#fictional linguistics

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Once TES VI finally comes out, ill be very excited to learn about the development of the various Redguard accents we will hear in game.

The various Nord accents in Skyrim are really interesting. They're *like* real-world accents but still legitimately *created*. In a way they're linguistic works of art. I really love their varation, and they're instantly recognizable when you hear them.

I cant wait to hear what the linguists and voice directors do the Redguard in TES VI.

[sinswearslaughter]

PLEASE fellow Star Wars headcannons enjoyers - I encourage more of us to create entire cultures and build worlds when creating fan fiction or fan arts. But how can we do that? I have a few ideas :

- seemingly nonsense traditions

Did you know that inhabitants of Naboo jump every time they hear a frog? Nonsense, right? Well, it is a very old and out-dated way to greet somebody amongst the Gungans. Back in the day some people struggled distinguishing between the sounds of their neighbours and some of the planet's animals...

- traditions that do not align with the wide-spread moral code

Perhaps on some planet similar to Tatooine we had space-Hitler that is now celebrated as a national hero? We don't agree with those views but let's be realistic - if there are so many different cultures, systems and species then some of them are probably hateful too.

- create stereotypes/misconceptions that are widely spread.

Maybe some people on Tatooine believe all Toydarians to be cheap assholes. Perhaps some Rebellion members who weren't there on Endor are convinced Ewoks are miniscule, like, we are talking 10 cm tall.

- write metaphors which refer to characters' cultures.

Act like half of the Galaxy is attempting to translate their whole cultures into language.

Make characters from Tatooine use phrases such as something being "cheap as a legless slave" or something unbelievable happening "when the Hutts fly".

If your world is complex enough (and if you're freaky like that) you can even show character development (values shift, adaptation of different culture's language) through changes in that specialazed language.

Make your worlds alive. Make sure they not only suck the audience in - they will devour us.

[shadow-pixelle]

Writing Star Wars fanfic is fun.

But also why has it been a running theme for me that the language stuff is absolutely batshit wild.

Like seriously I look for one word in Mando'a and ended up with four tabs open, three of which are various dictionaries and one of which is a grammar guide where I found one of the dictionaries, all of which have words that the other dictionaries don't have and the one that does have the word I was looking for has a different Mando'a translation than the one I've usually seen in fanfics.

Like is this a glitch or a feature with this fandom cause I've had this war with Dai Bendu as well.

[anbu-legacy]

hey so if any of you have time or feel like answering, ive been wondering for a while how languages work in legacy? i started from the beginning for like the third time lmao and i realised genma mentions he cant read the wind country script on a food package, and when theyre in different countries everyone communicates fine so i was wondering like: do thet speak the same language w different writing systems? does each country have its own language/dialect but also one in common that everyone speaks? and like do they have accents or smth? also tysm for all your hard work, it makes my day every time you update!!! 💖💖

Congrats on a third read-through! We love it when our readers re-read. (Not-so-secret: we reread it too XD)

There is a common language which everyone in the region, including the five major shinobi nations, reads and writes. Wind Country is large, geographically, so my concept when I wrote that (eons ago) was that it was produced in a region that still uses an older language and script, though they also use the dominant language.

It could also be that the script is merely an older writing system that has fallen out of broad use, even while the spoken language remains the same. Imagine our world a few generations from now when cursive has not been taught in decades. We all still read the same print books and speak the same language, but only the elderly and scholarly can read anything written in cursive.

There are regional accents. Isolated places like Water Country and its islands probably have quite distinctive accents. Genma's dad, from a more southerly region of Fire Country, still has a faint accent, though it's been blunted by years of living in Konoha. Ninja who work undercover have to perfect the accents of whatever regions they are going to be operating in.

The farther you get from the center of the map, as it were, the more varied accents, languages, and writing systems are likely to become. We haven't seen our ninja travel off the edge of the map, but Mangrove Country and Tea Country are both at enough distance that they probably have some linguistic differences.

*Tea Country not visible on this map. It lies south of the edge of Fire Country's peninsula. This is a specific-to-ANBU Legacy map, so country names and village placements are not necessarily identical to those in Naruto canon.

--Nezu

[soaringsearingphoenix]

Found a timeline of the future i wrote in like sophomore year high school. It says that long-distance space travel will become common in the 3220’s, and then:

“3243 - Return of [the] phrase ‘stone’s throw away’, this time to describe any planet not obstructed by something from [your] current position (reference to conservation of momentum)”

Oh to be 16 in my first Physics class writing pages of Space Slang

[maulusque]

Clone Language headcanon

Clones speak Basic, Mando’a, and a language that is uniquely their own, a combination of basic, mando’a, kaminoan, and random things they pick up around the galaxy, blended together and changed until it’s incomprehensible to non-speakers. 

