to mean other kinds of rewards and fruits of one’s labour.

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[ranahan]

Mining vocabulary

Beskar and metalworking are enormously important in Mandalorian culture. But I don’t think we’ve discussed a lot where the beskar ore comes from and what kind of cultural and linguistic impact mining has had on Mandalore. We get a glimpse in The Mandalorian, where the Mines of Mandalore are a place of symbolic rebirth/birth.

And there we also get the Living Waters, which are a) weirdly Christian, but b) could perhaps be analysed as a later, post-Dral’han addition to the myth: the orbital bombing might have rendered surface water undrinkable, but the ground water in the deep mines might have been safe. The oldest mines in or around the oldest cities might have already been tapped out by that time, and could have served as places of worship or places of refuge where the populace could have either directly sheltered from the bombings or found refuge from the unliveable surface conditions afterwards.

Anyway, lately I have been reading Geordie and Northumberland dialect dictionaries (as discussed in this previous post about Geordie words in Mando’a). And apparently the area had significant coal mining industry and lot of those dialect words come from mining jargon. And that lead me to read some mining glossaries, which led to this idea.

Mining words in Mando’a

The easiest way to make new words in a language is to use old words for new referents. This is called semantic broadening (“widening of meaning”). It is important in pidgins and creoles which have undergone a significant reduction in their vocabulary during their history and tend to have words exhibit multifunctionality (one word having many syntactic uses), polysemy (one word having many senses), and circumlocution (phrases rather than single words). It should also be your first port of call when making new words in a conlanguage (which also have very small vocabularies).

So I propose to you: mining-derived semantic broadening, or added senses to canon words (additions italicised):

mircin (n.): cage; lift, elevator, turbolift

In mining, a cage is an elevator that transports miners up and down mineshafts. It of course also resembles an elevator cage that transports passengers up and down an elevator shaft, and so the meaning could be generalised to all kinds of elevators. Turbolift is the Star Wars equivalent to mundane lifts.

buycika (n.): cradle; sieve; suspended platform; hovercart; landing pad; landing bay

In mining, a cradle can be two things: 1) a device used in gold mining to sift gravel and sand to separate the big rocks from the smaller particles and the heavier gold from the lighter rocks (named after the rocking motion), or 2) a suspended platform used to work in mineshafts.

The first sense could be extended to mean other kinds of sieves or separating/sorting devices & to derive a verb buycikir, ‘to sieve, sift; to rock or shake back and forth’. Perhaps the Mando’a equivalent of the phrase “to separate wheat from chaff” is something like “to sieve gold from sand” or to “melt metal from rock”. Buycikir ve’vut teh vhekad, perhaps?

The second sense could be extended to all kinds of suspended platforms and scaffolds. On Earth, suspension works by cables but in Star Wars, suspended things could include hovercarts, perhaps even landing pads (many of the designs seem to be hovering of some kind) or landing bays (ship “cradles”). Or perhaps the scaffolding used to support ships in dockyards while they’re being built or repaired.

tal’galar (v): spill blood, bleed; ooze in drops, exude (of water or other fluids)

Coal is said to bleed when water oozes in drops from its pores.

nau’ul (n): candlelight; headlamp

Candles were the original mining headlamps. Perhaps this seems archaic, but then again, even if these days I read books from screens (from fire screen) instead of paper (derived from papyrus, a type of plant), I still call them books (derived from beech). So perhaps not. Nau’ul derives from nau, ‘light’ + ul, ‘careful’, so it’s “careful light”. That could also go for headlamps, which are the lamps that can be carefully pointed towards whatever task you need to carefully do (reading maps, administering first aid…).

And here are some mining inspired coinages and compound words:

sakad (n): crab; capstan; winch

A capstan is sometimes called a crab, both in mining and in seafaring, probably because of its shape. I had earlier derived “crab” and other assorted words from sakagal, ‘X-wing’ < probably saka + galaar, ‘hawk’. Saka is then probably ‘a cross, X-shape’ > sakure, ‘pincers, tongs, tweezers’ (although tweezers could also be sakurike or kih’sakure/kisakure); sakanar, ‘pincer movement’; sakanarir, ‘to execute a pincer movement, to catch in a pincer movement; to pinch or squeeze, press from both sides’; sakayust, ‘crossroads’; sakov, ‘cross-recess, cross-head, cross-point (screwdriver or screw head)’; sakad, ‘crab’. Though I have to say I’m not 100% set on sakad: it could also be sakur’ad, sakuri, or something else. But I like the extended sense of “capstan”, which could then be extended further to “winch”. And from there you could derive e.g. sakadir, ‘to winch’.

