#fun with languages

[dracofeb]

Calque & Loanword

Found this. Kind of want to share.

[tinydooms]

Recently I have learned how to say "Hello, good morning!" in Mandarin to greet the legions of Chinese tourists who come to tour my work. The result of this greeting is that I then spend ten minutes taking pictures with every single one of the tourists, all of whom are laughing that a white American woman spoke their language to them with a bad accent. One lady shook my hand and told me I was charming. :-D

[marlynnofmany]

.i just learned that there is a continent called tuvazu in my favorite scifi game's alien planet. there is a country called tuvalu on earth. i can now imagine nothing other than the aliens and the humans thinking each other are making translation errors, only to then figure out that they both just named a piece of land reeeaaaally similarly. then i thought of it and realized "wow, i think that is something that marlynn would like. it seems like her jam" so here i am

Oh man, there's a lot of potential for wrong assumptions with alien languages. Our Earth languages are generally similar because we all have the same speaking apparatus, but that's a not a guarantee where aliens are concerned.

Sure, we could end up with Human Steve and Alien Steev, or the much-feared warlord home planet Floridah.

But we could also get an entire spoken language that sounds like stomach gurgles or flatulence, and none of the diplomats are ready for that.

[littleragondin]

For the language game: ☾ ♡ ❁

Thank you for asking! (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡

☾ : favourite word from your language

Hmmm hard to settle on one, and it could change anytime, but right now I will give you "libellule" (dragonfly) because I like the way it flows off the tongue ♡

♡ : which languages do you speak/have you learned in school?

In school I learned english, spanish, and I took latin for all my secondary education. I am now fluent in english, but I am still very bad at spanish sadly - I can manage my way through a simple text but that's about it (a bit of a shame really). I have studied a little of mandarin during college, and I recently learned the Thai alphabet, but outside of the vocabulary I picked up watching shows, that's all i know! (for now, hopefully =3)

❁ : which language(s) do you think of as the most beautiful?

That's so hard aha there are many languages I find really beautiful... Okay, recently I have been listening to a lot of songs in hindi (hi bollywood songs), as well as some songs in Arabic, and I find both languages stunning. I am also super partial to mandarin both spoken and sung.

[eileentothestars]

If you are having a bad day you should know that in the German dub of Good Omens, instead of saying "tickety-boo," Aziraphale says "supey-dupey," hope that helps

[the-consortium]

No, "Apotheker" isn't synonymous with "apothecary" (the verbatim translation would be "chemist"), but I still like to think Fabius sometimes insists on being adressed as "Oberfeldapotheker" instead of "Chief Apothecary". Because he can. And because he still loves how his mother tongue is able to combine a lot of words into one.

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

Further proof that the "German always sounds so aggressive" crowd is cherry picking:

English: acute posthemorrhagic anemia

A sense of trauma, urgency, perhaps it should be screamed hysterically by a doctor in an ER demanding 500 cc's of O-neg.

German: Blutungsanämie

Something you leisurely look up in a medical reference work after the patient has left to see which deficiency or genetic aberration caused the problem, possibly with a hot drink in your hand.

[quoththemaiden]

Fun fact: In the Japanese dub of Good Omens, Hamlet fails. When Aziraphale gives him a pleading look, Crowley groans and says, "I get it; I'll do Edinburgh" and stalks off.

Aziraphale remains delighted.

[dayntee]

Cobbling Elvhen 101 (Phrases from the Prof!AU)

One of the things I did a lot of in That Year at Arlathan University was hack together elvish phrases to use for a variety of reasons. I'm not alone in this; a lot of us have used various resources in the past to put together or make up our own phrases.

There are a ton of different (and largely inconsistent) resources out there for doing this, but my favorite to use by far is @kaija-rayne-author's Dictionary of El'vhen/Elvish. They explicitly put this together because there were so many discrepancies between all the various fan efforts out there, and I'd argue there isn't any more comprehensive resource at this point than theirs. Can't recommend enough.

I recently collected all the phrases I'm personally responsible for into a handy list, though, and thought it might be interesting to share here, along with a couple of tips for throwing things together. Kaija's work also has some tips in chapter 1, so be sure to read through that for the context of using their resource.

Finally, please be aware there are some mild spoilers (mostly in specific jokes) for the completed story below under the break! But hey, the story's done, so if you wanna go binge it first, there's never been a better time!

Tips

Elvhen isn't a cipher. Kaija repeats this several times because it's really important to remember that you shouldn't be thinking about everything in Elvhen as being a 1:1 translation. It's a conlang (constructed language meant for fictional work), and the way it's represented in game and described by the developers is as largely interpretive. So don't get caught up in finding the perfect word for a phrase; it likely doesn't exist, so if something's close or close enough, do that instead!

I did an exercise recently with Ch. 28: El'vhen primer to build out a bunch of Dalish names to use in one of my upcoming works. I can't share those yet (it's for Big Bang), but would definitely recommend using this section in particular as a lot of your common prefixes live here.

Direct translations almost never fully match their meanings, and this got even worse in Veilguard in particular. Intent and context are just as important. It also lets you play with innuendo and punnery, so absolutely don't be afraid to get creative.

There isn't, from what I can tell, a specific set of rules on when and where to place an apostrophe in compound words. It does matter though, as placement of particular apostrophes can totally change the meaning of a word. My best advice here is just to be careful; sometimes you can get away with shifting or omitting an apostrophe because it looks better, but other times it may change the entire meaning of what you're trying to string together.

