A Shirerithian language?

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Two things have recently been bothering me.

First, we're starting to accrete a worrying number of German terms. Our recent envoy to Victoria was "Die Kaiser-Beuftragte". Our military uses a bunch of words like "Zerstörergeschwader Gruppen" and so on. I don't blame Ardashir for making that sort of thing up, but I'd be disappointed if people started mistaking us for Holzborg or another one of the Germany-clones.

Second, Ashkenatza has these nifty Hebrew signatures, like so:



The use of the Hebrew there, and of the Yiddish in a lot of other places, makes Ashkenatza seem a bit realer and deeper.

Shireroth used to use the Yardistani language a lot - not officially, but sometimes people would just say stuff in it. From a brief look, I'd guess it's the language some of the weirder-sounding city names in MASS - like Negrixnaht - are in. Here's a paragraph of Yardistani:

Iardîstato ne basaj primís nja Vokablulari ce Gramatikr Spanjâtix, ye ljona Habašavegr cOrþaši ne basaj maís nja Idiômrsa Jermanix. Habe Influênsrsa multix dÂngloto, du Svêriyeto, ce du Nihonto. Antís du ljo neja adoptaj par Usr nja Micronâtrsa, Grifon creaja ljo Idiomr par habejj Valihr aasþetix xpesifix nje Mêntrlo. Konsegešís, apara peculiarix.

Likewise, dStryker's del-al'Enetet got used for a few things in the very early days - probably its most lasting phrase is "Ly'Technomaezj", which is "the technomage" in that language.

If Shireroth were to take one of these languages and run with it, then we wouldn't have to get everyone to learn it or anything, but we could make nifty official seals in the language, add it to graphics for greater authenticity, and name things like military battle groups in it if we wanted. Kind of the same way Babkha used Persian and Hyperborea uses Hyperborean - very, very sparingly.

Bill3000's latest obsession is conlanging, and like everything he obsesses about, he's gotten really good at it. He took a few little things I gave him and made it into a whole big Audente language that sounds like a cross between classical Greek and Sanskrit - technically impressive even if something of a mouthful. If we asked him, we could probably get him to expand on d'Enetet or Yardistani, or even take some features from both, and make somethng uniquely Shirerithian that could represent the language as it's spoken in Shirekeep and by government officials.

[Erik Mortis]

English.. there.. done.

[Santelran Rottsaa]

You're no fun, Erik.

[Erik Mortis]

I rather not create unneeded conlangs with words I cannot pronounce. Shireroth language IS english. It's our medium of communication. I see no need to force a fake language on people and expect them to make sense of it. Especially one made just for the situation. I might be inclined to agree to Yardistani to a small extent. But only cause we've had it forever. And it was made by a linguist.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I said nothing about forcing. It would be an option, so that if someone's tempted to come up with some hokey German name for something, we can say "Use the Shirerithian name instead!"

Yardistani is a great conlang, but it's...Yardistani. It's no more pan-Shirerithian than is Hyperborean or Ellwi. That's why I was thinking maybe we get Bill, who's not professionally a linguist but who is an obsessive Aspie, which is almost as good, to run it through a couple of vowel shifts or whatever linguists do to make a closely related language that we can call Shirerithian.

[Kaiser Leto III]

The problem is that Shireroth is a multi-cultural Empire with several languages used in several Counties, Baronies and Duchies. It should be clear from the beginning that a Shirerithian language would be a language used by nobles (like in the Inca Empire the nobles used a language that was widespread through the empire while the people didn't) and not of the plebs (except maybe in certain areas). So we avoid confusion that people start to think that the Imperial Republic will regulate their culture.

I like the idea but do we really need to develop a new language? Isn't it better if one language grows to national level instead of creating a new one?

[Erik Mortis]

I honestly suspect doing this will start to suppress creativity with people as this fake language filters down and doesn't allow for the use of other words on the imperial level. As it stands we got words from all over the damn place. and I like that. I think that's kinda what the culture here is about. Using what we want with no regard for some formal system. Kaiser, Steward, Kampioen, Arbiter, Landsraad, ministers, Praetor. We just grab words. (to be fair I named all those things...hehe)

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Everyone has good points. I'm going to try to puzzle out Yardistani and maybe use it for a few things, but no one else has to follow along if they don't want to.

[AryezturMejorkhor]

Yardistani seems to be vaguely Latin-based?

[Erik Mortis]

Don't think so. I'll try to summon Nick.

[Gryphon Avocatio]

As a general comment, first let me say that the idea of a Shirerothian language makes me happy. It needn't be anything official, nor ought it to be forced on anybody, but to use it for things such as titles, coats of arms, regalia, etc, would, I think, be a nice touch.

