Language Cheatsheet

[Larrath]

I made myself a reference note and thought others could find it helpful too.  The information is all gathered and slightly inferred from the languages' helpfiles.

Mirukkim:
Spoken: 6 consonants, 5 vowels.
Written: 6 consonants, 5 vowels.
The vowels are drawn as accenting lines around the consonant symbols.

Sirihish:
Spoken: 6 consonants, 5 vowels.
Written: 6 consonants, 5 vowels.
Writing style is apparently similar to Mirukkim.

Tatlum (apparently):
Spoken: 6 consonants, 5 vowels.
Written: 6 consonants, 5 vowels.
Writing style is apparently similar to Mirukkim.

Allundean:
Spoken: 7 vowels.
Written: no vowels.

Bendune:
Spoken: 7 vowels.
Written: no vowels.

Cavilish:
Spoken: 7 vowels.
Written: no vowels.

Anyar:
Spoken: punctuated with whistles, pops and tongue clicks.
Written: no known form.

Nrizkt:
Spoken: clicks, whines and pops.
Written: no known form.

Kentu:
Spoken: 31 consonants, 12 vowels.
Written: no known form.

Heshrak:
Spoken: 19 consonants, 5 vowels.
Written: 19 consonants, 5 vowels.

[Folker]

Damn, with information like that, I can get my chara speaking Kentu in no time!

[Nao]

err... how can the spoken form have 7 vowels but the written formhave non? I mean - what do you write down...!?

[Synthesis]

Arabic has quite a few different vowel sounds, but they're generally left out of the written form, except for very important things (like the Q'ran) or texts teaching children how to read and write.  Even then, there are only a few vowel "letters" so to speak.  Most of the vowels, when written, look more like punctuation than actual letters.  When the punctuation is left out, most Arabic readers are familiar enough with the language to infer the appropriate vowel sound, based on the consonants and the context of the word.

[Angela Christine]

err... how can the spoken form have 7 vowels but the written formhave non? I mean - what do you write down...!?

Didn't the romans get by without written vowels?  But they were crazy, they also didn't use small case letters or spaces between words.


DDNTTHRMNSGTBWTHTWRTTNVWLS?  BTTHYWRCRZYTHYLSDDNTSSMLLCSLTTRSRSPCSBTWNWRDS.

No wonder everyone is illiterate.


Angela Christine

[Nao]

I mean - if the language doesn't have consonants, and the written form leaves out the vowels - what are they writing, then?

[Jherlen]

Most likely the information is incomplete, and cavilish/bendune/allundean do have consonants, but we don't know how many. I'm guessing Larrath would have wrote down "no consonants", if we knew for sure the language had none.

A language of only vowels would just sound weird.

[moab]

err... how can the spoken form have 7 vowels but the written formhave non? I mean - what do you write down...!?

Didn't the romans get by without written vowels?  But they were crazy, they also didn't use small case letters or spaces between words.


DDNTTHRMNSGTBWTHTWRTTNVWLS?  BTTHYWRCRZYTHYLSDDNTSSMLLCSLTTRSRSPCSBTWNWRDS.

No wonder everyone is illiterate.


Angela Christine

From what I remember of latin class, this isn't true.  But then again  - that was like twenty years ago?

Hebrew, I believe, doesn't use vowels (at least the kind of hewbrew used for the OT.

I recall my Latin professor doing some translations of some ancient Romon stuff and I believe I remember spaces and vowels.  What I clearly do remember is that word order wasn't strictly enforced.

Would have been cool, btw, if Anyar used whistles pops and tongue clicks for vowels.

[Cenghiz]

Arabic has wovels in speech, 6 wovels and none in written form. In some important text like Qur'an wovels are displayed by signs above or below the letters, in usual written form, there are none.
They're simply able to know if the word is 'chitin' or 'chatin'.. I don't know how.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

When you consider that many languages before the Roman Era were pictorial in nature, it becomes perfectly reasonable to assume that some of these languages are rudimentary pictorial written languages. If a squiggle stands for a bird and an upside down triangle is a hunter and a line an arrow, then you can construct a sentence with an upside down triangle, a line and a squiggle, which would roughly mean that a hunter, probably the writer, hunted or shot a bird.

There's no need for constanants or vowels in such a written form, and I find it likely that languages in a world where education is not prevelant are generally pictorial in nature.

[John]

There's no need for constanants or vowels in such a written form, and I find it likely that languages in a world where education is not prevelant are generally pictorial in nature.

I disagree, simply because nothing in the docs or the game backs this up (and the docs actually refutes it with mention of vowels). Perhaps kentu or something have such a system, but Sirihish and Cavilish are like our modern day written forms.

If you need a reason for why this is, I imagine that before the Dragon came, literacy wasn't quite as rare. And I'd say all the written languages have their roots in these times.

[Larrath]

I'm pretty sure that all of the languages with writing have consonants.

And it's very possible to write without vowels or symbols signifying vowels.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

There's no need for constanants or vowels in such a written form, and I find it likely that languages in a world where education is not prevelant are generally pictorial in nature.

I disagree, simply because nothing in the docs or the game backs this up (and the docs actually refutes it with mention of vowels). Perhaps kentu or something have such a system, but Sirihish and Cavilish are like our modern day written forms.

