#clonelang

[clonehub]

I wish that there was a more common fandom perception of what an actual clone culture might be because the repackaged mando stuff would be fine if it was just small amounts but like some of them were trained by a handful of Mandalorians and they're cloned from Jango, yeah, but they haven't really been exposed to Mandalorian culture otherwise.

Like I think using some Mando'a is actually a good idea but I feel like it should be more of a pidgin than CT-91939 that barely came off Kamino throwing out full sentences because, again, aside from the ones that got adopted by. The guy in that one novel. None of them have actually been exposed to actual Mandalorian culture.

Like the fandom wholesale invented a culture and part of a language for Tatooine (which is awesome as hell I'm not dragging it but I use it as the example of the good shit this fandom can make), but the clones just get "yeah these guys are just Mando, nothing else, no complexities" like come onnnn it could be so interesting and fun if we all were able to come together and make a good one.

yeah I don't like copy-pasting mando culture onto the clones wholesale. some might be more into than others but to me it makes more sense that they end up organically creating their own. if you look up clonelang and clone culture on my blog you'll see all my meta about how I think the clones operate as a group

[kookyburrowing]

Adventures In Clonelang Part 1: How The Fuck Do They Sound

Hi. Hello. I’m finally starting on this gigantic horrible project for real. So first up is phonetics! Because in order to make a language I need to know how it sounds.

Overview

It’s pretty similar to english but with some exceptions—it includes a glottal stop and like Mando’a has no “f” or “x.”  Unlike Mando’a, it makes frequent use of “z” and related sounds.  Also, it does NOT have “Q” because “Q” is nonsense. 

Vowel Sounds

A, E, O, U - this spelling indicates short vowel sound. These are the same as in English. 

Exceptions: “I” is pronounced as a long “E,” and “O” is always long.  “E” can also sometimes be pronounced as a long “A” in Mando’a loan words.

AA, II, OO, UU - this spelling indicates a long vowel sound, except with “O” where it indicates “Ooh”.

Vowel doubles:

AU - Pronounced “ow.”

AI - Pronounced “eye.”

AY - Pronounced like the “ay” in the English word “way.”

Consonants

B, D, G, H, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, W, Y, Z: pronounced the same except for G and Y.  G is only a hard G, while Y is only used in conjunction.  

Consonant doubles: 

ZH: Soft “J” sound.

DJ: Hard “J” sound.  

CY/C: “Sh” sound.

Notes

This is a very basic draft of the sounds. I think the language should have at least some influence from te reo Māori, so I have tried to include some influences from there but my knowledge of the language is very, VERY limited so some of this will change as I learn more. If anyone has any advice on that score it would be greatly appreciated—I’d rather be told I’m wrong now than later once I’ve done a ton of work.

[clonehub]

Horrifyingly Frankenstein'd Clone Pidgin language that borrows from like every known language they ever heard but the core is a weird mash of Basic-Kaminoan-Mando'a and for fun we can pretend that all of those have different sentence structures bc I genuinely don't remember if Mando'a is just a change-the-words type of conlang or if its got a different structure. We got the Tatooine slave language into the popular fanon we can get the Clone Pidgin off the ground.

I'm so sorry my special interest is linguistics.

(Alternate, even funnier take: Clone Language is just reskinned from some other random conlang like Sindarin or something but with random star wars words sprinkled in)

I think I also just want the clones to get developed and have their own little culture and beliefs bc I feel like, given the chance to actually develop, they would almost definitely have their own identity and not just fold into normal Republic society if they were given their freedom.

wait there's a tatooine slave language in fanon? that's interesting

but yeah the clone's advantage with an ever-shifting pidgin is that it would be easy to get other clones in on because they have the foundation, but each battalion or even each squad would have unique attributes to it, AND it would be illegible to outsiders because it's such mish-mash of languages and concepts and its technically untranslatable.

i think mando'a is a transliteration/change the word type of conlang but i could be wrong

and yeah i agree about them having their own culture! i like the idea of them being a closed culture. i think they value loyalty and duty, but also privacy

[kookyburrowing]

i keep coming up with new words for the clone language im making and having hysteria about different cultural concepts. send help.

[clonehub]

I know I've said this before I'm really a broke record when it comes to this HC, but clones with their own language that varies between battalions. It's everything from specific vocabulary to using a P instead of a B. It's pace and pitch and what they choose to drop/include.

[clonehub]

You know what would make a language really dense? Verb suffixes. Why say "about to" when you can just add on one syllable. I think the clones do this

This is a great mediation between whatever is floating in my head for them now and them just having a tonal language bc while tonality (from what I've seen) can make things denser, they'd have less than ten years really to get it all down before they're shipped out. which. Lol.

[clonehub]

I want you to know I am absolutely VIBRATING about your clone language and culture posts and tenna reblog ALL of it lmao

DKSBDKSNDLSKDKS

The way tenna is operating I think I defaulted to just. How finna works almost BDKSBDKSNKSSK often times when I'm writing the clones in my head, especially during high energy + emotionality moments, I have to remember not to just default to AAVE the way I or Kiki would because they wouldn't be speaking it 😭

But you'll love everything in the #clonelang tag, absolutely. What I can think of off the top of my head:

Limited tenses: past, present, and future.

Pronouns are relative each individual and are gender neutral, meaning if you are one rank, everyone above you gets one set of pronouns, everyone equal to you gets another set of pronouns, and everyone below gets another. At any given moment, a middling-ranked clone is being referred to with three different pronouns.

I've also got a list of slang terms floating around somewhere that are generally making fun of Shinies but also are pretty funny.

[clonehub]

how do we think clonelang sounds guys. what consonants do they have and what ones do they not have. what vowels do they have. how many letters do they have in their alphabets. how do the variants change--from rhotic to non rhotic to alveolar trill for /r/ (i am not an expert in this).

there's a whole world of possibilities. the hawai'ian language i believe has 12 letters and is not tonal. you can end up with some very long names and words bc of a need to repeat syllables i think. on the other hand, igbo has 36 letters and 3 tones. it's a dense (and conceptual) language. don't even get me started on verb suffixes. a lot can be conveyed in a very short number of syllables. chinese have 5 tones and can convey even more in less.

i think clonelang would be quite the dense language for efficiency purpose. i think it might sound clipped to people who aren't used to it, but it's got a roll/flow to it that's pleasing to the ear. it's not guttural or nasally.