#narn

[alphamecha-mkii]

Narn T'Loth Heavy Cruiser by Graham Gazzard

[arnumdrusk]

Putting 'em all together in one post, my Babylon 5 watercolor triptych is done! I had originally just done the Delenn one, but inspiration struck and a G'kar followed, and a Londo soon after. It's never too late to get into a show that's been off the air for decades! Bonus: They look so nice hanging on my wall, I might actually get some frames one of these days :')

[arofili]

@tolkienwomensweek day one | love ✦ family ✦ lineage ✦ companionship | morwen and rían

          They were as different as the Sun and Moon: Rían bright and smiling, Morwen dark and severe. Yet Morwen loved her fiercely, her cousin and sister; in her quiet way she protected Rían, shielded her from the worst of the Sudden Flame, guided her from ash and ruin to a new land. They left their kindred in Brethil, daring the wilderness for the promise of protection behind the mountains of Hithlum, and there sought something alike to peace.           I will be with you, Morwen vowed as a young girl, and again on her wedding day. I will not abandon you. I will stand by you.           Even as she wed Húrin, she saw Rían’s eye turned to Huor, and for the first time, found hope: sisters they could be, in this new land, if fortune favored them.           But fortune had only cruelty in mind. Húrin and Huor were taken from them, and Rían died in grief, leaving her little boy; and Morwen, with a boy and a babe of her own, could not care for him.           The Sun set forever, into an endless night. Day would not come again, and the Moon endured only to witness the end of all the world.           I will be with you, she had vowed. And an oathbreaker pays her penance, in the end.

[babischlong-six]

I'm a huge language nerd so of course I'm going to inflict that on Babylon 5 – Narn, Centauri, and Minbari cultural/political/linguistic situation primarily, but also touching on Human influence because I am (as previously stated) a huge nerd. Based on a rant I offloaded on the B5 discord a few months ago.

First off, the idea that all alien species on the galactic chessboard speak the same/similar Lingua Franca; "Interlac," is super wonderfully convenient. I would assume that the most influential/oldest spacefaring alien races would have influenced this language. In terms of what we'd have seen on the show, those would be primarily Minbari and Centauri. The Minbari are far older; a thousand years ago they were already capable of space travel and space warfare, but they are also far more isolationist. Their outreach to the other galactic races seemed to have been pretty limited until the aftermath of the Earth-Minbari War. Trade, but little cultural exchange. Whereas the Centauri's imperial expansion and large political power in the galaxy would also have a large linguistic impact on trade and vassal planets.

The Humans join the interstellar chessboard quite late in the game, comparatively. In the show, it's only been like 200-150 odd years since they've had space travel and first contact with their first alien race, the Centauri. (Which, on a separate note is very funny if you compare B5 to Star Trek: First Contact with Vulcans pushes Humans into the utopian-ish Federation, whereas the Centauri immediately try to trick the Humans into believing that they're actually a lost Centauri colony. Really sets the tone for what kind of larger universe the Humans have just unlocked.) So, no, even though the show is in English, I'm not approaching this with the attitude that everyone is speaking English.

Anyway, Minbos first:

The Minbari have three main languages: Adronato (Religious Caste); Lenn'ah (Warrior Caste); and Vik (Worker Caste). Having three separate languages basically based on what your job is kind of a wild concept. The explanation I could come up for it was this: the Minbari were a spacefaring race even before the first Shadow War. It looks like, for convenience's sake, all the spacefaring races we see onscreen have a commonly used language of their most dominant culture - or some sort of creole or Lingua Franca combination of their main/most spoken languages. If your entire world has come together to explore the stars, it makes sense to have a very basic level of standard communication amongst one another - before finding whole other races you have to communicate with, from some baseline.

The splits between the castes only worsened since Valen's time - so it makes sense that those three Caste languages would be more like dialects of one unified Minbari language. Obviously, Warriors are going to come up with more words for describing blowing shit up, types of duels, honorable reasons for killing, etc.; whereas Religious are going to develop more specialized philosophical terms; and Workers are going to be able to spew technological and mathematical jargon much more easily.

