#(i replaced all the vowels with o)

[sixxamshitposting]

nokko soxx

jomos o mochool

doron joy oshbo

[xwingsandohs]

‘Haunted Beauty’ | Spencer Reid

prompt: ‘Person A likes to sketch, and B catches them sketching, and asks what they are drawing. Person A had been drawing B, so they stutter out an excuse while slamming their sketchbook closed.’

word count: 2.3k

content warnings?: none. fluff

a/n: this is the beginning of a renaissance where i come back to tumblr. bare with me while i reformat stuff and checkout my recent posts if ya can

When you reach eleven days without being called out to the field for a case, there’s a lull in the BAU that leaves everyone bored and irritable.

Morgan sits at his corner desk twiddling his pen, spinning on his chair and occasionally ripping up small pieces of paper to aim at someone’s (usually Reid’s) head. His aim is terrible, only because the small, rolled-up balls weigh so little, so you can watch with suppressed giggles until Reid finally notices his game. A hit to the head leads to an irritated “Hey!” - While you and Morgan laugh openly.

Morgan walks over to ruffle the messy hair of your colleague and picks up the small mess he’s left on the floor around him- Spencer shuts the small notebook he’d been working in at the disruption.

You spin around on your chair to see Emily not-so-subtly looking for cheap flights on her laptop- one of her favourite ways to guarantee her time-off is approved is by booking the trip before she even puts in the request. There’s no need for the efforts really, Hotch has never denied a PTO request since your jobs are so demanding, though it doesn’t hurt to be sure.

JJ comes up behind Emily waving an empty mug, asking if she wants another coffee too. She nods, groans into a “God, yes please.” - before JJ begins to ask about her vacation plans and where she hopes to go, pointing at her computer.

Coffee sounds like a fantastic idea, so you stand from your chair and do a lazy spin towards Morgan - “Yes please, mama.” - and taking the empty cup from Spencer’s extended hand too before he even gets the chance to ask. You smile at him warmly- and before you even get a chance to lean over and see what he’s been working on, he’s slammed his notebook shut again and said “Actually, I could do with a break too, I’ll join you.”

You nod and shrug acceptingly, and Spencer jogs across to JJ when she shouts to make enough for everyone, and grabs the two mugs from her hand as well. “Thanks, Spence.”

It takes you only a minute to prep the coffee, replacing the filter and dumping in some grounds and Spencer has swooped in to fill up the water jug before you get the chance. You thank him, and watch as he turns to the sink in the small kitchenette, flicks the tap on and watches as the water fills its container.

He’s wearing a comfortable-looking navy cardigan, it’s well-fitting and you’re acutely aware of how he’s allowed his own sense of style to come through in his working wardrobe over his years in the BAU. You allow yourself an indulgent look at your co-worker while his back is to you, grinning slightly as you enjoy the view.

“How’s the case files?” He asks as he finishes loading the machine and presses the button to let the coffee drip. His hands glide in their motions after so long of using the machine most days.

“I finished all my consults, now it’s just an endless pile of cold cases to keep me busy.” You drag out a few vowels as you speak, teetering close to yawning in exasperation but the easy nights at home have kept you well-rested.

“Me too.” He shrugs, gently pushing the tub of sugar closer to the mugs to use when the coffee has finished.

“What are you making notes on?” You ask, and lean your body comfortably against the countertop.

“Notes?” He scrunches his face.

“You’ve been scribbling in your notebook for the past half hour.” “Oh!”

Realisation washes over his face, and you wonder if there’s a reason for his unusually cloudy brain. You laugh just once and raise an eyebrow in confusion at him.

“Nothing in particular, just some musings to keep me busy.” He shrugs.

There’s an old metal tin sitting on the side, some cookies that an agent had made and brought in for everyone to take from. You reach across and open it, looking closely for the biggest one before taking it. You snap it in half and present the biggest piece to the man beside you.

“Thanks.” He utters, before taking an indulgent bite.

“What kind of musings are keeping Dr Reid busy on this fine Thursday afternoon?” You ask with a glint in your eye.

He shrugs, and begins to mumble through his cookie-filled mouth before pausing to actually swallow before he speaks. His action makes you giggle. “I was asked if I’d like to do a guest lecture on profiling for the FBI Academy and I’m not really sure if I want to do it.”

“Why not?” You ask sincerely.

“I think a lot of my stories about the job might change their mind about working here.” He smiles, you both laugh, and then he shakes his head. He’s not wrong. “No, I’m kidding. I’m just not sure if I’m ready for doing something like that alone, I think there’s a lot of pressure for lecturers to be engaging and informative, and I tend to go off on a tangent.”

“I love your tangents.” You reply honestly and with a smile, which he returns appreciatively, and a little rosy in the cheeks. “But I know what you mean, I’m a profiler for a living but I don’t think I could get on a stage and give a good lecture on it.”

“I, um,” He smiles wistfully and nods his head as he speaks, something he frequently does. “I’d love to run my own classes at the Academy or maybe Georgetown one day, but I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility yet.”

He’d be a fantastic professor, you know this. And you’re sure he’d have a lecture full of hopeful psychology fanatics just like you both once were. “Maybe a guest lecture is a good trial run, even if it’s a little out of your comfort zone.”

“Yeah.” He smiles, then begins to pour out the coffees. Each mug is almost identical- white or navy with some variation of the FBI logo on, but somehow he knows who’s is who’s, and leaves enough room for cream in cups that need it. “Which case would you choose?”

“For a guest lecture?” He nods. “Um…”

It’s difficult, while every case is important you know that a balance needs to be found in a case chosen for an Academy lecture- it can’t be too standard, it wouldn’t show off why your jobs are so important or might even struggle to keep the audience interested. But you can’t choose one of your worst cases either, some of them can be particularly heavy even for you all to think back on.

“Maybe the zodiac imitator?” You suggest with a shrug. “You can go through how you deduced it wasn’t the real zodiac, looking for messages in online articles, Garcia going through MENSA records, you could even talk about navigating all the reporters and public attention.”

“Y’know, I was thinking about that one.” He agrees and you tap his arm playfully. “The trainees always enjoy the imitator cases.”

“As much as you can enjoy this kinda thing, right?” You laugh humorlessly. Spencer knows everyone’s coffee preference off by heart, you know that, but it still makes you feel a little hot when he perfects your drink and holds it out to you.

“Maybe ‘interested in’ would be a better way to put it.” He corrects himself with a similar chuckle. You nod in agreement.

You both take a small moment to enjoy a sip of your drinks before taking the rest of the mugs to the members of your team- Morgan grins at Reid as he passes his mug, and JJ and Emily thank you when you bring their drinks too.

“What do you think,” JJ calls you by name. “Where would you go for a beach holiday?”

“Beach?” You say and laugh lightly. “Wherever Morgan’s not going.”

They both grin and laugh, and you hear Emily begin to say “Y’know I’ve seen those pictures of Morgan’s Jamaican resort…”

You head back to your own desk, you have Reid right in front of you and Morgan at a table across from you both, it makes for easy conversation and sharing of the sweet treats you bring in when you try to hide them from the rest of the team- more for you that way. Every so often you stop on your way to work and fill up a pick ‘n’ mix, you know by now that Spencer’s favourites are the chocolate jazzles and Morgan loves anything sour.

Emily shouts for Morgan to help her find a holiday destination, so he shakes his head playfully and taps you on the shoulder as he walks past you.

The coffee is perfect as you sip it, just slightly hot, not too sweet and not too strong. You cradle it between two hands as you step past your desk and stop in front of Spencer’s, leaning gently against the table. He looks up at you, mid sip, and raises his eyebrows to ask what you need from him.

“Can I see what you’ve been writing?” You ask innocently, pointing at the small brown book that sits central on his desk. A pen sticks out of the top of it to hold the page he was using, and he seems unusually shocked by your question.

You’re profilers, though Spencer is a surprisingly good liar, you have a feeling he wasn’t pondering a guest lecture for the Academy.

“There’s nothing important in there.” He shakes his head and instinctively goes to pull it out of reach.

“C’mon, Reid!” You giggle, putting your coffee cup down in a space on his desk. “I just wanna know what’s been keeping you occupied. You’ve been scribbling in it all afternoon, so secretively too.”

“I-I’m not-” He pauses, stuttering and puts his own mug down and out of reach before pulling the pen from between the pages of his notebook. He leaves the brown pad where it is. “being secretive, why do you want to see?”

“I’m just curious.” You say, bowing your head in apology. “I didn’t mean to pry, I’ll just leave you to it.”

“N-no, wait,” He stops you, seeing your small change in demeanour and immediately washing with guilt. Your body language changes just slightly, not quite closed off but a little less open and maybe a smidge of your own guilt for possibly upsetting him. He’s not upset, and he certainly does want you to be. “I’m sorry. I-I’m just, um,”

You turn back to him, offering another apologetic look. It’s not necessary, and he holds the notebook tightly in his hand, looking at it while he thinks. “Would you like to see?”

“Only if you want me to.”

“Why not?” He hums, gently passing the small brown book to you. You take it, just as gently, curling a finger into the gap created by the pen to hold the open page.

The brown book is worn on the edges, creased from opening so many times and his recent page is over half way through. You’ve seen him scribble in it frequently, and you’ve seen the way he slips it into his satchel at the end of the day- it’s important to him, you know that.