Yardistani was primarily based on Iberian (and thus Latinate) vocabulary, but with a more regularized and simplified syntax and morphology than Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, etc. I intentionally made it to have a weird sound inventory and to be hard to pronounce because I was obsessed with phonology when I built the backbone of it. The orthography was shaped primarily to make it look different from most normal languages written in Latin. In terms of grammar, it ought to be easier for an English speaker to learn than Spanish, because there is no gender system, there are some English-like constructions that I added in, and (as I mentioned) it's rules are generally more regular.

The unfortunate problem is that the language sorely lacks vocabulary, as for me (a theoretical linguist), deriving idiosyncratic words for a made-up language isn't very stimulating. I agree that its use for Shireroth in general would not be very pan-Shirerothian, but if people are interested I think I sketched out some guidelines for converting words from other languages into Yardistani. I can try to hunt them down (or draw them up again) if some people are interested.

In my later days I had drawn up some plans to create a conlang based on Old English/Scandinavian that I had sort of envisioned as coming from somewhere within Brookshire/Goldshire. This, I felt, meshed well with the sort of Germanic names that were somewhat integral to Shirerothian government and culture (Landsraad, Prætor, shire, Kaiser...*ahem* Metzler), but I never got around to doing it. Personally, that's the kind of thing I'd like to see if Shireroth were to adopt a general conlang--something that jives well with the sort of esthetic that the oldest parts of Shireroth had.

[Daniel Farewell]

Maybe Shireroth doesn't need, culturally speaking a conlang. Shireroth is diverse and we should strive to keep it that way. For example, I've worked on the two languages of Hurmu and on Elw. I'll go around and publishing some stuff with it later. Hurmu itself has been involved with Crandish and Arminian, while Elwynn with Sindarin, Hurmu, Hyperborean, Persian and Babkhi. It isn'tfor for nothing that the Ode to Multiculture stands in front of the ducal palace of Eliria.

Anyway, what I wanted to say that even if it isn't needful, it would be a cool idea to have some sort of kaiserial language to add to the mythology of the kaisers - a court language of some sort, that the mandarins of the Keep would use among themselves... Maybe we would work on that.

As the oldest kaisers of Shireroth generally have Indo-European names as well as the names of the institutions of state: Landsraad, Kaiser, Steward, it should be safe to assume that they spoke some kind of Germanic language in court, heavily borrowed from Latin (Prætor, Judex, Arbiter). Then we have languages such as Lakhesian, Laqi and Passikaans only in Brookshire, and Goldshire has always felt Celtic to me.

Yardistani, "Saraic" (????) etc have also been part of this part of the hemisphere, while our neighbours spoke Italo-Latin (Machiavellia, Nova Roma, Tellia) and other Germanic languages (Amokolia, Batavia, Ashkenatza). On the other side of SHireroth we have Kildare, influenced by Apollo and AUdente cultures.

So the court language could reflect all this in its vocabulary. The grammar could be Germanic, but influenced by all these languages. As such the vocab would be big, easy to compile, and interesting. Each ruler would have his own accent of the language: Ayreon might be more Elwynnese than, say, the Alejians, them being Amity, Mirioth, etc...

I'm sorry f this doesn't sound to coherent, but I just needed to write down my ideas before battery dies.

[Ryan]

I was planning on creating a language for some of Yardistan (not ALL of Yardistan, mind you) based on my recent move to link the place names together by the word "Sara". The language itself was to be called "Sarein", and was going to provide for a literal translation into English of all the Yardistani place names using that language.

Like Ric says, we have a lot of cultures using a lot of different languages. While a centralized standard conlang would be cool, I'm not certain it would be used to much extent due to regional conlangs.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I half-agree with Ric, in that even though we have lots of local languages, we need a national and official language that serves the same kind of role Mandarin does in China or English+Hindi do in India. A language in which an Elw can talk to an Audente, a language in which the government can draft up an official document once and be reasonably certain most people will understand it.

While it would be great if Nick or someone else could create some new appropriate pan-Shirerithian language, I don't know who would have both the time and the skill to do it (well, maybe Bill, but I don't know how happy Erik would be about that). I also realized after reading up on Yardistani last night that it's a really cool language and it sounds the way I always imagine a Shirerithian language would sound.

I was dreaming up a history this morning in which the Kaisers from the time of Gaelen started out speaking del-al'Enetet, which would explain the technomaezji and such, but after the Yardistani Conquest during the Tymarian era and the Second Yardistani Conquest after the Mog Rebellion, Yardistani became the "prestige language" of Shireroth and eventually took over the heartland of Shireroth entirely (compare the way Latin took over those parts of Europe exposed to Roman rule, or the way Arabic took over across the Islamic Caliphate).

