dai-bendu-conlang - Tumblr blog

[dai-bendu-conlang]

hello! i’ve been doing a project recently where i’m creating a new writing script and i’m just getting to the designing stage (finally after a whole lot of research!).

i was wondering if you could tell me a little about how you designed the dai bendu writing system or any interesting things you decided to do with it?

Okay this is going to be much less impressive and helpful than you think it might be, my apologies xD

So, first of: we tried to create our conlang based on the scraps of Jedi language worldbuilding we were given. So when it came to script, we searched for whether there were any scraps. Lo and behold: the sequel trilogy is useful for once as it gave us the sacred Jedi texts and boom: we had a script.

We copied pretty much ever “letter” of those pages and tried to see how many there were. We’d already decided that we were going for a phonological script, meaning that every letter would correspond to a singular specific sound. And then we looked at the letters we had and adapted them until we liked their look. After all, this is supposed to be a modernized script. And that is pretty much it.

Now, as an addendum: what we didn’t know when we did that is that the sacred jedi texts are even more lackluster in creative world building than we assumed. Here is a pretty good research article on what those pages might all be based on. So technically speaking the design of our script falls somewhere between Ge’ez and Coptic.

I’ll hand it to them, however. This is a step up for the absolute catastrophic fuck up that was using Hebrew for Sith originally. Shout out to Ben Grossblatt for fixing that, I’m sorry Disney never let you do more stuff for Sith.

I think the most interesting thing - and our one phonological exception - is the fact that we created a letter that means “Dai” aka “Force”.

We went for three circles as circles keep showing up in Jedi art and we like the symbolism of a circle connecting all. This also enables some really neat calligraphy, which I think Jedi would enjoy practicing. Also fun fact: if you’re insane enough to for some reason sort how every single sith and Jedi temple we know looks like, you’ll discover that Jedi prefer domes in their building designs.

For you: I’d recommend looking into the environment of your culture. What did they first start writing on? What materials were used? How would that have changed? Did they have contact with other cultures that might have influenced the script? And also, is it writeable? Is this something you can do calligraphy with as easily as take some notes grocery shopping? If your script isn’t practical in every day life, you might wanna change it until it is. I’d recommend practicing writing it yourself.

[dai-bendu-conlang]

hi! i just recently stumbled across this project and first off, massive fan of what y'all are doing here! (linguistics <3)

but i was wondering if there was any particular reason you've only created the one pronoun for second person, as opposed to separating the singular and plural as you've done with the rest? it just reads a bit funny to me as an ESL speaker, so i was curious as to your thought process ^^

i hope you all have a good day! (and that i'm making sense, it is... rather late here oops)

Hi! Assuming you’re referring to “keel” if I inferred this correctly?

We chose this to be representative of community. I have a half finished essay on our pronouns floating around (but as you can tell, we’re all not really into Star Wars anymore) and the section on that is pretty much:

This sense of community is also mirrored in the use of the singular and plural second person pronoun keel. The reason why Dai Bendu has only one word for those two pronouns is highlighting the role a single person plays in a community. As a culture that abhors leaving people without support, and has made it their very mission to improve the galaxy, the idea of a person being alone is absolutely terrible. Their grammar reflects that. Addressing a singular you also always means addressing the plural you, the community they stem from. This is also something the Jedi practice themselves. In Rogue Planet, after Anakin got into trouble, it is not just him that has to attend a disciplinary hearing but Obi-Wan too.

Mace was unrelenting. "I ask again, what was your error?"

“I brought shame upon the order and the Temple," Anakin responded quickly now, his voice high and soft.

"That is hardly precise. Again, your error?"

"To break the laws of the municipality, and. . and..."

“No!" Mace declared, and his smile vanished, replaced by a stern expression, like the dark underside of a cloud heretofore painted by sun. Anakin flinched.

"Obi-Wan, explain to your Padawan his error. It does, after all, arise from the same roots as your own." Mace regarded Obi-Wan with a lifted brow.

Obi-Wan considered this intently for a long moment before answering. Nobody tried to rush him. Inner truth was a perilous journey, even for a Jedi.

"I see it," he said. "We both want certainty."

Anakin stared at his master with a puzzled frown.

"Explain to us all how you have failed your Padawan," Mace said, gently enough, considering the turnabout in the proceedings.

"He and I are far too young for the luxury of certainty," Obi-Wan began. "Our experience is insufficient to earn us even momentary peace. As well, I have been more concerned with his growth than my own, distracted by his obvious flaws, rather than using his mirror to guide me, so that I may in turn guide him."

Your actions and the way you behave reflect upon your entire community as they brought you up and raised.

From Power of the Jedi Sourcebook:

"When a Jedi behaves badly in public, an observer might think, 'If this Jedi is a representative of the whole Order, then plainly no Jedi is worth respect.' On meeting a second Jedi, who behaves better than the first, that same person might think, 'Does this say that half the Jedi are good, and half bad?' On meeting a third Jedi, who behaves as well as the second, the person thinks, 'Was the first Jedi an exception, then?' In this way, only by the good behavior of several Jedi can the public be certain that the poor behavior of one Jedi was unusual. Thus, it takes many Jedi to undo the mistakes of one."

When considering all these passionate notes, it only seemed appropriate to us that the value system for our pronouns is community based to give the Jedi a chance to express how much they love their Order via grammar. Encoding information about social categories into pronouns is also nothing new and can be found in various languages across language families.