Clone culture is very young, and their language is too. It evolves very rapidly, to the point where the clone language spoken at the beginning of the war would not be understandable to someone who only learned the version spoken at the end of the war. Different units develop their own dialects and slang, and you can tell which unit someone transferred from by how they speak. Certain words, usages, and grammatical features will spread from unit to unit like a meme. Most “popular language trends” like these will fade out of most unit’s dialects fairly quickly, but a few units will incorporate certain features into their dialect permanently. Sometimes the different dialects results in misunderstandings and communication failures, at which point the clones have to resort to basic or mando’a.

Cody, since he’s in charge of the entire Third Systems Army, spends a lot of effort in maintaining fluency in all of the dialects of the units he commands.

Rex and most of the 501st speak 212th fluently, and vice-versa. Cody mocks Rex for his 501st accent all the time, and sometimes Rex will adopt a fake posh 212th accent to needle him back.

There is also a distinct Kamino dialect, spoken mostly by the cadets. This one is more stable than the others, because two of the main factors influencing the instability of the unit dialects- frequent personnel changeover and relative isolation- aren’t present on Kamino. All troopers speak the Kamino dialect, but it’s considered a faux pas to use it in most situations, since it’s a mark of pride and belonging to adopt your unit’s dialect when you receive your first assignment. 

Situations where it’s acceptable to use the Kamino dialect are when you are speaking to cadets, or when you are in private and speaking to someone with whom you are very close. Using the Kamino dialect implies an emotional intimacy with someone, and is usually used in private between lovers, batchmates, or very close friends. Conversely, if you speak Kamino to someone you’re NOT close with, it’s considered insulting and condescending, because you’re speaking to them as you would a cadet/child, someone who hasn’t completed their training. You’re implying that they’re stupid, incompetent, unfit to serve, etc. 

The clone languages and dialects defy description, partially because the dialects are so diverse and constantly changing, and partially because of spite. One time, a Jedi tried to assemble a dictionary of their unit’s dialect, and the troopers collectively decided that those words no longer meant what they had meant. Conversations were a bit chaotic until new definitions were decided upon. Fun fact, this is why “Jetii”, some variation of which means “Jedi” or “General” in the vast majority of clone dialects, means “latrine” in the dialects of the 94th, 435th, and 104th.

[toomanybrowsertabs]

For all the bad things wrought by Feanor's oath and the first kinslaying and the ship burning... he was objectively correct when it comes to linguistics.

Maybe my reasoning is slightly different as to why it's important for Quenya to retain the thule-silme sound distinction and to avoid the sa-si, and were I a Quenya speaker I probably wouldn't bring it up if someone sa-si'd in front of me, unless they tried to correct my accent (similar to how I don't care how someone pronounces gif, as long as they don't try and tell me I'm wrong if I say it different)...

But as long as Sindarin retains the distinction, then collapsing the sounds in Quenya should not be treated as an adjustment to standard Noldorin Quenya, but as a variant dialect/accent. Any time a fanfic has a non-Feanorian Noldo mention a "Feanorian lisp," I can't help but think "no, they don't have a lisp, you have an Outrageous French Accente" (The dental fricative does not exist in French, meaning Francophones speaking English will often replace th with s/z... or t/d if they're Quebecois but that's a tangent). I understand that among the Noldor it became political, but it still seems to me like... someone who spoke Sindarin first, with the sound distinction, would speak Quenya with that distinction? Making it even more political because now Noldor who sa-si are probably out there "correcting" Sindar who don't and really who's the one making a mess of the language?

Also it seems to me that the shift from thule>sule becoming standard Noldorin Quenya happened over a timescale that would be jarring to us if translated into human timescale, like if over the course of a year the word "yeet" replaced the word "throw" in standard english, and anyone who still said "throw" would be lumped in with war criminals.

Also when you take into account that Noldo would apparently sa-si Miriel's name, can you really blame Feanor for being stubborn about it? Like, at the very least make an exception for people's names, even if you've merged the sounds in the rest of the language.

Anyway, let them sa-si if they can speak no better, but if they try and correct someone who doesn't, they're objectively wrong lol.

[ruinconstellation]

It is, unsurprisingly, very difficult to write a story while avoiding conjugation in terms of time; no past or future or even present tense, if that’s possible. 

The other option for the fictional language has no pronouns or self-referent parts, so I guess this one’s easier, somehow.