you know, i never introduced these two to tumblr, did I?
Ryl is yet another hatchling oc, this time based on a comment cosmo made in the groupchat about hatchling sharing a psychic connection with their ship thanks to a piece of their nomai statue being used in the ship's computer. I thought it'd be a fun idea to explore.
Aren is a mycologist. That's about all there is to them really, they just heckin' love mushrooms.
PLEAS KEEP IN MIND ALL INFORMATION REFERECED COMES FROM MY MEMORY OF THE MOVIES(WHICH COULD BE WRONG) OR FROM THE EASILY AVAILABLE INFORMATION ONLINE.
Now, the twi'leks could be amazing. Here is the blurb given on the most popular fan wiki:
"Twi'leks, sometimes referred to xenophobically as Tail-Heads or Twi's, occasionally referred to as Rylothians, were a tall near-human species whose most striking feature was a pair of long appendages protruding from their skulls, called lekku. They hailed from the planet of Ryloth, in the Outer Rim Territories, and female Twi'leks were often exported offworld as slaves. Twi'leks were considered one of the most common species in the galaxy, with its members easily able to blend into a crowd without drawing attention, as opposed to rarer, more prominent species, like Togrutas. Some armies used this to their advantage, employing Twi'leks as undercover agents." *
I have some issues here. First of all, the name for the species is Twi'lek. Talk about an obvious piece of naming that came from humans/near-humans. "TWO LEK"? Crazy. "Rylothians" is better, but at this point, I think people from Ryloth proper are more rare than the species that lives across the galaxy.
(Let's not even think about addressing the easy inclusion of racist names in the fandom wiki)
As someone who takes great pride in the development of worlds, including languages and cultures, the way this species is presented rubs me the wrong way.
So I have decided to fix it. My grubby little conlanger hands are getting all over it (with input from @adragonsfriend (who I tried to type as KRAYTTAHREI AGAIN), @yellow-faerie (the Partner in Crime for this conlang), and @anabenalia (the long suffering linquist who puts up with my endless questions).
Enjoy the basic world building and conlanging I have begun to do.
Step one: What does Ryloth mean?
I decided that Ryloth was going to mean "Our Place", thus when asked by people who made contact what their planet was called, they said something like "Ry loth" and the people took it to mean the name. It is forgotten (right now) if there WAS another name, but for current scholars on Ryloth and of Ryloth-based histories and texts, the planet where the species originated from is called "Ryloth".
Step Two: Who are the people of Ryloth?
The people of Ryloth. In the case of this, I did not want to call them by "Rylothians" because that's the boring way of naming them, (lol). I chose, instead to incorporate the first bit of culture:
The species native to Ryloth is very insular- in the language itself, they have clusivity markers/clauses to denote people who are part of the community vs outside of the community. (According to Mark Rosenfelder, this can be called the inclusive we vs exclusive we)**
So, the species that originates from Ryloth is called different things!
Ryhasi - One of the People, and this refers to someone specifically from Ryloth
Ryha- People/Us, a "twi'lek". This is non-specific. (Any time I refer to "Twi'leks" in this post, they will be called Ryha/Ryhasi, depending on the context.
Personally, I believe some of the people who learn to speak Ryl (more on the etymology of this word later) definitely mistranslated Ryha as "Person", but that's incorrect! Ryl has different words for a sentient vs a person.
Hybrids of Ryha are called Ryk'e which translates as "person-no"
Any other sentient being is called K'ery , AKA Not Person, or Non-Ryha.
Step 3: Ryl, and the meaning
Ryl is the word for the langauge the Ryha. In my tiny current dictionary, this is the definition: "
"Ours", used to declare that the words cannot be claimed by anyone but twi'leks. This is a very old possessive pronoun, no longer used for everyday things."
So, some Ryha, usually Ryhasi don't like other people to speak the language of Ryl. (This is pulled from real life experience.)
Most Ryha do not mind others speaking the language, but prefer for Ryha to teach the course.
Step 4: Ryl, and beginning to build the language
Okay. This is the meat and bones here. Building the language allows me to build the culture, because culture speaks (HA, a pun!) through the language it uses. Think like southern american english. It sounds very different, and has a different stereotype to northern or midwestern american english. This is partially environment, SAE tends to have longer drawn out sounds- this is from heat (I think. I don't remember exactly where I learned this, feel free to call me out if I'm wrong).
So, Environment, biology, and culture. Lets start with Environment:
The environment on Ryloth is mostly desert/mesas/vocalnos with a band of green forests/rainforests(?) around the equator***. That means its going to be hot, and personally, I am going vowel heavy, because thats how my brain works.
Deserts mean many flying particles, so that leads to biology. I decided to fiddle with the biology of Ryha. The nose has a specific filter used for breathing. The channel is actually entirely separate from the main esophagus, with an organ forming the meeting point for both. That organ has fibrous walls that allow air but not liquids or solids, to pass the walls into the channels that lead to the lungs, which have a greater capacity for holding air, with small sacs that allow easy adaption to higher altitudes. Long story short, the air breathed in a Ryha's nose cannot be used for speaking, meaning there is no nasals or nasalization of other sounds.
(Sorry, canon Numa. Your name is Lurerra now, if I remember Numa meaning sister to be correct.)
I also kinda disliked the french-ification of them in Clone Wars? I thought it was a little fetishizing to choose The Romance Language/"Language of Love" to represent a people who are actively enslaved for being beautiful, and compatible sexually with most species.
So that was my basic premise. I didn't have a lot to build from when I began, and there isn't a ton now, but I do have some things in my dictionary. The link is public, and should update automatically with new additions. I hope you enjoy!
-Looseleafteaves
-------------Sources--------------
*- https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Twi%27lek#
**- https://www.zompist.com/kit.html (This is a great conlanging resource, my next book I want by him is the Religion Construction Kit) The grammer link ( https://www.zompist.com/kitgram.html ) is the specific location of where I found it. )