You open the page and it’s a drawing, a sketch in black biro. You’ve seen some of Reid’s drawings before- wavy lines, shrunken eyes and wiry hair, it’s his own unique style of illustration and you love his hidden passion for it. His drawings have been of imaginary characters, animals, even halloween decorations; they have a haunted aspect to them and you admire his talent for capturing the way he sees the world. This one is adorned with small wavy lines bouncing off the central figure.

“It’s-” This one you recognise, an unhidden smile and the shape of the hair. “-me. You drew me?”

“Um… yeah.” He smiles, but it doesn’t hide his nerves as he shifts in his chair while you look over the lines he’s made.

It’s today, you know the top you’re wearing today and one wiggly line for the chair you’ve been perched on. Your hair is styled as it is today, but you haven’t smiled so brightly today, you haven’t had the reason. That part, you realise, is from his memory. You like that he thinks of you as a happy person- the lines show that too, they add a bright, liveliness to the illustration of you.

There’s small flowers on the page adjacent- lavender, daisies, chrysanthemums, with what you assume is the scientific name underneath. They dot across the page like a printed pattern, but with the handwriting you know of Spencer all around. Underneath the drawing of you, though you’re not sure if it’s meant to describe both pages, it says “Beautiful”.

“Wow, Spence- I mean- Spencer,” You stutter over your words, grinning and feeling flushed at the thought of him spending his afternoon drawing you so dearly. “It’s amazing, you’re really good at art, y’know.”

“Thanks.” He replies sweetly, face unabashedly pink and smiling from ear to ear. “It’s um, really tempting to draw you when you’re sitting right across from me. I wanted to try and capture your smile but my drawings have given you more of a… haunting beauty.”

You don’t know what to say, still smiling and stuttering over nothing at all as you look over to him, to the drawing, then him again. His pride in his work makes his face light up in a way you rarely see on the job. “A-and Spence is fine, if you like.”

“Thanks for letting me see, Spence.” You say, dancing lightly around the last word, an affectionate nickname you know is only reserved for the special few. It feels good to be special to him. “I’ve never been very good at drawing.”

“I don’t think skill matters when you’re passionate about what you’re trying to recreate on the page.” He says with a simple smile, then bites down on his bottom lip to stop it from being too bright.

“You think so?” “Yeah.”

—

a/n: and just for funsies…

[april-is]

April 12, 2024: A Small Psalm, Catherine Wing

A Small Psalm Catherine Wing

Sorrow be gone, be a goner, be forsooth un-sooth, make like a suit and beat it, vamoose from the heavy heavy, be out from under the night's crawlspace, call not for another stone, more weight more weight, be extinguished, extinguish, the dark, that which is deep and hollow, that which presses from all sides, that which squeezes your heart into an artichoke-heart jar and forbids it breathe, that which is measured by an unbalanced scale, banish the broken, the unfixable, the shattered, the cried-over, the cursed, the cursers, the curses— curse them, the stone from the stone fruit, let it be fruit, the pit from the pitted, the pock from the pocked, the rot from the rotten, tarry not at the door, jam not the door's jamb, don't look back, throw nothing over your shoulder, not a word, not a word's edge, vowel, consonant, but run out, run out like the end of a cold wind, end of season, and in me be replaced with a breath of light, a jack-o'-lantern, a flood lamp or fuse box, a simple match or I would even take a turn signal, traffic light, if it would beat beat and flash flood like the moon at high tide, let it, let it, let it flare like the firefly, let it spark and flash, kindle and smoke, let it twilight and sunlight, and sunlight and moonlight, and when it is done with its lighting let it fly, will'-o-the-wisp, to heaven.

--

Also: + you can’t be a star in the sky without holy fire, Frank X. Gaspar + Untitled [I closed the book and changed my life], Bruce Smith

Today in:

2023: How to Do Absolutely Nothing, Barbara Kingsolver 2022: Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you., Gabrielle Calvocoressi 2021: I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store, Eve L. Ewing 2020: Day Beginning with Seeing the International Space Station And a Full Moon Over the Gulf of Mexico and All its Invisible Fishes, Jane Hirshfield 2019: Flores Woman, Tracy K. Smith 2018: The Universe as Primal Scream, Tracy K. Smith 2017: Soul, David Ferry 2016: Turkeys, Galway Kinnell 2015: He Said Turn Here, Dean Young 2014: I Don’t Miss It, Tracy K. Smith 2013: Hotel Orpheus, Jason Myers 2012: Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List, Andrea Carlisle 2011: Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think, Frank O’Hara 2010: The Impossible Marriage, Donald Hall 2009: The Rider, Naomi Shihab Nye 2008: from Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, John Berryman 2007: This Heavy Craft, P.K. Page 2006: Late Ripeness, Czeslaw Milosz 2005: A Martian Sends A Postcard Home, Craig Raine

[starleska]

a non-exhaustive guide to writing the Toymaker's fake German accent (or, how RTD broke the German language so effectively) 🔥

hello everyone!!! 🥰 after a tremendous response to my Toymaker x Reader fic 'Dollface', lots of you reached out for some advice on writing the Toymaker's dialogue: specifically his faux-German accent 👀 now i am by no means an authority, but i do love figuring out unusual character voices and the 'rules' they follow while speaking! so i've put together this non-exhaustive guide on my logic for writing the Toymaker's fake German, based on the snippet of script we have, Neil Patrick Harris' delivery in The Giggle, a never-used linguistics degree and a few years of German lessons 😂 do take these 'rules' with a grain of salt; there is no right or wrong way to write the Toymaker, or any character for that matter! however, my autistic self had a lot of fun writing this, and i hope it gives you some useful pointers if you're struggling with how to write that horrible entity's butchering of the German language 🙈 as the Toymaker would say: 'Zey are very, very, importanten, zese rules, don't you sink?' 😉

consonant sounds (part one) 🧡

as you can see above, Russell T Davies wrote the script of 'The Giggle' so Neil Patrick Harris would sound 'German' in a very specific way. one way he did this is by replacing consonants. consonants are the opposite of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y), and are made by obstructing breath while speaking. by comparison, vowels are made by speaking without this vocal obstruction!

the way we pronounce words varies between accents. the Toymaker's faux-German accent is a stereotype of how speakers with German as their mother tongue may pronounce English. as such, having a general knowledge of German pronunciation makes writing the Toymaker's accent easier!

for the Toymaker, this means that consonant sounds like [w] (the 'w' in 'win') becomes [v] (the 'v' in 'violet'). this is common for German pronunciation ✨

in certain instances, the Toymaker will also flip pronunciation and change [d] (the 'd' in 'day') to [t] (the 't' in 'time'), which is why he calls Donna 'Tonna'.

likewise, sometimes the consonant digraph (two consonants forming a single sound) [ð] (the 'th' sound in 'the') becomes [ɗ] (the 'd' sound in 'dog'). this is how you end up with 'dee' instead of 'the'! however, sometimes [ð] becomes [z] (the 'z' sound in 'zebra'). this is how you end up with 'zey' instead of 'they', and 'zis' instead of 'this'! 🔥 (note: the Toymaker jumps around between these pronunciations, so you can use both!)

consonant sounds (part two) 💛

on occasion, the Toymaker will also substitute [ð] for an entirely different sound: [s] (the 's' sound is 'sun'). this transforms 'think' into 'sink'! likewise, the Toymaker will sometimes change [ŋ] (the 'ng' sound in 'sing') to [k] (the 'k' sound in 'kind'). combining the two, this makes the word 'everything' into 'everysink'!

putting all of this together, we can Toymakerify pronunciations! the sentence 'They were everything to me' becomes 'Zey vere everysink to me.'

now, the Toymaker's accent is inconsistent: in the above picture you can see a rule being broken by writing out 'everything' as 'everysing' rather than 'everysink'. don't be afraid to be loose with it - remember, this isn't the Toymaker's real accent, and he slips up too (especially when he forgets himself) 🤭

vowel sounds 💚

as i don't have access to the full script, i am unsure how often the vowel sounds are written out compared to the consonant sounds. however, we can see a few sounds being exaggerated in a stereotypically German fashion: the [ʌ] (the 'uh' in 'cup') becomes [uː] (the 'oo' in 'tool'), transforming 'beautiful' into 'beautifool'. likewise, the [ə] sound in 'the' becomes elongated into [i], transforming 'the' into 'thee' (or, with the consonant rules, 'dee').

verbs 💙

one of the silliest aspects of the Toymaker's accent is his tendency to add the '-ge' prefix to verbs (action/doing words). this means a word like 'learning' becomes 'ge-learning', and 'want' becomes 'ge-want' (or 'ge-vont' if we add in the consonant rules) 🙈

depending on your preference, sometimes the Toymaker adds an additional 's' to the end of these verbs! so 'learning' not only becomes 'ge-learning': it can become 'ge-learnings'!

sometimes the Toymaker also supplements his verbs with auxiliary verbs, specifically 'be'. you can see this in his construction: 'What is he being inventing now?' the 'being' doesn't need to be there!

however, the Toymaker isn't consistent with either of these rules. in particular with the '-ge' prefix, he will usually only use this once per sentence. try not to overload your sentences with too many of these rules: remember that he still needs to be understandable! ⚡

plurals 💜

some German plurals (multiples of a thing) are created using the '-en' suffix: for instance, 'die Frau' ('the woman') becomes 'die Frauen' ('the women'). this is why the Toymaker frequently changes the English plural suffix '-s' or -'es' (as in 'cats' and 'boxes') to '-en'!

