How to Make Up Vulcan Words
Using the Vulcan language is like trying to follow a recipe written by a grandma who already knew how to make the thing and only jotted down a couple measurements. That is, it does have information, but it rarely has all you need. Even words I would consider obvious and necessary simply aren’t in there. However, if you know how to put Vulcan words together, you can create a lot more words than the VLD will give you.
Vulcan is a language that relies very heavily on a small number of roots and affixes. English does the same sometimes, especially in scientific language, where we use Greek and Latin roots to hide the fact that we’re doing it. This makes it easy to make up new words whenever you want, in exactly the way the creators made them: by jamming together bits until a word is built up with all the parts you want.
There are only two basic rules: first, you have a limit of two hyphens, so when parts are connected with hyphens (which is the case with some affixes and all roots) you are limited to three. There’s no limit on apostrophes or jammed-together affixes, though, so keep that in mind.
Second, you want the final version to be the part of speech you are looking for, which may require a change in ending. Verbs usually (but not always) end in -au or -tor. Making a noun out of a verb is a little complicated, but in the end, a noun can have any ending. Adjectives end in -k, often -ik. Adverbs end in -ng.
The basic process I use for finding a word is this.
First, I look up the word I want in the VLD. Instead of searching by word, I go to that letter of the alphabet and scroll to it, in case there are related words in the same area. It’s probably not there, so I try a couple of synonyms. Then words that aren’t synonyms, but are related.
Hopefully in all that searching, I’ll come up with a couple of roots. For instance, I can find that sadakh means “to eject.” Dakh means to cast out, get rid of. Sa- can mean a bunch of things, including “male” and “automatic” but I see it in a lot of words like extend, exhale, expand, etc. So I think in this case sa- means outward.
Then I can add on other roots and affixes that I want. Say I want a substance that has been ejected, I can use -tukh, stuff, substance, and get sadakh-tukh. Or if I want a machine that ejects, I can use sadakh-vel. A thing that ejects? Sadakhek. A person whose job is ejecting things? Sadakhsu.
Here are a bunch of Vulcan affixes, some of which are in the VLD, some of which you have to figure out after seeing them in a bunch of related words.
su: person. This can mean a person from a given place or a person who does a certain thing. It attaches without any punctuation. ashausu: one who loves. besu: a companion, one who is beside or with you. kugalsu: a person who is betrothed. sasu: a man. kosu: a woman.
-vel: thing, object, machine. tor: do; tor-vel: mechanism. tum-tor: to count, tum-vel: computer.
-tukh: stuff. alem: salt; alem-tukh: sodium. dau: affect; dau-tukh: hormone.
ek: -er, something that does a specific thing. Not used with people. feshel-tor: to disrupt; feshelek: disruptor. spitau: to drill, spitayek: a drill, something that drills. (Note: -ek is going on the noun form of the verb, generally, spitaya being the act of drilling.)
sa-: male, masculine. sa-mekh: father. sa-fu: son.
ko-: female, feminine. ko-mekh: mother. ko-fu: daughter.
‘es: -ness, basically turning another word into an abstract noun. abru’: over; abru’es: dominance. marom-: excellent; marom’es: excellence.
shi’: place. masu: water; shi’masu: oasis.
-bosh: full of. kau: wisdom; kau-bosh: wise
-fam: without. kau-fam: unwise.
-tal: study, the study of. gen-lis: language, gen-lis-tal: linguistics. (And -talsu is a person who studies the topic! We’re all being amateur gen-lis-talsular right now.)
tra: this is an odd collective plural, which I think is really cool. It’s a big mass of the thing you’re talking about. So sular is people, but sutra is a nation. masu: water; masutra: ocean.
rik, ri: not or without. kwon: forever; rikwonik: temporary. tsuri: normal, usual; ritsuri: abnormality, divergence, eccentricity. kup: can, able; rikup’es: disability. Vulcan loves to use this one to make opposites; if ever you need a word and only have its opposite, use this.
pi’: small. laptra: forest; pi’laptra: copse. sahan: wind; pi’sahan: breeze. You can make diminutives of any kind like this.
weh-: more. abru: above; weh-abru: upper.
dan-: most. irak: far; dan-irak: farthest.
From a few roots and these affixes, you too can craft words like shi’sasnem, bathroom, or qlar’hy’es, curiosity. The VLD alone barely gets you through a few sentences of whatever you wanted to say, but if you know how to construct your own words, you really can say almost anything.
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