#wenedyk

[full-frontal-fishstick]

What TES Languages Sound Like

Modern Cyrodiilic: Romance Polish isn't real, it can't hurt you! Basically Venedic/Wenedyk. Figured with the Slavic names (skinGRAD, riSLAV the righteous, etc) combined with the Roman aesthetic, it made the most sense. Despite the evolution of the language, many patrician/noble families, especially those of the Elder Council and Imperial Dynasty, still carry the Classical Cyrodiilic "Praenymic, Nymic, Cognymic" naming pattern.

Old Cyrodiilic: Classical Latin, with bits of Quenya/Sindarin carried over from Ayleidoon

Nordic: Old Norse, with bits of Lithuanian and Tibetan for flair (see Project Tamriel: SHotN)

Khajiiti: Romanian-Spanish-esque language

Al(t/d)meris: Sanskrit-esque alien language, with bits of Quenya/Sindarin to tie them back to the DnD / Tolkien elves that inspired them

Dunmeris: Imagine Hindi, but Australian.

Ayleidoon / Falmeris (dialects of same language): Proto-Latin/Greek with bits of Quenya/Sindarin

Bosmeris: Cousin of Ayleidoon, went more Greek than Latin but still close

Redguard: Arabic, but weeaboo

Bretic: Pre-Roman English / Anglo-Saxon, with a little Welsh influence for flavor. The Fr*nch do not exist in Tamriel 😤

Orcish: Mongolian x Black Speech

Dwemeris: Ancient Sumerian

[dedalvs]

Ok ok so. I had interest in languages for few reasons and I'm starting to develop a new language from scratch, but I sometimes use phonetics and formulas from various languages. Is it okay to do that? And do you have tips on getting started? Also, I love your work! Thank you for the awesome languages you made!!

You don’t need to get permission from anyone to conlang in a certain way. Do whatever you enjoy! It’s useful to bear in mind a distinction we have in the conlanging communitiy: a priori vs. a posteriori. A priori languages are original in construction, with novel grammar and vocabulary, the best of the conlanger’s ability. A posteriori languages are not. Usually for a posteriori languages there’s a purpose to it. For example, Jan van Steenbergen’s Wenedyk is a Romance language with Polish sound changes applied to Latin. Why that? Because Jan thought it would be fun (he’s a big fan of Polish, and he enjoys contributing to the Ill Bethisad universe. Seemed like a good thing to do). After he made that decision, though, his use of Latin was quite specific and intentional. He did so methodically, because that was the nature of the experiment. In general, it’s a good idea to be methodical, and to have a good answer to the question “Why?” if anyone asks it. “Because I like it” is always a reason, but it’s a reason that others may not find compelling, if you care what others think.

Most conlangers go through a stage where they kind of “start with” a natural language and branch off. Some stop there, as well. It’s certainly possible. You also need not. It just depends what you want to do. Sometimes it helps to work through patterns found in natural languages to figure out what it is you like, and what it is you want to do with a language. Think of it like art students who go into museums and copy famous works. Doesn’t seem likely that they’ll sell any of those (or maybe they will?), but it helps them to figure out how those masters painted, and helps them figure out what they want to do with their own art.

But again, these are just thoughts. There’s no wrong way to conlang. If you’re enjoying it, you’re doing it right.

[dedalvs]

Kind of an odd question, but what sound changes would you suggest if you wanted to evolve a French sounding language out of a Gaelic one, or an Irish sounding language out of French? I feel like arbitrarily ripping sounds from one and applying them to the other is a bit of the wrong way to go about this.

There is Breton.

This is a simple matter, though, of starting with one language and applying the sound changes of the other. There are many famous examples of this, most of which come from the Ill Bethisad project. If you want a good example, check out Jan van Steenbergen’s Wenedyk. That’s Polish sound changes applied to Latin, but it should demonstrate how the process works very nicely (see the Grand Master Plan).

[dedalvs]

Have you or do you know of any cool/good Slavic based conlangs?

Got to go to Jan van Steenbergen’s conlangs. Vozgian is a true Slavic language, but he’s also got a couple that are Romance languages with Slavic sound changes. Of those, Wenedyk is the most famous. He’s also created an interslavic language called Interslavic which you can see here. That should give you plenty of material to pore over!

[crescentaureola]

Juvenal X 185

Da mie łąga wita, O Jowie, da mie mócie onie.

Da me longa vita, O Jove, da me moute one.

Grant me a great length of life, O Jupiter, give to me many years.

[crescentaureola]

Hmmm kód szy rezurecarsimy Wenedyk i wcielzarsimy iła lęgwa? 🤔

Hmmm what if we resurrecte Wenedyk and use this language? 🤔

Mółt lube iła lęgwa i pięzu, kód Wenedyk je mółt interesęci!

I really like this language and I think that Wenedyk is very interesting!

Niekód szkoda si szy iła lęgwa dziewniora sie oblita

It would be a bit of a shame if this language was forgotten

[dedalvs]

Hey, do people ever make constructed varieties of natural languages?

Yes indeed! This is a branch of a posteriori conlanging. “A posteriori” in the context of conlanging means deriving the grammar and vocabulary from an already existing source. Sometimes that’s creating an auxlang, like Esperanto, whose grammar and vocabulary come primarily from Romance languages, but sometimes conlangers will create a posteriori artlangs, where the goal is to create another plausible (or perhaps lost) sister/daughter language from a specific language family. Another popular type of a posteriori language is to take a given language and apply another’s language sound changes to it—like Jan van Steenbergen’s Wenedyk or Andrew Smith’s Brithenig. The results are always cool to look at! So yeah, stuff like this does exist, but it often doesn’t get a lot of attention outside the conlanging community. Thanks for the ask!

[iapetvs-blog]

The word for "human being / person" in Wenedyk is womień. To be fair it comes from Latin HOMINEM, but it's nice anyway.