this makes 'snakes' into 'snaken', 'hobbyhorses' into 'hobbyhorsen', and 'dolls' into 'dollen'. silly, yet effective 😂

adjectives 🤎

surprise!!! the Toymaker doesn't just add the -en suffix to plurals...he also adds '-en' indiscriminately to adjectives (describing words) 🙈 words like 'important' become 'importanten', and 'favourite' becomes 'favouriten'!

the key to this rule is that the original word must be intact after adding '-en'. for instance: 'balden' would work for 'bald', but 'clouden' wouldn't work for 'cloudy', because it replaces a vital sound! because we only have a couple of examples of him using this rule, this is the best way i've figured out how to use it without making his speech sound overburdened or clunky 💖

experiment with this rule however you like!!! here's some fun Toymakerisms i've just come up with: 'plumpen' for 'plump', 'squaren' for 'square', and 'coolen' for 'cool'. 😉

random usage of real German words (part one) 🖤

something which makes the Toymaker's fake German so effective is how liberally he sprinkles in real German words into his speech. the majority of these words are common ones which are recognisable to most English speakers, and include conjunctions and pronouns. here are a few German words that the Toymaker canonically uses:

mit - with | und - and | ja - yes | wunderbar - wonderful | nein - no | das - that | guten Tag - good day | ein - a (remember that in German it would be ein or eine for masculine vs feminine, but the Toymaker doesn't make this distinction!) | mein - my (same as ein - it would be mein or meine, but he seems to only use meine as an accented thing rather than referring to gendered nouns!).

random usage of real German words (part two) 💖

every now and again, the Toymaker will use a random German noun: for instance, 'Straße' for 'street', or 'Achtung!' for 'danger!'.

however, the Toymaker also uses real German words/phrases in the incorrect context. for instance, when the Toymaker screams, 'BACKEN SIE!', a non-German speaker might take this to mean 'GET BACK!', when it actually means 'BAKE THEM!' 😂 the golden rule is for the Toymaker's speech to sound German at all costs, not for it to be linguistically accurate!

RTD also writes out words like 'come' as 'komm', referencing the German word 'kommen'. adding in a little German spelling goes a long way to replicating his accent when written down!

when writing the Toymaker, i chose to expand on this pseudo-German by including additional words to 'Germanify' his speech: for instance, using 'ist' for 'is' and 'hast' for 'have'. i also add in other general phrases, such as 'Herzlichen Glückwunsch' for 'congratulations!'. if you have a general knowledge of German, you can play around with the Toymaker's speech this way 😉

onomatopoeia and reduplication ✨

part of the charm of the Toymaker's terrible German accent is how musical and inviting it seems. a really cute tendency of his is to use onomatopoeia (words which sound like what they are) and reduplication (the repetition of sounds in a set) together. examples of this are 'splishy-splashy' and 'clippety-clop'! 🥺

onomatopoeia adds a sensory dimension to the Toymaker's speech, and reduplication is most often associated with baby-talk and children. in this way, the Toymaker's speech is playful and childish, and lures you into his performance.

this is why in 'Dollface', i chose to have the Toymaker vocalise 'Choo-choo!' for the train, and to describe his dolls as 'ge-having ein chitter-chatter.' add a touch of this here and there, and it helps to demonstrate the Toymaker's playful nature 🥰

grammar 💀

thankfully for us, the Toymaker's grammatical constructions are largely unchanged from English! this is because the Toymaker's faux-German is supposed to evoke German while still being understandable. his language isn't a real representation of a German speaker speaking English: it's a pantomime version! 🔥

general ideas/tips 🧸

if you're struggling with writing the Toymaker's German accent, try writing it out in non-accented English first! it's a lot easier to think of how to 'Germanify' English which already exists then coming up with it on the fly (although that will get easier the more you do it 😉).

try not to overburden your sentences with too many of these rules!! it is easy to think that pouring as many Germanisms as possible into the Toymaker's speech will just make him sound like himself, but this might break the reader's immersion. trust that sometimes less is more - especially if you are going to be writing the Toymaker accent-switching.

have fun!! don't worry about these ideas too much - you're writing fic, not a dissertation 💖 the Toymaker's whole deal is being playful and engaging in games - he isn't even following his own bloody rules!! just enjoy the process - you can always add more to his speech later 🔥

that's all for now!!! use this silly little guide however you like 🥰💖 godspeed in writing your Toymaker fics - i do hope this helps a bit. and shout-out to all the lovely fluent German speakers who have reacted with both humour and horror to the Toymaker's faux-German (including in my own writing) 😂

[nattikay]

so in my previous post the other day I mentioned in the tags that I recently saw an OC name that was a string of five consonants followed by a single vowel and was baffled on how it was meant to be pronounced. I’m not going to say what the name was because I don’t want the person to feel called out—this post is not meant to be a criticism nor tutorial/lesson nor rant—just pure autistic rambling about this silly little interest of mine.

anyways, that name got me thinking: how many consonants could you put next to each other in a Na'vi word/name while still being phonetically valid? Well, I guess that depends on whether you’re counting by phonemes or letters.

First let’s go very briefly over basic Na'vi syllable structure: every syllable must contain one vowel or diphthong or pseudovowel. The syllable may optionally start and/or end with a consonant. Up to two consonants can cluster at the beginning of the syllable (there are some more specific rules for this but we’ll save that for later), but not at the end. Here’s some examples (remember that tìftang (') is considered a consonant):

taron - [ta][ron] ikran - [ik][ran] 'itan - ['i][tan] oare - [o][a][re] snafpìlfya - [sna][fpìl][fya]

Based on these rules, under the right conditions (a syllable that ends in a consonant followed by a syllable that begins with a cluster) you can string up to three consonants together and still be valid (note that you need at least two syllables to do this! The string of lfy in snafpìlfya works because the l and the fy belong to separate syllables! You would not be able to have all three together like that in a single syllable.)

BUT! What if instead of counting by phoneme, we count by letter? Let’s talk about something called digraphs. A digraph is when two letters are used to represent a single phoneme. For example, in English, th is a digraph: it’s not a t-sound and an h-sound right next to each other, but rather its own unique sound.

Na'vi uses a total of 11 digraphs: the consonants kx, px, tx, ts, and ng; the diphthongs ay, aw, ey, and ew; and the pseudovowels rr and ll. Sometimes the letters used in these digraphs can also be used separately (for example, with ts, both t and s are valid on their own), but sometimes they can’t—x is NEVER used outside of kx/px/tx, and g is never used outside of ng in the forest dialect (it can stand on its own in the reef dialect though, as long as it’s at the beginning of a syllable).

Let’s look at some more examples, but this time with words that use digraphs:

nantang - [nan][tang] tskxekeng - [tskxe][keng] flrrtsawl - [flrr][tsawl]

More specifically, let’s compare the words fnan and skxawng. Both these words have the same number of phonemes: f-n-a-n and s-kx-aw-ng, but because skxawng uses almost nothing by digraphs, it has nearly twice the letters! The only way to make it longer would be to replace that first s with a ts, thus giving you the longest possible syllable in terms of letters (tskxawng).

Why specifically ts instead of one of the other digraphs? Well, I mentioned briefly before that there are rules on how consonants are allowed to cluster, so let’s go over those real quick:

If you want to start your syllable with a single consonant, you can use any consonant you want. But if you want to start your syllable with a cluster, the first phoneme MUST be f, s, or ts (yes only those three), and the second phoneme MUST be l, k, kx, m, n, ng, p, px, t, tx, w, or y. The second phoneme cannot be f, h, s, ts, v, z, or tìftang. So for example:

fmi works, but not pmi tskxe works, but not ngkxe stawm works, but not ktawm flrr works, but not fvrr fngap works, but not ftsap syaw works, but not s'aw

Now, while any single consonant can start a syllable, only certain consonants are allowed to end one (and remember, clustering can only happen at the start, not the end).

The consonants that can end a syllable are: k, kx, l, m, n, ng, p, px, r, t, tx, and tìftang.

The consonants that cannot end a syllable are: f, s, ts, h, v, w, y, and z. So for example:

Tul works, but not tuz Kin works, but not kif Zup works, but not zuh Srung works, but not sruts Pam works, but not pas

Now, remember that this is for individual syllables. A word can have multiple syllables. Sruts is not a valid syllable, but something srutsen could still be a valid word because it is two syllables: [sru][tsen]

You might also see syllables like maw or pay that look like they end in w or y, but these still work because remember that the w and y in these words are not standalone consonants but part of the diphthong digraphs; the phoneme breakdown is not m-a-w but rather m-aw. So, maw works but not mow, pay works but not puy, etc.

There are also some special rules for pseudovowels. If you use a vowel or diphthong, starting and/or ending your syllable with a consonant is optional: a, ma, mak, ak, ey, mey, meyk, and eyk are all valid syllables.

But if you use a pseudovowel instead, the syllable MUST start with a consonant (remember that tìftang counts as a consonant) but CANNOT end with one. So 'rr, mrr, wll, etc. are valid, but not rr, srrk, plln, etc.

SO! With all that in mind! How are we gonna create our consonant monster word? We know that it’s gonna be impossible to have more than three consonant phonemes strung together, but we can mess around to get a whole lot more individual letters.