netraab (n.): deserter

A blackleg is a strikebreaker, also defined as someone who takes your job while you’re on a strike. Comes from working miners trying to hide the fact that they had been working could be found out if their trousers were rolled up: they would have black legs. Not perhaps particularly useful, but it could be extended to other senses of this particular combination of thieving and traitorous, or perhaps to breaking the line in other ways, e.g. army deserters.

norgam (n.): raincoat, rain cloak; protective garment; condom

Back-skin was a large leather covering for the back and shoulders, used in sinking and shaft work, as a protection from falling water. Extended to mean other kinds of rain garments and protective clothing.

There’s lots more, but I’ll have to mull over them a bit. I also found a couple of multilingual mining dictionaries, so I can look up etymologies in languages other than Northumberland English too. But that’ll have to be another time.

#mando’a #mandoa #mando'a #mando’a language #ranah talks mando’a #mando’a etymology #mando’a words #mando’a extended dictionary

[ranahan]

Reduplication in Mando’a

Reduplication is fairly common amongst the world’s languages, though the Indo-European languages don’t do it so it may be unfamiliar to Europeans. What it means is simply repeating a part of the stem. Reduplication is a derivation just like any other, so it has predictable form (it’s not any random part that repeats) and meaning (just like other affixes share a general sense of how they modify the stem, so does reduplication—however, derivations can and often do veer off from the original sense considerably).

What reduplication in Mando’a looks like

Reduplication in Mando’a takes the form of a prefix:

1. In stems beginning with a consonant, the prefix is CV-

2. In stems beginning with a vowel, the prefix is VC-

Where C can be a consonant or a consonant cluster and V can be a vowel (short or long) or a diphthong. For example:

CV- reduplications:

sol > sosol

shuk > shu’shuk

briik > brii’briik

VC- reduplications:

ad > adade (adad-e, plural form)

The vowel in the prefix may dissimilate, like in other Mando’a affixes. For example: tug > ta’tugir.

CV(C) and VC are the most common syllable types, but there are a few roots/words that are VV (for example aai). There aren’t any canon examples of how to reduplicate those, but I’d hazard a guess that the prefix could be VV (e.g. *aai’aai, which is a bit long so maybe that would get chopped down to *ai’ai or something).

What reduplication in Mando’a means

Here Mando’a doesn’t do anything fancy—reduplication in Mando’a has two senses, which are cross-linguistically the most common ones amongst the world’s languages:

1. Iterative

Iterative reduplications are ones where the meaning itself is a repeating action or an increase in number.

For example:

ad, ‘child, person’ > adade, ‘personnel’ (a bit funny one, since it’s technically a double plural)

briik, ‘line’ > brii’briik, ‘grid’

*tug-, ‘again, repeat’ > ta’tugir, ‘repeat’

*sol-, ‘one, number’ > sosol, ‘equal’

buir, ‘parent’ > ba’buir, ‘grandparent’ (possibly, although this could also be bah-buir, cf. ba’vodu)

2. Intensive

Intensive reduplications are ones where the meaning is intensified, for example:

shuk, ‘rift, tear’ > shu’shuk, ‘disaster’

yai, ‘belly, womb’ > yai’yai, ‘richly nourishing’

Most reduplications in Mando’a are nouns, but sosol and yai’yai are adjectives, so both are possible. Reduplications themselves can then be used to derive other words, for example slap a verbal suffix -Vr on and you get a verb.

Bonus: non-canon reduplications

Here’s a few examples of how you can use reduplication to derive your own words:

*sen-, ‘fly (action)’ > sesen, ‘fly (an insect)’ (could have the sense of “lots of flying things”—when do they ever appear one by one?—or “to fly/flutter/buzz around repeatedly”)

rud, ‘around’ > rarud, ‘spiral, helix’

dul, ‘half’ > dadul, ‘quarter’ (can’t claim the glory for this one: it was first coined by Tal’jair, then tweaked by Tuuri, then further tweaked by me—I liked dadul over dudul, but tbh either would be fine)

shonar, ‘wave’ > sho’shonar, ‘surf, waves’ (could equally well be *shonare, or maybe even *sho’shon; I liked the repeating sound like waves beating the shore)

Post more in the comments/replies!

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