How to Speak High Imperial/Eastern Street Slang by Panhead13
Ising the street slang of the learning you, wasing of the wondering how! Source Fans of Brandon Sandersonâs Mistborn series would probably remember Spook, the awkward Tineye who, for the first novel, spoke in Eastern Street slang, which would morph into High Imperial. Brandon Sanderson wrote it here (Gotten from the Coppermind website)
âOne thing about High Imperial, or Eastern Street Slang, is that it was devised by those who spoke it in order to be intentionally obtuse. So it was hard for people to understand. And so there are a lot of nonsense words thrown in the middle. But, itâs also got reversed grammar. âWasing the wanting of doing the thingâ is âI wanted to do that.â But you can also throw random words in there. As long as those parts are in there, itâll make sense to those theyâre speaking to. âI wanted to do this. Wasing the wanting of doing the thing.â Youâre putting everything into a gerund. Youâre starting with the verb and the tense. And youâre turning everything into ridiculously bad gerunds. Thatâs it in brief.â
âBrandon Sanderson on making sense of High Imperial
  High Imperial is designed to be unintelligible. If someone walked up to you, saying, âWasing the seeing of remembering of you somewhere?â youâd probably not understand it. But thatâs one of the points of High Imperial. With this guide, I will teach you how to obfuscate and write sentences in High Imperial.   Now, for some help, letâs observe the differences in Sentence Structure of High Imperial versus normal Contemporary English. Weâll use the same sentence. Contemporary English: [Noun]+[Verb]+[Direct Object (if there is one)] Note: The tense is seen in the verbs and other parts. This differs from High Imperial Example: The dog (Noun) bit (verb) the bone (Direct object).   Now, letâs look at High Imperial. It has an extra part. High Imperial: [Tense Determiner]+[Noun]+[Verb Gerund/s]+[Direct Object] The nouns can be inserted anywhere if the noun isnât the self. Example: Wasing (Tense Determiner) the dog (Noun) of the biting (Verb Gerund) of the bone (Direct Object). So, we can break this down into steps. When I say âdetermine,â that includes writing.
Determine the tense
Determine if thereâs a noun
Determine the verb, and make it a gerund
Determine the Direct object
Intersperse odd and confusing transitions
Okay. Letâs begin Step 1: Determine the Tense   There are six tenses of verbs; past, present, future, past perfect (occasionally called pluperfect), present perfect, and future perfect. When a tense is âperfect,â it means the action is done, completed, finished, etc. Present tense would be the verb, âI walk.â Present perfect would be âI have walked.â But High Imperial doesnât have six tenses. It has three. Past (wasing), present (ising), and future (willing (I extrapolated this one)). Simply put the correct word at the beginning of your sentence. But leave space between words. Step 2: Determine if thereâs a noun.   Simple. Is the verb being done by someone other than you? If no, skip this step. If yes, write the noun next to the verb, but leave the space. Step 3: Determine the verb, and make it a gerund.   What are you/your noun doing? Now, take that word, and make it a gerund. A gerund is any word that has a -ing prefix. Thatâs why High Imperial doesnât have any perfect verb tenses. It has no way to express finality. Write this word with a good space between them. Step 4: Determine the Direct Object   What is the noun acting on? Write this down next to the other words, but be sure to leave an empty space. Step 5: Use the spaces you left.   Now, just add transitions, whatever feels right. Make sure itâs coherent, but nonsensical at the same time. And youâve written some High Imperial. Congratulations. More complex sentences will become easier to figure out the more you write. Hsppy writing! Ising the wishing of luck to you!
Hmm. Tense determiner gives it authentic feel, but Spook doesnât always use it. In fact, when I read Mistborn, I thought âwasingâ marked past tense and everything else was fair game.