We’re gonna want to use as many digraphs as we can, so we’ll want to use either diphthongs or peusdovowels in the vowel slots. Syllables with pseudovowels can’t end in additional consonants so let’s use a diphthong for the first syllable, but diphthongs are spelled with a vowel first so let’s use a pseudovowel for the second syllable.

We’ll want a cluster at the beginning of the second syllable, and let’s use ts as the first phoneme since that’s the only digraph allowed in that position.

The beginning of the first syllable doesn’t really matter because there’ll be a vowel breaking up the chain anyways, but let’s digraph-cluster that one too just for the heck of it to make the word even more cursed. Let’s go ahead and tack a third syllable on the end as well, a short single-vowel one, because why not.

That leaves us with something like:

Tskxayngtsngrra

string of y-n-g-t-s-n-g-r-r, nine “consonant” letters in a row!! (albeit still only three consonant phonemes: ng-ts-ng). Syllable breakdown is [tskxayng][tsngrr][a].

absolute hot mess, but still technically valid! 🙃 lol

[impunkster-syndrome]

Hot take but if you censor words like rape, suicide, abuse, sex, etc, (especially self-censoring) you should not be posting about those topics if you cannot even talk about them without making things less accessible or understandable. I am speaking about this as a rape survivor and someone who had an OD suicide attempt in the last year.

"Sewer slide", "unalive", "sui" all are not universally understood and while technically more accessible than "su1c1d3" ("suicide" with numbers replacing the i and e), it still makes stuff harder to understand.

Posts with "s3x (e)" are inaccessible still and require someone to be able to see well to understand the censoring. It's inaccessible.

I don't care if you're censoring to prevent people from finding your blog or post or for comfort. If your comfort literally stops you from talking about certain topics, you need to not post about them and go work that out. It is still inaccessible.

If you can't talk about a thing without censorship, then don't talk about it. Reading "Z00ph1l3 (o, o, i, e)" ("zoophile" with the vowels replaced by numbers) will actually make your post harder to understand, especially for someone who is disabled. My brain does not "auto-translate" your censorship all the time because of my seizures and how that literally fucks up the functioning of my brain.

[clay-pidgeon]

post title pending. my weird swap au

this is the post im making for scratchswap, my au where i switch the post-scratch kids with the post-scratch trolls sharing their aspect (dirk-nepeta, roxy-equius, jake-eridan, and jane-feferi) and then the pre scratch dudes get swapped accordingly. yes this bc of the Parallels between feferi and jane and then i got a whole Thing out of it. im working on classpects/ages. characters under the cut

pre-scratch trolls

note for the record i did not think much about these guys

johune peixes: i have done 0 thinking on johune so sorry. theyre swapped w meenah and everyones really confused about how that funny little guy was a huge scary empress in every other universe

rozela zahhak: the sorcerer wooooo! pretty similar to canon rose shes just really fucking strong. good friends w aranea

dayves leijon: im still not 100% sure how to go about this one tbh but he does like romance in some form. also i got in in my head hes skittish. no idea where that came from. capitalizes b (glasses) and maybe something else?

jaidli ampora: oh i actually thought about this one a little! fashion is sorta fifties inspired like cronus but shes not a greaser thats his schtick. you dont steal a mans shtick. is there a c in that word or not

post scratch trolls

jaynce peixes: feels like i should work on that name huh. anyways jaynce does Not want to be the heiress (for reasons both transgender and not) at all and is in a little bit of denial about this. i lied actually a lot of denial. may or may not be moirails w jayque havent decided. replaces e and o with -E and -O forks and spoons!

roxxie zahhak: a little more into robots n shit than coding but still does that. bit of a jack of all trades! thinks deyirks lusus (its. kity) is the most special boy in the whole wide world. probably moirails w deyirk now that i think abt it but maybe not. im on the fence abt a lot of stuff here. uses some kind of prefix, emoticons have X for eyes, replaces x sounds with x, y (as a vowel) with ie, and s w z

deyirk leijon: WORLDS MOST NORMAL MAN (lying) lives in a cave in the middle of the woods not for catgirl reasons but because this guy is going insane in solitude works best when isolated. also uses some kind of prefix for a quirk. roxxie drops off robot parts at his house every few weeks and they make a day of it theyre Pals

jayque ampora: he helps feed gloybsub or whatever her name is and hes so normal about the deaths on his conscience. really hes so normal guys cmon. normal

pre scratch kids

mimi egbert: token cis friend sorry meenah. or not idc. more mellow because dad egbert is just a normal guy and isnt raising her to be the literal queen of the world. still meenah tho

hans lalonde: i am unsure about the name but i think its fine. the ultimate horse girl (therian). keeps maplehoof in the foyer. if he had to interact with his dad for more than 20 seconds they would both implode from the sheer awkwardness. the house is big as shit they just gesture to each other when they see each other and thats fine for both of them

manu strider: wears heart shades everywhere as a sort of joke. he doesnt actually know. caps lock is broken and refuses to fix it + uses kaomoji a lot. fujoshi to transmasc pipeline haha who said that

crow harley: im stilling working on which animal to furrify cronus with. watches a bunch of old movies and picked up those speaking habits. other shit pending

post scratch kids

fifi crocker: she wants to be crockercorps new ceo sosososo bad she would make up for all of their horrible crimes against humanity by uh. shes working on it ok?

neta strider: the she/her to she/they to they/them to he/they to he/him to he/they to she/he/they to The Creature pipeline. percentage of their diet that is fish he caught w her own bare hands has been steadily increasing. is trying to buff up on history but keeps on going down wikipedia rabbit holes and rereading the nyan cat article for the thousandth time. would still do the detective pony rewrite but would get sidetracked by the lolcat metaphor for way longer

eqis lalonde: do you know how hard it is to smush equius down to four letters? i just made this name up man. anyways i dunno what to do with her but shes a girl of the horse variety

dani english: diversity win this sickly victorian orphan child is genderfluid! fucking terrified of the lusi on the island. fancies herself sort of a romantic poet

the entirety of this was brainstormed while i was bored in class for the record. still brainstorming so im gonna edit this when more shit arises

[aterriblethought]

First of all I want to apologize for the radio silence lately. We had almost finished wrapping up chapter 12 of Hitsuji when my daughter was born in March. If I get a free moment that's not spent with her it's usually spent eating or sleeping, just pure survival mode. My computer's been gathering dust. She's sleeping on me right now actually.

Anyway, I haven't been paying attention but it seems Tokyopop has released the first two English volumes of Acid Town digitally with the third volume coming next week. There are also paperback editions on the way, which is great news and a little wild to me that I might eventually see it on a bookshelf in the US.

If you're at all suspicious about the quick turnaround of these volumes, I think you're right. I posted some pictures here comparing pages from the original scanlator's work to the official English version. Here are my thoughts:

I've been typesetting for scanlations for years now and I've come a long way and still have a lot to learn, but to this day I continue to use rules and such that I learned from the original scanlators for Acid Town. Honestly the typesetting for both the scanlation and the official version are not fantastic, but the official version feels especially slapdash. It's not that big a deal to me that the SFX aren't replaced but it does show a preference for speed over quality. The upper right panel of Tetsu where the text is not centered is especially egregious to me and shows a carelessness not only on the typesetter's part but also whoever QC'd the page, if anyone did. There are also wildly different text sizes between the two neighboring bubbles. The original scanlation I have an issue with in the sense that too much text is squeezed into the bubbles and comes too close to the bubble edges... sometimes this is hard to avoid but it's almost every bubble. When typesetting I'm always thinking about how best to center the text and break up words for readability. The official version succeeds a little better there and is less overwhelming to look at.

I've always had an issue with the liberal and often incorrect translations from the original scanlation, but I have to admit when put side by side like this, the official version is missing a lot of character in the dialogue. I'd love to compare against the Japanese text but I'm nap trapped and my Japanese volumes are in another room, so maybe later, LOL.

I still need to buy the full volume but I am curious about the translations for names, really curious. So far everything looks about the same but they shorten Hyoudou to Hyodo... that's kind of normal when transliterating long vowel sounds in Japanese to English, but I always prefer the spelling that matches what you'd actually see written in Japanese, which is an o with a u. If you were to spell Hyoudou in Japanese without the u's it would be wrong. I'm mostly wondering how they translated the Chinese names though (Wang, Heilong, etc. Spelt Wan and Heiron in Japanese katakana, but the katakana is only intended to help read the Chinese characters and shouldn't be the basis of the English transliteration).

I'll come back with more thoughts once I get a moment to purchase the full volumes, but I would also love to hear others' thoughts if you've had a chance to read the new editions.

Chapter 13 of Hitsuji is also in progress and the translation for chapter 53 of Acid Town is done, but I'm a little uncertain what will become of that now that the official licensed volumes are out. I might come back to this later.

[inlocusmads]

Hey! 7 for Maura; 8 for Nora; and 10 for Trystan. :)

Happy to see some Maura love as always!

#7 for Maura:

Maura has called her sister, Silja many many awful names, insults, pretty much the worst of the worst things you can call a sibling. At one point she's even wished she wasn't related to her, because Silja "was too bossy, too controlling and just is a fucking menace to be around" and every time it hurts Silja more and more but she's learned that her sister doesn't mean those words and it's just because she's tired of being babied and coddled up and Silja being more of a "third parent" figure than her own sister.