So, in that sense, that but of Dai Bendu is rather artificial instead of following a natlang development, but we thought it was neat

[dai-bendu-conlang]

if anyone knows the fic this was inspired by pls help me find it ;-; reaction meme for Guys Who Are Hanging In There

[ID: the sad cat meme with the cat crying but giving a thumbs up. top text reads "obi-wan kenobi" and bottom text reads "daieno bika"]

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Okay listen I know it might be too late to implement this but I didn’t see any colors in the dictionary so it might not be! Anyway I was just thinking about how different cultures have different groupings of colors (like how English has clear delineation between pink and red and some places have more words they split blue into) and I was thinking that since Jedi are so diverse in species, what if they didn’t separate colors the way we do but instead by the shade or saturation of it

Oh yeah, we spend quite a lot of time on colors for all that we don’t actually have anything to show for it.

Colors is fascinating because languages have so many differing numbers of colors. I think the lowest number of color word names a language in the world has is 3. Our general thought was having names only for the colors you can find in lightsaber blades with every other color word being borrowed from other languages, and then “red”, so Sith blades, being the youngest color addition (in terms of when these words were first created) and perhaps not even used to really mean red, but specifically those blades/nearly more of an adjective describing ugly things.

But then we got too much into color theory and got throughly distracted by it.

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Hi! I have following you a long time, and I wondered how you would say something possesive, such as "my lightsaber", "his padawan". I couldn't seem to find anything about it on the exel sheet. I am a huge fan of your work!

Apologies for the late answer!

You can find information of possessives right here! With your examples already included!

[dai-bendu-conlang]

no one talk to me, i just found out that ben means "endurance" in dai bendu i am not okay

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Hey writer here! Quick question, have you guys figured out any holidays for your conlang?

Funnily, holidays are part of the reason why we created this conlang, wanting terms for Jedi-specific holidays and so on.

More hilariously, we still haven't come up with any because we got distracted by other things. But yeah, the issue is also that canon doesn't have any so we don't really have a reference for in-universe holidays/celebrations.

[dai-bendu-conlang]

I really enjoyed looking through your spreadsheet! I'm a fellow conlanger and it was fun to see the thought you'd put into it. I confess, I've seen your conlang floating around and I was initially scared it was another conlang made up by someone who only speaks and writes English and just kind of jumbles an orthography together (like most canon SW conlangs (minus Sith (Mando'a's on very thin ice))) but y'all are clearly knowledgable and know how languages tend to work! hope you keep having fun!

Thank you!

And yeah, we all studied linguistics (of various languages) at one point so we know better than to do that. Though this conlang is still far from perfect given that we weren't exactly well versed in making our own conlangs yet and we're three people doing this xD

But yeah! Trying to translate Jedi lore into grammar is a lot of fun and we're glad you enjoyed seeing our thoughts!

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Our language is a common tag now! And we’re so close to a 100 works being tagged with it!

Thank you all for your support and we’re happy to hear you enjoy our language this much!

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part V vs Part VI

[dai-bendu-conlang]

What Jedi gave their life so that you might live?

[dai-bendu-conlang]

You’re not the first Jedi to come through here.

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Dai Bendu Moods and Modals Part 1

Mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, allowing the speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying e.g. whether it is an order, a wish, a suggestion. Dai Bendu has two ways of expressing moods. While speaking, they are not stated at all as the information the modal expresses is transferred via the Force. However, as such is impossible to gather in writing, there are a number of soo-terms, or feel-terms that are used in writing to indicate the mood.

(Crechèmasters also say them out loud to teach them to the children. So if you catch a Jedi saying them out loud, they’ve likely spent some time talking to toddlers. It’s basically the Jedi equivalent of telling your friends to say “bye-bye” to the bus driving by.)

Read more on AO3!

[dai-bendu-conlang]

This might be a stupid question, but how would u write a simple descriptive sentence or in passive voice? Like “that was good” or “that was an impressive jump” or “this is done by people”. Would you simply say “tamaru nev det kitobo” for “that was good”?

I'm going to say "yes" for now because passive is a project we have on the back burner because it is frankly speaking massive.

Our current thoughts on it are very much in the stage of "do we even need passive in this language as Jedi seem to think that everything has a specific cause and passive is usually used to omit an actor. And if our passive doesn't focus on that, what would be its purpose?"

So just, go with whatever kinda grammar is possible right now.

[dai-bendu-conlang]

I am massively impressed by the amount of knowledge and effort you and your fellows have put into the Dai Bendu Conlang spreadsheet. I feel at home with like souls who can latch onto this sort of project and carry it out. I am wondering if you (collectively) might have or know of a comprehensive source for categorized thematic Star-Wars-based quotes. For example, quotes relating to the Force, Jedi training, love / marriage, death, etc, be it canon or lore.

Hi!

It's been a while since we've done anything here but thank you so much for your kind words! We don't really have such a list, but maybe @gffa is able to help out? Lumi you're our only hope-

[dai-bendu-conlang]

henlo! so, i'm a roleplayer over here on tumblr, and i was wondering if it's ok to use a dai bendu word for the url? since i'll write several characters in it, i thought "ahtehn" would fit well. thanks!

Yeah, go ahead!!!

And that is indeed a good vocab choice :D

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Hey, I wanted to write a fic with Dai Bendu in it, but I wanted to make my own version. Is it okay if I use some of the elements and concepts from your version? Some of the stuff I really, really like. I’d make sure to put a disclaimer (and link to you) in the notes.

That’s totally alright! Part on why we made this conlang public is that we wanted to inspire others to do their own or build on our work!

Go ahead! And we’d love to get a note when you post so we can check it out!