If you need a reason for why this is, I imagine that before the Dragon came, literacy wasn't quite as rare. And I'd say all the written languages have their roots in these times.

Oh, I agree. I didn't really mean Zalanthas. I meant in reality. I'm sorry for the misclarification.

Obviously, in Zalanthas, the world has devolved rather than evolved. That explains perfectly the backwards innovation present in the world, not only in language but honestly in everything. The presence of magick explains the rest, though I don't really like this explanation, especially when the general population doesn't even want magick near them.

Regardless, Larrath, thanks for the spec sheet.

[amoeba]

Think of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, or any of the oriental languages. I think one could argue there are no vowels or consonants. Writing does not need to be a literal interpretaion of the word. It just needs to represent the word.

[Cale_Knight]

Hebrew, I believe, doesn't use vowels (at least the kind of hewbrew used for the OT.

1) OT Hebrew is the same language as "modern" Hebrew.

2) Hebrew, both then and now, does have written vowels, but they aren't used in formal writing.

Which makes it that much more difficult to learn.

Stupid Hebrew.

[FightClub]

*scratches head*

[Vox]

Cale_Knight wrote:

1) OT Hebrew is the same language as "modern" Hebrew.

2) Hebrew, both then and now, does have written vowels, but they aren't used in formal writing.

Which makes it that much more difficult to learn.

Stupid Hebrew.

Actually Hebrew is very easy to learn, first there are only 22 letters in the alphabet, only five of which change form when ending a word and vowels are illustrated with dots over the letters at elementary levels. Hebrew and Arabic are the same in that it becomes much easier to read upper-level material once your vocabulary has increased. But reading and speaking the language both are not complicated once you understand the basic structure and the sounds of the letters.

I find most American people get intimidated by languages not drawing their heritage from Europe(read as Latin), for the rest the process of actually learning standard english is like learning a foreign language anyway. "Ain' tha' fo' shizzle, y'all?"  Unlike Europeans who tend to learn 2-3 additional languages.. but also don't wear deoderant.

In short, Hebrew is far from stupid.. and since it literally requires a specific degree of knowledge to read I would offer that it is in fact the opposite of stupid.

I think Larrath offers us something interesting when looking at the make-up, association and similarities of the spoken/written languages in Zalanthas... but I wonder how Allundean and Bendune can possess no consonants at all, especially considering that the Gypsy Lexicon is replete with consonant-filled words.

I think it would be interesting if a Lexicon of curses and general sayings was constructed for each lof the main languages and posted in the general information part of the website. That way people playing Dwarven PCs could quickly reference a swear word in mirukkim that they could blurt out in Sirihish and would be commonly accepted as intended.

[Anonymous]

Can you imagine what a language with only SEVEN consonants and five vowels would look like?  

There are, what, under 100,000 words in french, and more than 900,000 in english?

That's.... um. wow.

[Nao]

I find most American people get intimidated by languages not drawing their heritage from Europe(read as Latin), for the rest the process of actually learning standard english is like learning a foreign language anyway. "Ain' tha' fo' shizzle, y'all?"  Unlike Europeans who tend to learn 2-3 additional languages.. but also don't wear deoderant.

Bullshit. The deoderant part, I mean...  :lol:

Americans seem to be intimidated by foreign languages in general - you langugage education sucks, sorry. I went to school for a year in MA and the only thing that was really required was one year of a foreign langugage, I think - maybe four years would get tyou to the point of speaking something fluently, but my school didn't even offer that many years and if you start in 9th grade and have never gotten to know anything but your own language, four years won't do it. Learning languages gets easier with the second, third and fourth foreign language - the more you know the easier it gets.

I'm the perfect example to where our education system didn't do as it was supposed to - the only foreign language I can speak fluently is english, the second one I had in school was latin and that was just... ugh. A lot of jobs require the basics in english and french here.

[John]

Americans seem to be intimidated by foreign languages in general - you langugage education sucks, sorry.

Not so much intimidated as just plain not interested. I've travelled a bit, and not knowing the local language, while it can definitely be frustrating, isn't too big of a hindrance if you just have the right attitude, and are careful about where you go.

[flurry]

I wonder how Allundean and Bendune can possess no consonants at all, especially considering that the Gypsy Lexicon is replete with consonant-filled words.

If they use no vowels in their written languages, they must have consonants.  The help file doesn't say they have no consonants; it just doesn't say how many.

And just as a side note -- I don't think those languages need to be anything like real life gypsy language.

[Vox]

If they use no vowels in their written languages, they must have consonants.  The help file doesn't say they have no consonants; it just doesn't say how many.

And just as a side note -- I don't think those languages need to be anything like real life gypsy language.

Actually you misunderstand my statements... I'm responding to Larrath's list, in which written language and spoken language are listed seperately... Bendune is listed as having only 7 vowels and no consonants, which is why I responded with curiousity.

As for the Gyspy lexicon, I'm refering to the Tan Muark, of which I've played a couple over the years and have actually added a few words to their specific Lexicon on the clan-documentation page... I didn't mean 'Gypsies' from the real world...

I'm still left with the question... Why list the number of consonant sounds for the other languages and not for Bendune and Allundean?

[Angela Christine]

So without consonants, those languages would sound something like the noises my cat makes?  Eww.


Angela Christine

[Aldiel]

Sweet post, thanks Larrath