Of course, when Silja ends up dying, Maura can never take those words back or apologize, which literally kills her from within. No matter how much she goes back to her grave to apologize and seek forgiveness, she knows she might never get to hug her sister back again. It's why she thinks she gets wounded so easily - Maura feels like she deserves a thousand bruises for all the awful things she said growing up and constantly fighting with her sister when she's been ensuring the other gets to live.

#8 for Nora:

I'm sick of answering in paragraphs so here's a list lol:

This should be no surprise, but throwing things. You can't beat her at darts or bowling or shooting at balloons, she's going to get kicked out of the place for winning everything.

Cooking. Nora learned the skill as a kid to support herself after her dad became emotionally and physically unavailable for a year after her mother's passing.

Soccer. She can still juggle really well. Athletics to some extent. She can run.

Knowledge of public transport. She's pretty good at reading maps and following along. No need of GPS or Google Maps, she's replaced her mind with that of a taxi driver's.

"Look up stuff" which people now call research. Nora got good at it after writing a million book reports and now it helps her surf through a library with ease and look up facts on the internet.

Repairing stuff. Jimmy taught her everything from fixing leaky taps to troubleshooting computers to repairing cooking handles to changing tyres and work with constraints, in general. So even if Nora can't fix something (or find a Youtube tutorial), she can work with constraints.

Driving!! Nora once drove her dad's car for a block as a part of winning a bet. Jimmy taught her all the basic mechanics of driving before she could even turn 15-16, so by her driver's license procurement, she was already ready.

Quick math. She's horrible at it but hey, she learned it.

And that should be it lol.

#10 for Trystan:

I can't really find voice claims and samples, so I'll try my best to describe what Trystan would sound like:

Drakovian accent, of course. I'd say it's got that Eastern European-lilt in it, it's very crisp and clear if I can describe it that way.

I'd say he has a little deep voice in terms of how "deep" it is? It's not too baritone, it's just enough to give him a nice singing voice and a very impressive vocal range.

As for accents and stresses - he tends to stress on the s's and the z's, has a more softer roll to his r's and it's a little difficult for him to make a softer "th" sound, most of his "th"-sounds aren't cushioned by the 'h', so they're very sharp in that area. He also deepens his "o"'s a little and sometimes his u's. I want to look into this a little bit more because this is practically begging a fic on its own.

As for if he's picked up any American accent in his time in New York, well it wasn't anything too drastically different. His emphasis and stresses on the vowels and consonants grew a little softer, a little more blunt on edge and he picked up a couple of slang and that's pretty much it.

___

Thanks for the ask Elsa!

character generator asks

[unsleepingtales]

Mentopolis ep 4! This is another very long one and also this time there's research and visual aids!

Siobhan’s look this ep is so good

I relate to Hank Green in that I also roll a d20 between my fingers and gaze into the middle distance when my GM recounts The Horrors.

You look too pretty and mysterious 😔

Siobhan is so good at playing a femme fatale

Jokes!

Wait do flash mobs really not exist anymore? Did those disappear and I didn’t notice?

Has anyone checked to see how far down Elias is rn.

Like is he gonna be falling for the next three episodes.

I love when there are cousins in rpgs. The Lords of The Wing. Imelda and Anastasia. Every rp server I’ve ever been in. Most of the dnd games I’ve ever been in. If there’s one thing rpers/ttrpgers/etc love it’s fucking complex family dynamics.

I love Max <3

she’s so silly I love her

Ivana x Dan where’s the fic cmon guys

The super casual dance 💃

THANK you please check

(players make cartoonish sounds of worry)

They really want him to fly lmao

The setttttt

WHY DOES HE HAVE A GRAPPLING HOOK ON HIS BELT

Like that’s great. But he has this for why. Did he know he was gonna get tossed out the window??? What the fuck??

I missed it last episode but this episode’s spelling is 🥁🥁

Phởcks!

ở is a Vietnamese language vowel (one of twelve), and is pronounced as an unrounded [o]. Vietnamese is a tonal language, so Ở is the letter Ơ with the hook tonal indicator above it. It does phonetically make sense as a replacement letter for the sound they are trying to achieve. x x Back to the show!

Oh god we’re in the red

140 pressure! By golly gee!

Dan whatcha doin

The fucks of doom

Literally of doom.

Freddie trying to explain what this looks like is so funny oh my god

Why did you need to slap her for that?

ONE

Quadruple oh dear lord

Also why was the grappling gun vibrating

What are you doing kid??

Oh he has no way of knowing that but that could really screw The Fix. I really hope he doesn’t get killed because the DA finds out he’s not dead.

I’ll bet Hank is having such a great time just watching this.

She beat it by more than five hell yeah

Floor rules!!

What a great cover story for being at Sugah’s all the time

Oh, the cops are huge assholes? Shocking.

Especially when Brennan’s the GM lol

Yeah Hank definitely forgot he was playing lmao

HELL YEAH

What is thisssss

Oh I do not like this at all

Everyone is so delighted by him and honestly I am too

Bad this is all bad

Like body like brain function I guess

The Fix should have had a grappling hook on his belt idk what to tell you

Wild. This is a wild thing to have happened.

God the fear that “did you know” instills now.

What. What are you trying to achieve right now.

TRAPP

What are you trying to do

WHY IS THIS WHAT’S HAPPENING

Holy shit man. What the fuck.

So is he like. No longer stressed or something? He’s still swinging from a grappling hook off a skyscraper, is he no longer stressed about that?

The gang is reuniting!

Why is Mrs Doubtfire the default? Like every improv person I’ve ever met defaults to Mrs doubtfire when they need to do a disguise thing.

Split like an end

Just noticed the little thing that looks like the communism symbol on the background lmao

The Brennan Face of Defeat is beautiful and tragic

We would hate for anyone in police custody not to have a wonderful time 💀

Poor Max

Tropes!

C’est la vieeeeee

Myeh, see!

Vigilance?

Just. Maybe. Hundreds?

An entire crosswalk just saw you shit yourself and despite being thrown out of a window and trying to grappling hook yourself to safety, the public humiliation is your biggest concern right now.

We’re driving to the mayor!

Hunch and Fucks duo of all time

Shit!

What is happeninggg

Okay but if he planned to jump and use the grappling hook then why would none of his brain functions be aware of that?

Getting the white key in the chest of a function takes it over?

“He looked at me with some eyes that did not have him inside them anymore” Jesus Christ that’s not quite on “who do we know who has blood” level but it’s close

What a wonderful flashback.

Maybe this insane situation will change him a bit lol

Freddie mouthing along perfectly <3

Drive STRAIGHT into his walls

Ivana what an icon

Great googly moogly!!

Girl what

What an adorable visual

Mr. Mayor I know we’re confessing to kind of a lot of crimes here BUT-

Is rope burn really the biggest concern

This is why the government never gets anything done

The best thing that could happen WOULD be if everything in the world were to stop you’re so right

You don’t make any sense!

Yeah having the concept of freezing as the head of government would make it really easy for people to puppet that.

I’m with Conrad I have no idea what’s going on

Yessss exactly what Imelda had tried to do earlier

Siblings <3

Ok! So they’re not falling anymore!

To control and regulate 😬

I’m curious 🧐🤨 I do all kinds of crazy things 😋🤪🥸

Trapp is so good

Thank god they got the pressure down or that would have been Bad lmao

They all smell so much like beef oh god

The conscience is not the thing holding you back from experiencing pleasure my guy

Of course you’re the embodiment of justification and you’d love to write a manifesto. Of course.

Dan Fucks is in handcuffs so often

The POWER of that roll oh my god

I want to know this woman’s story

Just fun facts, they’re not scary!

(Hank ebullient he’s meeting his match)

e·bul·lient /iˈbo͝olyənt, iˈbəlyənt/ adjective 1. cheerful and full of energy.

FACT ALERT. BRENNAN BIRD FACT ALERT.

Fact off time

Pasha N. She’s PASSION incredible

I love the cartoony clue logic of this place

Copper!

(getting titillated from the tidbits)

Caption authors I LOVE you

(aroused and astounded) I didn’t know, I didn’t know.

The fact that The Fix didn’t know any of this and this is presumably the first time someone is trading facts with him that he didn’t already know and doing it so excitedly I’m having feelings.

Hunch Curio incredible wingman action

Trapp gets the same brand of candy cigarettes that I do!

Fun fact: candy cigarettes look super realistic if you burn the end and work as props for cosplay sometimes! They also taste like toasted marshmallow :)

Oh god

Is the brother one of the kids from the orphanage? Maybe he was abandoned there and that’s why he stayed a kid while his sister grew up?

Oh my god Hank eating the candy cigarette was such a good beat

ICHABOD

Hank Green your mind <3

The gang’s back together!

Sometimes Brennan walks into a bad pun and he looks so disappointed in himself

That man needs some beef on his legs!

What a great episode.

Capers!

Sneak peek reactions:

Leave the child alone

Ooh do we get to meet Don Avaricii?

Whatttt

Oohohohoho yay.

[ukfrislandembassy]

Frislandic Dialectal Morphology

OK, this is going to be a bit of a long post, because there's a fair bit of variation here. However, unlike with dialectal phonology, there aren't quite as many clear-cut isoglosses, because morphological variation doesn't tend to be quite so Neogrammarian as phonology. However, some regional trends do exist, so worth checking back to that post to remind yourself of the abbreviations that I'll be using in this post.