I imagine this sort of Yardistani would be very different and loaded with del-al'Enetetisms and other signs of its turbulent origins. If Nick wants to do a good job creating such a variant of Yardistani he could, otherwise we can just use the old language but add a couple of modified del-al'Enetet slang words and synonyms.

[Malliki Tosha]

I hope that the apostrophe in "del-al'Enetet" represents the glottal stop, or I'm gonna kill someone.

[Erik Mortis]

If Nick made that Old English/Scandanavian language.. I might support its limited use.

[Harvey Steffke]

I was planning on creating a language for some of Yardistan (not ALL of Yardistan, mind you) based on my recent move to link the place names together by the word "Sara".

Unusual tidbit: the Garla Solarian word for "town" is "sar" and works its way into many of their city names. Solarian and Neo-Yardistani may share unusual linguistic ties!

[Jess]

I would love to build a Shirerithian language. I have the time. Heres my idea:

Take the languages of the various counties and duchies and somehow amaligate them, but then standardize them to an extent where they seem to flow together, for example;

Language 1: The-Les
Language 2: Dog-Haunde
Language 3: Ran-coor
Language 1: About-auve.
(The dog ran about)

Looking at that makes your eyes want to vomit. But, if you standarize those languages into one you can make it look something like:
L'haund coorauve. That was a rudimentary model. Rather than keeping the accents and regional variences in spelling pattern, one could standard them and make the accents only in certain places.

Does anyone understand what I'm saying?

[Malliki Tosha]

Can't someone make a proper conlang anymore in this place? If I see another cipher passed off for a conlang I'm gonna smack someone.

[Erik Mortis]

I revert to my opposing this.

[Malliki Tosha]

If we're getting Jess', I'm quitting.

[Jess]

Of course. Whenever I try to help, everyone moans at me.

[Erik Mortis]

No.. I just think most people would just make a half-assed language. Just some merge of this and that with words pulled out their ass. Nick I trust to do a good job, again. Scott I also kinda trust, though I haven't looked to closely at his languages to be fair. Hell, I don't even trust myself. I tried to make a language not long ago, turned into something similar to a math...

[Malliki Tosha]

Which is why Lakhesian is taking forever...

[Jess]

Hm. Give me a set of words to translate and you can see my high quality work.

[Malliki Tosha]

Okay.

To be
Approach
Father
Yard
Chair
Bush (noun)
Backwards

Sentence: The boy was struck in the head with a rock, said the old lady to me.

[Jess]

Alright, but, I would need links to all Shirerithian languages wishing to be part of the big language.

[Malliki Tosha]

You can get "boy" from me, "pallo". The ll is pronounced /ɬ/, or a voiceless L if you will.

I'll even throw in father too, "taku".

[Gryphon Avocatio]

Voiceless alveolar lateral fricatives are not voiceless alveolar lateral approximants.

I could probably be cajoled into working on this. I have a little bit of free time this term to screw around with stuff like that, and it's something I like to do anyway. I might even do it regardless of whether you want me to for my own personal enjoyment. But understand, I have other serious commitments---my graduate program typically has me doing about 50 to 70 hours of work a week, though it ought to be somewhat reduced for the next month or so.

Regardless of who ends up putting this all together, do it right. Six-year-olds in school yards can make word-level ciphers, If that's what you're going to do, then have fun, but I'm outta here in that case.

Here's what I'm thinking (or at least, my initial concerns were I to start right now):

1) This is a language that we are making for cultural reasons, not for actual extended communication. Consequently, making it fit the aesthetics of Shireroth is probably more important than outright functionality. The first thing to do would be to figure out what the language ought to look like, not throw random words out and say "hey, that's our word fir 'cow' now".

2) I assume that some of the more over-invested citizens will want to be able to pronounce this language and that the vast majority have not had any phonetic training. While cool language sounds are, well, cool, we need to balance that with making this language not Klingon-like in its phonological complexity. In other words, the sound inventory should be fairly natural.

3) These opposing pressures extend to the syntax and the morphology, as well. I don't know which languages we each speak individually, but there is considerable variation outside of what is possible in English. If we're aiming for title blocks, vestigial names for Shirerothian institutions, and other things of that ilk, then having a somewhat more baroque morphosyntax (like that of Latin or Greek) would certainly be more fun and interesting, but it would make it much harder for people to learn.

[Erik Mortis]

I love you Nick...