When using the dictionary, I like having it open in Full Work mode and searching for the English I'm trying to build around. Without memorizing the whole language, it's a lot harder to search in Elvhen unless you're looking for a specific word (like vhenan).

Prof!AU Constructed Phrases/Words

If you'd like to use any of the phrases or words below, it's totally fine, but I'd appreciate a shout out in your notes as well as a shout out to Kaija's dictionary. They ultimately did the initial work and I'd really like to see more of the fandom using this resource!

Aragavira - (lit.) “A path to here/a place to go.” Root taken from “aravel.” In the context of the story, a model of vehicle analogous to a modern automobile, but fueled by either a mage’s mana or a type of refined lyrium.

Ar garas ma - (lit.) “I come to you.” Contextually, it’s a pun/innuendo meaning both “I will arrive (physically) to you soon” but also in the sexual manner of “I come to/because of you.”

Ar isala ma - (lit.) “I need you.” Contextually in the sexual sense, but could be used just as sweetly/innocently.

Fen’Harel garas ara - (lit.) “Fen’Harel came here.” This is an innuendo with double meaning; it can be interpreted like graffiti (Fen’Harel was here) or more sexually (Fen’Harel literally came here, in this place).

Fen’Harel tel’him - (lit.) “Fen’Harel Unchanged.” Contextually accompanied Fen’Harel’s depiction of his spirit form, so could be read as “The original Fen’Harel.”

Mythal’enaste lasas Fen’Harel - (lit.) “Mythal gives her blessing to Fen’Harel.” Contextually, describes a depiction of Mythal welcoming Fen’Harel into his elven form.

Tel’athim - (lit.) “Without humility.” In context, used as an insult; essentially equivalent to “arrogant prick.”

Tel ma’dhis’lasa - (lit.) “Do not hold my cock/dick.” Cobbled this together from using “Tel” (Do not) and breaking apart the phrase “Fenedhis lasa” (Suck the Dread Wolf/Solas’ dick).

Were most of these phrased made for smut? Yes. Yes they were.

[bl-is-totes-my-jam]

Dunno about other subs but the subs for Century of Love on Gagaoolala has San's dead girlfriends name as Vad which, to a Swede like me, is hilarious because it's Swedish for "what" 😆

[niccocum]

[marlynnofmany]

English is a freaking joke, and pineapple is a major example. Literally every other Romanized language but Spanish? "Ananas". Unrelated to Banana, where Spanish is also an outlier. (Asian countries seem to have those differently as a minor rule, but I'm not certain there's not a counterexample.)

It's like the linguistic version of those ye olde drawings of lions, where the artist never saw them in person and relied on a game of telephone to describe them properly.

"It's a fruit, huh? Apples are fruits! And it's kinda spiky on the outside ... like a pinecone! Yep, going with that. I'm so smart."

"It looks kinda scaly too; what if we called it lizardfruit?"

"Nah there's already a dragonfruit. We don't want people to get confused."

*the other Romanized languages stare at the camera*

[littleragondin]

✌, ✓?

Merci merci pour l'ask! (´꒳`)♡

✌ : favourite proverb/saying from your language

I'm going to give you one I use all the time and that makes me sound like a posh 70 years old ....

"c'est pas piqué des hannetons" lit. 'it's not bitten by cockchafers'. It means something of good quality, of excellent craftsmanship. I just love saying it, it rolls off the tongue and it's uncool, bref it's perfect.

✓ : funniest word in your language

Ooooh my, so many options. I will go with "poudre de perlimpinpin", it sounds perfectly ridiculous, the alliteration of it all... it's just fun.

[lipowanoc]

Phrase: Na czczo

I deliberately chose this word for its fantastic pronunciation!

Na czczo means "on an empy stomach". Adjective "czczy" means empty, but is quite archaic and not used anymore exept medical language and the phrases describing iddle, unprodictive talks like:

czcza gadanina - gadanina is a noun from the verb "gadać" - colloquial word for "to talk", "to chat"

czcza paplanina - paplanina itself is already a useless senseless iddle talk, the verb is "paplać". It's made from the pla pla pla sounds (equivalent of blah blah blah).

czcza dyskusja - unnecessary and unprodictive discussion.

Na czczo is build from "na" + adverb, and it's a common way of saying X is in a certain way, style.

Zemsta najlepiej smakuje na zimno - Revenge is a dish best served cold

So na czczo is something you will hear from your doctor, when they order you to come form a blood test without breakfast or advise you how to take your med.

Na badania należy przyjść na czczo - blood tests should be taken on an empty stomach.

Ile jajek można zjeść na czczo? - Tylko jedno :) - How many eggs can you eat on an empty stomach - only one.

poziom glukozy na czczo - fasting glucose level

To be exact, na czczo is understood as a state of not having eating anything this day, while you can have an empy stomach after a few hours after a meal. There is a literal phrase "na pusty żołądek" = on empty stomach to differenciate it.

Leki przeciwólowe nie powinny być brane na pusty żołądek. Painkillers should not be taken on an emtpy stomach.

If you had your breakfast at 8 a.m. and haven't eaten anything and now at 1 p.m. you want to take your meds, you will be taking them "na pusty żołądek", while you won't be exactly "na czczo".