Firstly, a point that is partly also to do with dialectal phonology and applies over both the major word classes, but there is some dialectal variation in the lenition mutation in certain contexts. In particular, a combination of the 1SG prefix me+ and a labial consonant may optionally assimilate to an mb- cluster in the northern varieties and G. This applies even when the v- from lenition would be expected to disappear before a rounded vowel in the standard. Thus, while in O we find forms such as me-vælæk 'approach me' (sometimes with a frozen imperative m'olæke 'come close') from mælæk, me-vag 'sting me' from mag, m-'uoð 'bind me' from buoð, in e.g. K we instead find m-bælæk, m-bag, m-boað.

Meanwhile, in varieties which retain a distinct reflex of lenited *k, with the 2SG prefix ke+ there is a similar fusion which in effect results in the elision of initial g- as in the standard: thus a two-way opposition in O between m'uoj 'my sister', k'uoj 'your sister' and seguoj 'our sister', in K there is a three-way contrast between mehoj [məˈɣoi̯], k'oj [kʰoi̯] and segoj [ʂeˈgoi̯] 'ibid.' Colloquial urban speech in many of these varieties (and among some speakers in all urban varieties across the country), the 1SG prefix syncopates results in an entirely series of prenasalised stops, thus colloquial G m'bav 'my beloved', n'datt 'my father' and n'guoj 'my sister'; note that this is likely an innovation on a previously consistent leniting process, as evidence by the m→b shift in mav 'beloved'.

In terms of the specific word-classes, let's turn firstly to the nominal morphology. Obviously, there is variation in some of the forms due to the phonological differences previously outlined, though some recapitulation will be useful here. Firstly, northern varieties tend to have invariant genitive and animate plural suffixes in [i] and [u] respectively due to a process of post-stressed vowel raising. In B we find the animate plural is further subject to a harmony process whereby [y] occurs when the previous vowel in the word is front, thus in B zottu [ˈt͡ɕoʰtu] 'men' & mokku [ˈmoʰku] 'pigs' but nücü [ˈnysy] 'newts' and zigü [ˈt͡ɕiky] 'tits (birds)' (standard zotto, mokku, nusu, zigo). S meanwhile has developed a regular alternation whereby /β/ (whether from historical *b, *m or *l) is replaced by /j/ in the genitive, thus maav → maaj 'beloved's', Gaav → Gaaj 'God's' (standard mave, Gale).

A common feature across most varieties is the merger of the singular and (animate) plural of the genitive case as [i], as opposed to the diphthong exhibited in the standard, likely again a manifestation of reduction of unstressed vowels (or in S connected with the aforementioned /βi/ → /j/ simplification as well). There are a number of disparate strategies to resolve this odd gap, though these varieties tend to use the simple form more when the standard would expect a plural, e.g. K ne bezi kud [nəˈpet͡ɕi kʰut] 'land of the faries'. Common, particularly in the eastern varieties KRD, is an -agi [ɑgi], a relatively recent morphologisation from nage, the genitive plural of 'people'. Equivalent dative forms in -ageð [ɑgəð] are common as well. Thus K kudagi zea [ˈkʰudɑgi ˈt͡ɕea̯] 'all nations', nabsja dojageð [ˈnɑpɕɑ ˈtojɑgəð] 'I went to the elders' (standard kudoj zie, nabsja duojuð). Western varieties such as B tend instead to favour derivatives of llutt 'gang', giving e.g. n'uollti giet [ˈnuə̯ɬti ˈkiə̯tʰ] 'the leaves of the trees' (standard n'ovi giet).

In terms of the actual categories, most varieties generally agree in having at least the nominative, genitive and dative, but a few augment this system with additional members from among the set of postpositions. A common addition is an instrumental in -em from a reduction of the postposition gæm 'with'. A second genitive in -er from a reduction of the dative + ar construction is a common reduction found in speech, though this is uncommon in careful speech in any variety. Thus in colloquial R you might hear e.g. n'datter sjoldem [ˈⁿdɑʰtɚˈɕoldəm] 'with my father's shield', while in S one might talk of something happening Gaaj tollẽm [ˈkɑːi̯ˈtʰuɬə̃m] 'by the will of God'.

Verbal morphology is even more of a mess. Firstly, whether umlaut is a productive process is variable depending on the variety, but the overall trend is for it to be lost. In particular, umlaut with the indirect I-ið is something of a literary feature which speakers of most varieties don't tend to bother with. Umlaut with the 1/2PL I-r/I-st is more common, but is less common in KRD and is absent from S. On the flipside, in B the -r suffix has been lost leaving umlaut as the sole marker of 1/2PL.

The set of voice markers is also a bit of a mess. It was mentioned last time that (standard) Frislanic lacks a causative passive form 'cause to be'. Well, some dialects (particularly S and KR, another 'diagonal' distribution) do have a suffix -ll, which originated as a causative-passive from a reduction of a cluster*-tʰl-, but now has also in part come to serve as an indirect causative. Thus in K you can distinguish pairs such as lãhlã [ˈlɑ̃ɣlɑ̃] 'I make them speak' vs. lãhllã [ˈlɑ̃xɬɑ̃] 'I make it be said', but also kãjlã [ˈkʰɑ̃ĩlɑ̃] 'I kill them' vs. kãjllã [ˈkʰɑ̃ĩɬɑ̃] 'I let them die'. In S, due to the weakening of the causative suffix, a set of 'deponents' has arisen where this erstwhile indirect causative is now simply the plain causative, bringing us back to square one, e.g. kããjllã [ˈkʰɑ̃ːjɬɑ̃] 'I kill them', keevllã [ˈkʰeːʊɬɑ̃] 'I lay it down', while the native reflexes would be something like *kããjvã/kããjjã, *keevvã/keevjã, which would likely reduce and become homophonous with kããjã 'I die', keevã 'I lie down'.

With regards to person marking, there are two kinds of variation; distribution and form. As was noted last time, certain forms, particularly the progressive, in many varieties utilise the person prefixes to mark an intransitive subject as well as a direct object, e.g. D meðellend 'I am shuddering'. Additionally, D and some R and G varieties also exhibit this with the indirect, thus R m'boaðið 'I seem to have been asleep'. Additionally, in southern varieties, there is some variability in the ordering of the irrealis and singular person prefixes: thus as well as standard 1SG m'i+, 2SG k'i+ one finds j'o+ and i'k+ (the plural prefixes always precede the irrealis because they became attached to the verb later).

In terms of the form, we have already noted elsewhere that in varieties with nasalisation show it with the 1SG subject suffix -a, while the RDG groups raise it to [ɔ]~[o]. Varieties which don't delete lenited *k also generally lack the -v variant for the relevant verbs: K erahã [əˈɻɑɣɑ̃] 'I do it' vs. standard erav. In B the 1/2PL passive suffix is I-(r)s [ʂ], as would be a more expected result of a *-tʰVʃ than the standard I-st. The remaining dialectal idiosyncracies come from differences in the TAM fused forms. The 1SG Conditional is frequently -iva rather than standard -eva, while northern varieties have a variant -jõ with nasalisation being the sole marker of 1SG. Similarly, these same varieties have a variant -tẽ for the 1SG perfective, in somewhat free variation with the more standard-like -sjã.

Next post I think it's time to start talking syntax.

[saintsmith]

i probably ought to give a bit of a primer for tenuvo pronunciation. it's the same for all dialects, they just shape words and phrases a bit differently with the same sounds. gonna put a readmore bc this got a little longer than i anticipated.

consonants:

everything is basically the same as english, with a few small changes/caveats. "c" is never pronounced like "s" or "k," always being "ch" as in the english "chat" or "batch." "g" is always hard, like "goat." "h" by itself tends to be a bit throatier than in english, but there are some other uses for "h" i'll get to in a bit. there's a separate letter for "kh," which is like the "ch" in scottish "loch" or german "ach". there's also a separate letter (in the script tenvo use) for the "ng" sound, which usually comes at the end of syllables but can also come at the beginning. "q" never makes a "kw" sound, instead being a kind of "hard k," coming from the back of your throat, very much like the sound "q" makes in arabic. "r" is usually tapped, not like the english "r" but more like the spanish "r." "sh" has its own letter in the tenuvo script, pronounced like english "shy". "th" has its own letter, pronounced usually as the hard "bath," but dialectical variation sometimes allows for "this" (try saying both words; you'll find there is a difference!). "y" is always a consonant, pronounced as in english; most consonants have a special form for when "y" follows it. also, consonants can geminate (double), and technically this produces a unique sound compared to a single consonant, but it's rarely phonemic (as in, matters for telling between similar words) anymore.

aspirated consonants:

there are also "aspirated" consonants. ("kh" is technically one, but it's the only one that gets its own character. the rest are a combination of the normal consonant and the letter "h".) aspirated consonants are kind of breathier versions of the regular consonant, kind of the same as aspirated consonants in indian (as in the subcontinent) languages. just pronounce the consonant like it has an "h" right behind it (which it kind of does lol). aspirated consonants include: bh, dh, fh, gh, jh, kh (which has its own character), lh, mh, nh, ph (never pronounced like "f"!), qh (often very similar to kh tbh), rh, sh (as in s + h, not the "shy" sound), shh (this is sh + h, the "shy" sound), th (as in t + h, not the "bath" sound), thh (this is th + h, the "bath" sound), vh, wh, xh, yh (last two are very rare), and zh.