It also makes sense as a cause and an effect of the rifts between the castes: you have to trust that the Worker fixing your ship knows what he's talking about because you, a Religious Caste member, don't quite have the words to describe exactly what he's going to do to your engine. The Religious spew incomprehensible stuff about "souls reborn in foreign bodies" and while you, a Warrior, know 50 different ways to say "I will kill you with honor," the actual depth of what that means isn't immediately accessible to you.

But, obviously, a basic level of communication is entirely possible, because the language these dialects originated from is the same – and mutual intelligibility is entirely possible. Now, obviously, this only works BECAUSE they're Minbari – they're able to preserve entire crystal cities for 1000 years, surely they can do the same with language. Because if you look at Human language 1000 years ago? That was 1025. The Byzantine empire was a thing. If somehow we wanted to have a chat with the people of that time - without lots of specialized knowledge, and command of several dead languages - we would not be able to at all.

Now for the Centauri:

In the show, the Centauri seem to fall into several categories of accents: the vaguely Eastern European-meets-Italian accent that characters such as Londo, Urza, and Refa talk with; Emperor Turhan's accent (although that's just the actor being Turkish, so I'm still not sure whether to count it); the very proper RP English accent that characters like Virini and Timov have; and the very standard American accent of Vir, Minister Vole, and many others. I am going to take this at face value - that in-universe, these characters all sound different from one another, in the context of their culture and language.

Which makes me think of various regional dialects and languages that the Centauri have – although, again, as an advanced spacefaring race, they do have a unified standard language for their species. When all Centauri were unified under the first emperor, it's not a stretch to think that there was a standardization of language – in CCP China, for instance, the Northern Mandarin pronunciation was assigned the standard, and the writing system was simplified and standardized. And the many other languages – I know they're called dialects, but all they have in common is a writing system, they are very often not mutually intelligible – are still prevalent across different parts of China. So, I'm thinking something similar to the Centauri – regional dialectical differences but one unified standard language.

Another factor that I think would be important in Centauri language is formality and rank. Many languages have this, to varying extents; a polite second-person pronoun versus an informal one in many European languages, or entire forms and cases of the language itself like Japanese honorific forms. There are whole separate verbs/nouns/sentence endings depending on how polite you are being to someone else, or how much you are humbling yourself in relation to the person you are referring to.

All this being said, it would make sense for them to have a Common Centauri, and a Courtly Centauri, as well as dozens of regional dialects. Courtly Centauri would be used in speaking to the Emperor, writing a legal document, projecting an air of distance between oneself and the subject, perhaps even used mockingly. Conversationally, Common Centauri would be used - which would also make sense as a significant component of Interlac, seeing as the Centauri were conquering people and trading across the galaxy for a long time.

(Another thing I thought of was a uniquely Imperial form of the language: not just a 'royal we,' but an entirely different way of speaking, open only to one man. Something a future emperor may well practice in the mirror, out of earshot, long before he's crowned. Or something he has to get used to on the fly, every slip-up being seen as significant in the Royal Court.)

Narn time now!

Unlike Minbari, Centauri, Humans, etc. Narn unification as a species and their need for wider communication arose from entirely different circumstances.

Imagine if Earth was colonized and forced into servitude by aliens tomorrow! It would become vastly less important who was German or Iranian or Javanese - the important thing would become getting those bastards out of here. The Centauri themselves wouldn't have cared about the cultural and linguistic differences between various Narn populations: all they needed was a work-force, and when it came to a long-term occupation of a population, education also becomes a factor. Just like with most occupied peoples', the occupiers' language is taught in the schools. So it makes sense to me that Narn schools during the occupation were taught in Common Centauri.