vowels:

so vowel length, while not always like.....actually length related, does matter in tenuvo! it's just a thing of the actual vowel sound being used mostly now. short "a" as in "cat," long "a" as in "father," short "e" as in "bed," long "e" as in "hey," short "i" as in "hit," long "i" as in "seat," "o" always as in "oh" (no length differences here), short "u" as in "cut," long "u" as in "boot." some diphthongs (all are technically "long" vowels): "au" as in "ow," "ai" as in "eye," "oi" as in "boy." (all diphthongs are rather archaic, but "aurena" uses one so yeah. there's also "oe" which is a long "cut" sound, but it's extremely archaic lol. never used anymore.) vowels preceded by a "u" develop a "w" sound, as in "Uodh" and "Uorh." if a vowel would be preceded by a long "i," the "i" is replaced by a "y."

small note on how vowel length is written: there's a few rules. typically a vowel followed by a single consonant (or none at all) is considered "long," but a vowel followed by a cluster of consonants (unless the first consonant is an "r"!) or a geminated consonant is considered "short." in some cases, though, you want to force a "long" sound even when the following consonant is geminated. to do this, you write in an "h" right between the vowel and the geminated consonant/consonant cluster.

however, as you may have noticed by how i've been writing most names, there's an alternate way of denoting vowel length: doubling the vowel for a long vowel. so for "shiaaj," for example, the "i" is short, making the "hit" sound, whereas the "aa" denotes a long "a," making the "father" sound. if it was written "shiaj," the "a" would make a "cat" sound. and, of course, the "i," being short, does not turn into a "y."

consonants as vowels:

"l," "m," "n," "ng," "r," "s," "sh," and "z," as well as their aspirated counterparts, can also be used as vowels! take, for example, the "r" at the end of "olsekr," "otr," and "utstr." that "r" at the end is a vowel! it's basically like putting a short "u" in front of the "r," but it's said so quickly that the "r" sounds like it's on its own, just floating there. the "s" in the middle of "utstr" is also serving as a vowel between those "t"s! that ends up sounding kind of like a "psst!" but with a "t" at the beginning instead of a "p." i've written some words with vowels that technically don't need them, mostly for ease of reading. for example, the southern peninsula of "gurduu" would be spelled in the tenuvo script as "grduu," with the short "u" implied and wrapped up in the "r." "olsekr" could also be spelled "olskr!"

i might be forgetting some other things, but i'll leave it here for now! i'll append this if i remember

[rontra]

Your Pramanix comic is really cool! Do you mind if I ask what the un-translated parts mean, and what's Ensia saying on page 6? What language is it even? And timeline-wise, when is the final scene set? :O

thank you!!

ah...now i must answer for my indulgence... BHJDGKJNMG SORRYYY THIS IS LONG BUT

in the dream sequence, everyone's speaking norwegian. i thought overlaying the translated text gave it a cool like "echoey" feel 😳 since it's a distant memory and a dream at the same time, that sort of separation between sound and meaning feels bigger. it's a vibe

(also it's my first language so it's easy to use without having to study up beforehand LMAO)

(there's obviously several various different cultures that serve as inspirations for kjerag's visual design and lore, but sort of, linguistically(?), it borrows some from norwegian (such as Kjerag being a real place--and popular hiking spot!--in norway, not even super far from my family lol). you could say this all started when Arctosz dropped a norwegian "fy faen" right into the Break the Ice script, implying some things about the language that is Spoken there, which i'm Still Recovering From bc it was Very Funny)

(let enya say faen)

Speaking Of, that's one of the untranslated bits huh. BHJDFDN there's a couple

fy faen - a high tier curse word, everybody's favorite. "faen" is the main swear, "fy" is an intensifier to amplify the profanity. on page 9, it might be most thematic to translate it as a truly heartfelt "god (fucking) damn it"? LOL (i could also see myself rendering it as simply "fuck" depending on mood; neither is a direct translation). let enya say faen

kjære kjeragandr - this repeated refrain is the title of the comic, "dear kjeragandr"

ensia on page 6 - she's trying to say "kjære kjeragandr" too, but she's very young here--she's started talking but hasn't grasped all the sounds yet. i sort of fudged the rendering of that to try and make it identifiably "an echo" of what enciodes said, even if you couldn't understand what it meant. (she can't say R yet, so it's skipped entirely, while the remaining vowels are repeated as another Æ to simplify it for herself.)

the main loss here is "KJ", which is a very difficult sound--often the one kids acquire very last--which is being substituted with the far easier to say "SJ" sound. this is sort of niche detail, but basically KJ being so difficult is probably the reason "kjerag" in most ingame lines and text is written/pronounced more like "Yerag"; "kj" is not typically a shared phoneme between these languages, so you can't easily transcribe it and many can't pronounce it. because it's a sound you acquire late in the game, ensia doesn't have it down yet at her age and replaces it with a simpler one.

(a SJ (pronounced "SH" as in SHH or HUSH) is the common substitute for KJ, and in some dialects it's beginning to replace KJ entirely even among adults as the language changes. 🧐)

anyway.

as the memory segues into its more erratic form and finally into direct reality, the ethereal sensory gap between sound and meaning in the early memories diminishes and the text is rendered entirely in english. i imagine they're still speaking another language though (whatever they call their language in-universe HSBFHDB THEY ARE SPEAKING KJERAG)

the final scene (where enya wakes up) is set before Break the Ice. it's only after this that kjarr will become more proactive and strike out on her own with the doctor and such... 😏 go funky little goddess go

anyway sorry for rambling i just accidentally put a lot of thought into my gacha catgirl comic. thank you for giving me the excuse to talk about it. HJBDFGFDKMJGB

[trollcafe]

How Do Trolls Learn Language?

Here’s the Google Docs Link, I think it’s much easier to read on GD! 

Before I go on a hugeass long winded ramble, I want to clarify my qualifications so you know I’m not just talking out my ass. I have a degree in Middle Childhood Education, specifically in Language Arts! I also have certifications in teaching English as a second language and in reading intervention. Essentially, I am qualified to provide individualized instruction for students K-12 who may have delays in literacy, or have a reading disability of some sort. When I write this, please know I’ve thought about this SO MUCH. Phonics & language development are actually faucets of education that I not only highly value, but adore! 

Enough tooting my own horn. You get the gist. 

Language is developed in children by developing their phonological awareness, going up a ladder and ending with phonemic awareness. Phonological Awareness is the ability and awareness of sounds in a spoken language (ex: /cat/ rhymes with /bat/. If I replace c with r, the word is now /rat/). Phonemic Awareness is the understanding that letters make sounds, and how to manipulate them (I know /cat/ is sounded out by saying /cuh/ /ah/ /tuh/. The first sound of /cat/ is /cuh/. C can make /k/ or /s/ sounds.). Now, I could spend literally hours telling you the steps and processes. If you WANT to know more- you can look up how decoding, blending, and fluency lead up the ladder steps to phonemic awareness. But I don’t want to bore you. And I know you’re probably confused, isn’t this about aliens?? Yes! Hold on!!

Language is developed SOCIALLY! Primarily by PARENTS! And secondarily by SCHOOLS!!!! I know, I know, who woulda thunk schools had a purpose? Children who are read to by their parents have a higher rate of fluency & literacy. And in schools, if anyone can recall, you might’ve done some now silly activities like…”A is for Apple, B is for Ball,” maybe a word wall if you were lucky, sounding out syllables, “I before C except after E”, “When Two vowels go walking the first one does the talking..” so on and so forth. Those were necessary skills for developing your language skills. You didn’t wake up one day and just KNOW how to read. It took literal decades of your life. It took decades of conversations with peers, with friends, with adults in your life, reading books and watching movies, listening to adults converse, reading signs on the streets without realizing it…even now, you’re still learning! Even now, you’re still utilizing the phonemic & phonological awareness skills you learned over decades of being a social creature on Earth!!

When I make you read this word, it might be the first time you’ve seen it, it might not. Humor me. 

PHANTASMAGORIA 

As a human being with some experience in the English Language, you might know how to work your way through it. /PH/ makes an /f/ sound, right? So you know it starts with /f/. You know /ant/ and /mag/, and can blend the word into /phan/-/tas/-/mag/-/or/-/ia/. Those are all skills you learned socially. Somewhere along your life, you picked up the information that /ph/ makes /f/, and that O when paired with an R makes an /or/ sound. These tiny little aspects of your knowledge were developed socially. Via conversations. Listening. Talking to adults as a child. Talking to classmates as a student. Reading books. Watching video game streamers. Listening to music. Singing. Eavesdropping on your mom while she was on the phone. But mostly…Talking, talking, talking! Baby, language is a socially developed construct!  

So how the fuck do trolls learn language?

Trolls don’t officially have schoolfeeding (or so I was told.) On top of that, trolls are primarily raised by lusii, semi-sentient animals that haven’t all been shown as capable of language. Some may speak telepathically! But how can an entire race of aliens learn to speak the same languages if only a tiny fraction of them actually had parents who spoke to them? Trolls might’ve had jades in the caverns speak to them as grubs but, if we use human child development as our baseline, we know that isn’t nearly long enough to develop any true sense of phonological awareness. 

While my qualifications are primarily in teaching English, I know full well that literacy is similar amongst every language, every community. It’s a socially taught concept. And if we turn our gaze to animals, you’ll see it's much the same! Think of a litter of puppies. They don’t speak a literal language- but they have a body language. They learn through play with their littermates and interactions with the dogs around them what is and isn’t acceptable, and how things are said in their own language. A puppy learns from watching its mom play bow. 

Because trolls aren’t inherently social, and because their parental figures often can’t read themselves, I propose the idea that trolls are born knowing language. Or, well, hatched. 

We know, looking at the animal kingdom, that not all things a creature does is language-based or even socially learned. For example, how do puppies know to bite? They don’t learn it from mom or their litter, it’s an instinct. They’re born knowing how to do that. Human babies are born with a lot of instincts they can’t utilize until later in life, but every baby’s first instinct is to cry. The baby has no idea what crying will lead to- and ultimately later will learn- but in the first few moments of life, a baby cries. It doesn’t know why. It just cries. A puppy just bites. A baby bird just opens its mouth. A newborn foal just stands. And I believe that a troll, once it reaches pupation, just speaks. You could argue that humans are also born with the instinct to learn language, but…if left WITHOUT verbal language right from birth, a human being just won’t speak. My theory is, even without verbal language, a troll WOULD. Or at the very least, a troll could pick up verbal language much faster. 

I don’t think a newly pupated toddler troll knows what physics is and could explain what the fourth state of matter is. But I do think they’re made knowing a certain pool of words. It could be that as grubs, their lusii CAN communicate with them- so they’re pupated knowing basic words their lusii spoke to them as grubs. Language here is still a socially developed skill, but not entirely dependent on such. A troll living in a city with advertisements and signs everywhere, with music playing constantly, with the chatter of adults and older trolls all around, might have more developed language skills than a troll who lives in the country. But ultimately they both can still speak, and hold a conversation! I think lowbloods in tight-knit communities would have higher literacy levels, and if we follow the headcanon of Fleet Academies, then highbloods in those settings might as well. Jades typically are raised together, too. 

And, furthermore, my final point here is that trolls are developed to pick up on language much easier than a human might be. This would probably be the absolute best way of explaining it. That language, to trolls, is an instinct, and something that they as an alien race are highly capable of building off of. They are just hatched knowing language, and knowing how to develop it. Trolls never have to DEVELOP the sense of metacognition. They are hatched with it. A troll doesn’t have to develop phonological awareness. They’re hatched with the fully developed ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds in a spoken language. They never have a period of having to learn the language they’re being spoken- they are hatched knowing it. 

An unfortunately unsatisfactory answer, right? 

This will still keep me up at night until I can create a more solid concept. However, there truly is no way I can properly explain the intricacies of this without word vomiting phonological concepts on you. Trolls are hatched with a higher capacity for fluency in language. Since societal conversations and norms aren’t heavily relied upon in trollian society, concepts such as prosody aren’t as focused upon. If Alternia has one main universal language, it would mean trolls have less to learn- however, as a human, I struggle to see how trolls can have one language without a plethora of regional dialects, as we have in the United States. 

By never having to develop a sense of metacognition, by starting their language development halfway up the ladder by knowing language from the start, by perhaps not having to go through Piaget’s developmental stages as slowly as humans do, trolls perhaps have a higher capacity for learning in general. This might be a survival skill- they live in such a hostile society that it might be necessary for them to have a higher language level. Perhaps there are colonies or planets run by trolls who DO teach socially, and they have an even higher rate of fluency and literacy. 

That’s the fun part about aliens, right? 

You can kinda do whatever you want with them! :)

[iamshmolphrog]

im not a doctor and i dont have the cure for depression but a good place tp starrt is occasionally replacing all the vowels in a word with o

It's hard to be sad when you get to say shit like "im aboot ta go play legoond of zoolda: tears of the koongdoom on my noontendo swootch"

[shwoo]

Okay okay, I have some kind of linguistics background, and I've done too much thinking about the base names of the Bugsnax cast. So here's an excessive amount of words. Since Cromdo's name is confirmed as being from Conrad, I've come up with some stuff based on that. And I'm not saying the developers came up with strict phonetic rules for naming the characters! These are just things that make words sound funnier, so they're more likely to stick.

I can't speak for any language other than English, but in English at least: sounds made with the lips are funny. Sounds involving the nose are funny. Voiced stops (g, d, b) are funnier than voiceless stops (k, t, p). Sounds made at the back of the mouth are funny, but not as funny as sounds made with the lips. Consonant clusters are funny.

For vowels, less vowels is funnier than more vowels. Also, vowels pronounced with the tongue lower down or further back are funnier than vowels that are higher or fronter (Actual Linguistics Term), and vowels pronounced with the lips rounded are funnier than unrounded vowels.

By this logic, the cluster "mb" is the funniest sound ever made in English, which might explain why it's in so many names here. And the name of the species, almost.

Since the idea was to make the names silly without making them unrecogniseable, they probably weren't modified too heavily. The main changes for what I think the names were involve shortening long vowels, removing unstressed vowels, and changing consonants to related, funnier consonants. The vowels were also occasionally changed.

Other changes: moving parts of later consonant clusters to the start, and adding in new consonant clusters. Also, a couple of names had an o added to the end, maybe to make them pronounceable again, and some had their spelling changed to something that looks better with English spelling conventions.

Or they just took the whole original name and replaced the first syllable with a funny word, like with Eggabell.

All these names are at least somewhat popular names in English-speaking regions, particularly the US.

Alegander: Alexander (Alexander --(Funnier consonants)-> Alegander)

The x in Alexander is actually a consonant cluster, but the spelling obscures this, so it's treated as one sound.

Beffica: Jessica (Jessica --(funnier consonants)-> Beffica)

Bronica: Veronica (Veronica --(Reduce vowels)-> Vronica --(Funnier consonants)-> Bronica)

Chandlo: Chandler (Chandler --(funnier vowels)-> Chandlo)

Not sure about this one, but it is what I assumed his name was based on when I first saw the character, and I can't think of anything else. …Cadell? Clinton? Kendall?! That last one is kind of plausible, actually.

Clumby: Kimberly (Kimberly --(reduce vowels)--> Kimbly --(move cluster)-> Klimby --(funnier vowels)-> Klumby --(spelling)-> Clumby

Cromdo: Conrad (Conrad --(reduce vowels)-> Conrd --(move cluster)-> Crond --(funnier consonants)-> Cromd --(make pronouncable)-> Cromdo.

Eggabell: Isabell (Isabell --(funny word)-> Eggabell)

Filbo: Philip (Philip --(reduce vowels)-> Philp --(funnier consonants)-> Philb --(make pronounceable)-> Philbo --(spelling)-> Filbo

Floofty: (something with a t?)

I think the basis for this name was a longer name that had the first syllable replaced with a funny word. Floof, in this case. It was then shortened, and used as Floofty's full name. I know shearing off the gendered parts is one way a non-binary person can make a name feel more like theirs, so it comes off as an in-universe enby name as well. At least to me. (Note: I am agender)

This is based on a screenshot from Discord I saw where Kevin Zuhn said "Floofty had a longer name once, but doesn't use it anymore." It wasn't in the screenshot, but I think they said this in response to a question about where Floofty's name came from?

So I'm going to say the base name is Happstablook, The Happy Ghost, because like the bit in Undertale I'm referencing, it's definitely wrong. It's not a great idea to speculate on a name implied to be a deadname. Besides, the complete absence of transition related information was one of the really refreshing things about Floofty's portrayal in the game.

Gramble: Gabriel (Gabriel --(reduce vowels)-> Gabbrl --(move cluster)-> Grabbl --(add cluster)-> Grambl --(spelling)-> Gramble

Lizbert (Elizabert): Elizabeth or Elisabet. (Elisabet --(funnier vowels)-> Elisabert --(spelling)-> Elizabert

Elisabet isn't a popular form of the name in English-speaking regions, but she shortens her name to Lizbert, and Lizbet/Lisbet/Lisbeth are also not really popular in English-speaking regions, so I don't know. Could also be beth --(funnier name)-> bert.

Shelda: Zelda (Zelda --(funnier consonants)-> Shelda)

Zelda is an uncommon name that didn't re-enter the US top 1000 until 2015, but it's not supposed to be common. She's using a name that makes her sound more mystical and wise. Sh is a funnier sound than Z, I guess.

Shellsy: Shelly (Shelly --(add cluster)-> Shellsy)

Snorpy (Snorpington): Remington (Remington --(funny word)-> Snorpington) There's a few English names that end in -ton, but Remington is the only remotely common one that ends in -ington. Snorp is not actually a word, as far as I can tell, but it is a pretty funny non-word.

Triffany: Tiffany (Tiffany --(add cluster)-> Triffany)

Wiggle: Wiggle

Just a funny word without a name underneath. Maybe it's a nickname/stage name? Or maybe not. It's not really indicated either way.

Wambus: ???

I… can't figure his out. I think it probably has an s in it, and an m, a b, or both, based on how I think the other names were changed, but I have no idea what's up with that W. It could be the funnier version of so many other consonants. Or even vowels. I went through a list of masculine names popular in the 2010s, and came out with Amos, Emerson, James, Jamison, Jeremias, Magnus, Memphis, and Seamus. I guess Amos or Seamus would be most likely out of those?

tl;dr: Smear the name to make it Grumpus.