Post-Occupation, I can imagine several different camps that Narns would fall into linguistically speaking: those who become language purists, who would want to preserve and regain traditions pre-Occupation, the desire to return, culturally and linguistically to a time untouched by the Centauri; and those who would be more practical in the sense that they would support Narn Standard as the way forward, as a spacefaring race and sudden major players on the galactic board.

Narn Standard being something like a creole of most dominant Narn languages - with Centauri loan-words: especially for technologies, pejoratives, and cuss words. For instance, in Russian, the word for "idiot" is дурак "durak" –> which comes from турок lit. "Turk," a Turkish person. I feel like there would be a lot of similar things going on with Narn and Centauri.

But I'm imagining a lot of words like this in both Narn and Centauri

There are still very many different languages that Narns from various countries/areas would speak - especially older generations; but the younger generations, those born during the occupation and after would speak a more and more standardized form, with some regional/dialectical differences.

This, of course, brings me to my favorite character of all time: G'Kar!

The various prophets of Narn and their various associated religious texts would of course be in the various languages of wherever they happen to be from. Canonically, the Narns make perfect reproductions of their holy texts (including all the rips/burns/coffee stains) these religious texts would continuously be published in the same archaic language they were written. Imagine reading the Christian Bible in Aramaic!

This brings me to the Book of G'Kar. G'Kar was born during the occupation, so it is not a stretch that he would have written his book (basically his diary that he didn't intend to have published until after his death! I bet the poor guy didn't even get to edit it properly!) in Narn Standard.

This would have massive cultural significance on Narn - obviously his may followers, but also those against it, as giving legitimacy to the cultural/linguistic heritage of the Narns post-occupation, Centauri influence and all!

This whole post, and the whole rant I uploaded to discord back in September, was all inspired by Na'tak Burella - the Prideful WInd-catcher, G'Kar's nickname for Londo in the Book of G'Kar.

Given what we know about the way Narn sounds and the way Centauri sounds, 'Na'tak Burella' seems like an example of Centauri and Narn languages enmeshed. 'Prideful,' perhaps being a play on words for some Centauri loanword, and 'na'tak'-> 'wind-catcher' (wind-sock? windbag?) 'easily influenced' or 'gaudy and annoying.'

I pictured the Narn equivalent of the first picture. G'Kar calling Londo basically one of these guys. (It was brought to my attention, later, that it could also have been something more like the second picture.)

[hotwheelz4000]

rewatching s1 of b5 with my sibling, and i forgot how awesome na'toth was

such a shame we didn't get to have her for the whole run like we did vir

[gracklesascendant]

The Babylon 5 extended universe clashes horribly with the show on one huge issue: the morality of the Narn regime.

This is important when writing about the Narn because there's a world of difference between exploiting your neighbors through unfair "security" payments and bad treaties and state sponsored piracy, and actually invading their homeworlds and stealing their population and natural resources.

One is forgivable, the other makes the Narn as bad as the Centauri and muddles the story of a people trying to escape the shadow of their oppressors a bit too much - essentially saying the oppressed became their oppressors trying to escape them.

So where do the Narn come down on this in the show?

A quick trawl through the wiki only has the Narn invading Ragesh 3, a former Narn colony that the Centauri took over. It's not great, but there's justification for it. It's definitely not the Narn becoming the Centauri.

But the extended universe? OH BOY. Buckle up.

The extended material seems to say they conquered many worlds, they owned slaves, AND they tended to get into expansionist fights with their neighbors - including Earth.

[laylainalaska]

Incredibly random poll for the B5 fandom

Do you headcanon Narns being hotter or colder than Centauri? (body temperature, that is)

Hotter

Colder

I can go either way for different fics or other contexts

I know what B5 is, but I never thought about it

Haven't seen B5/bald/actually a Narn but want to see results (hi G'Kar)

Voting ended onJun 1, 2025

Please reblog for more results!

[that-angry-noldo]

me: the thing i love in tolkien is how he creates a sense of doom, how he writes suffering, how his characters go through pits of hell-

me, when tolkien writes about suffering and doom and puts his characters through pits of hell: