Nikink/OldRealmIdeas
So I thought I'd have a go at Old Realm
This is fairly obviously a fool's errand. But, for a bit of fun, and to scratch my own conlang itch, I will give it a go until boredom sets in.
Some assumptions, and guidelines, for this work are as follows:
- There are examples of Old Realm extant in the names of places and things and beings from the First Age...
- 'Han' is Old Realm for 'Soul' as evidenced by Taru Han and Hantha, the names of two gods related to Souls
- Gethemane is explicitely said to be O.R for 'Sanctuary'
- The Sound-Space of O.R. is similar to English - no weird unpronouncable combinations like XXZGT.
- Vowels are the standard A, E, I, O, U
- Each Vowel has a Long and Short form.
- A as in Hat, Mat, Cat
- Ay as in Hate, Mate, Fate
- aA as in Hart, Tart
- E as in Bed, Shed
- Ee as in Heed, Heat
- I as in Hit, Bid
- Y as in Why, Kite
- O as in God, Sol
- Oo as in Goad, Toad, Road, Sew, Owe
- Oh as in Hole, Foal, Shoal, Soul, Mole
- oO as in Book, Look, Brook, Took, Hook
- U as in Up, Shut
- Uu as in Rude, Brood, Lute
- Er As in Herd, Heard, Turd, Gird
- Ow as in Owl, Towel
- ' as in a glottal stop which I hate and can't pronounce unless I'm imitating cockney english "Can I av a glass a' wa'a, guvna?"
- Oy as in Boy, Toil, Coil... I can't believe I forgot this one, D'Oh!
- Consonants will follow the already demonstrated sets from either existing names, examples from the First Age, and High Realm examples from the Player's Guide
- Five is a significant number, as always within Exalted, and the crafters of Old Realm recognized and utilised it during the design of the language.
- Whenever possible, glyphs and syllables will be assigned to common words and phrases in the gameline... Theory being, common words are more likely to be important or basic enough to have individual glyphs assigned to them.
- High Realm according to Player's Guide, and Old Realm according to the inspiration for this exercise, have 5 Vowels x 17ish Consonants. This is fine for High Realm, which does not assign any meaning but sound to the resulting combination, but is poorly suited to Old Realm as posited by the inspiration to this project which also assigns meaning beyond sound to each combination, and a pictorial glyph to match.
- A small amount of research on the web has indicated to me that Pictorial Alphabets tend to have a lot of glyphs to convey meaning. Chinese has several thousand, Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Mayan and Aztec Glyphs all number more than a hundred or so... typically reaching several hundred at least.
- This small research also indicates that for a language to be generally useable it needs hundreds of basic root-words and primitive-words. Recollection says one page mentioned a study that said 800 basic words are necessary. You can do with less but it becomes increasingly harder to communicate - both in terms of stringing such a basic set of words together to convey complicated or precise meanings, and the act of conversing itself is hard when every sound has a certain meaning and to miss one could render the sentence unintelligible. Too compact is bad! Redundancy is good!
- Certain Sounds demonstrated in High Realm are corrupted from Old Realm. And Certain assumed Old Realm examples are not allowed sounds in High Realm.
- Assume the Dragon Kings speak Old Realm. The names for their breeds are Anklok, Raptok, Mosok, Pterok. I cannot recall any examples of High Realm with 'KL' or 'PT' combinations and thus assume they are Old Realm specific. Likewise, Sextes Jylis shows 'XT' which is unseen anywhere else in High Realm - I therefore assume this is a change from the Old Realm (presumably 'KT' would be a likely candidate), this may be quite a leap of logic, I admit.
- Also, Daana'd is very unusual for High Realm. No other apostrophes are seen in High Realm names that I am aware of. So, I conclude that either it is standing in for a non-english sound (say, a glottal stop) and thus the name is Old Realm in origin unchanged, or I conclude that the apostrophe is actually a normal english usage grammatical sign and there are letters or sounds abreviated from the name (presumably because High Realm has changed from Old Realm enough that the missing parts are no longer legal, valid or useful). The second is probably the better way to go. Purely because I'm not good at glottal stops! And also cuz it could actually be any non-english sound, and that doesn't help matters at all.
- I have now found a few more Exalted names with ' in them... hmmm... maybe it is a sound or some other indicator?
- I assume Demon names and spirit names are valid and useful for Old Realm examples, also that their names in Old Realm have some relation to their natures.
- I assume that the things the Exalted were called are almost always more important than anything else when assigning meaning to glyphs. Especially Solars, then other Celestials, then Terrestrials.
||||||||||||||||||Consonants include:|| || - || Th || Dh || Ch || Sh || Pt ||Kl || Kw || Ng || ||As in:||With, Filth||This, Them ||Cherry, Chosen||Shock, Show||Raptok, Pterok||Klave, Kukla||Quick, Queen||King, Long|| || - || - || -|| - || - ||Doesn't seem right. Might be removed||Removed after reconsideration|| - || - ||
- Others as I come across them... perhaps other compound consonants should have individual entries ('nth', 'nt', 'sm'...) But I think that way lies madness...
- I will try to assign glyphs / Syllables according to the english translation where no other way suggests itself.
- I assume it is an agglutinative language. Lots of Small syllables will be combined into larger words and sentences with ease...
- I assume the Grammar is pretty much like English (cuz it's easier than trying to invent one, and I know nothing of Asiatic languages).
- I assume there can be multiple Glyphs per Syllable, each can have a different meaning.
- The meaning of a Glyph may only be apparent by context.
- Those wacky First Age Solars with Intellgence and Linguistics out the Wazoo cared more about the beauty they could get out of their language than the intelligibility of the writing to mere mortals.
- I will try to maintain a sense of humour about this whold process... B-)
- All assumptions are open for discussion
- The meaning of a Glyph may only be apparent by context.
- Grammar:
- Where the final vowel is a repeat of the penultimate vowel, it is dropped
- Where two of the same vowel occur concurrently, the first one is dropped
The All Important Grid 15 vowels x 26 Consonants = 390 (+ 15 single Vowels) = 405 root words available
At the end of this I do so hope we end up with a five-fold meaningful number
|| -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' || -- || || -- || Light/Begin || Strong || -- || Victory || -- || -- || Dark/End || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- ||
|| -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' || -- || || B || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || B || || K || - ||Weapon || - || -- || - || - || Dragon || -- || - ||elemental|| -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || K || || D || - || -- || - || -- || - || Large || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || D || || F || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || F || || G || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || G || || -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' || -- || || H ||Soul || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- ||Human|| -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || H || || J || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || J || || L || - ||Cut || - || -- || - || - || Fire/South/Hot || -- || - ||Fall/Change || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || L || || M || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || Earth/Centre/mild || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || M || || N ||Rise/Flow || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || Permanence || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || N || || -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' || -- || || P || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- ||Beast|| -- || -- || Oy || ' ||P || || R || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || Air/North/Cold|| -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || R || || S || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || Water/West/Wet|| -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || S || || T || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || Wood/East/Dry || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || T || || Th ||Consume?|| -- || - || -- || - || - || Shake/vibrate || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Th || || -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' ||-- || || V || - || -- || Edge || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || V || || W || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || W || || Y || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || Sacred || -- || -- || Great || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Y || || Z || - || -- || - || -- || Enemy || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Z || || Ch || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Ch || || -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' || -- || || Dh || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Dh || || Sh || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- ||City|| -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' ||Sh || || Pt || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Pt || || Kw || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Kw || || Ng || - || -- || - || -- || - || - || - || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Oy || ' || Ng || || -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' ||-- ||
|| -- || A || Ay || E || Ee || I || Y || O || Oo || U || Uu || aA || oO || Oh || Er || Ow || Oy || ' || -- || --|| || Kl || - || Weapon || - || -- || - || - || Fire || -- || - || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || -- || Kl || Deleted; seems improper.||
YUu ShAaNAa = Yu Shan = Divine Protected Place HA-NA = Han = Soul Mortal? Octavian = O-KAy-TAy-VEe-A-NA (The Living Tower) Erymanthus = E-RY-MA-NA-ThU-SU (Blood Ape) Daiklave = DY-KlAy-VE = Big-Sword Dai is almost certainly Old Realm for Large/Big/Freakin' Huge! Klave is almost certainly Old Realm for Sword. Perhaps Edged-Weapon? Mosok = Western/Water - Dragonking breed Anklok = Southern/Fire - Dragonking breed Raptok = Eastern/Wood - Dragonking breed Pterok = Northern/Air Dragonking breed Wong Bongerok = Elemental Dragon (Water) -> indicates the need for nasal compound consonant 'ng' -> Also provides evidence of 'ok' being a word for dragon...
Links I've Found That Might Help
http://www.koausa.org/Languages/Shashi.html http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?root=config http://members.aol.com/yahyam/protoworld.html http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/tz/tz.htm
- A as in Hat, Mat, Cat
- Ay as in Hate, Mate, Fate
- E as in Bed, Shed
- Ee as in Heed, Heat
- I as in Hit, Bid
- Y as in Why, Kite
- O as in God, Sol
- Oo as in Goad, Toad, Road, Sew, Owe
- U as in Up, Shut
- Uu as in Rude, Brood, Lute
- aA as in Hart, Tart
- oO as in Book, Look, Brook, Took, Hook
- Oh as in Hole, Foal, Shoal, Soul, Mole
- Er As in Herd, Heard, Turd, Gird
- Ow as in Owl, Towel
Important Fives in Exalted...
||Dawn|| - Bronze Tiger|| ||Zenith ||- Golden Bull|| ||Twilight ||- Copper Spider|| ||Night ||- Iron Wolf|| ||Eclipse ||- Quicksilver Falcon||
||Full Moon - ||Burning Moon || Luna's Blades? || Earth|| ||Waxing Moon - ||?||--||--|| ||Half Moon - ||--||--||--|| ||Waning Moon - ||?||--||--|| ||No Moon - ||Hidden Moon||--||--||
||Journeys ||- Heaven's Messengers - ||Harbringers ||- Yellow ||- Air ||- Golden Barque|| ||Secrets ||- Heaven's Eyes ||- Oracles ||- Green ||- Water ||- Forbidding Manse|| ||Serenity ||- Heaven's Coutesans ||- Joybringers ||- blue ||- Wood ||- Cerulean Lute|| ||Battles ||- Heaven's Soldiers ||- Shieldbearers ||- scarlet ||- Fire ||- Crimson Panoply|| ||Endings ||- Heaven's Gardeners ||- Reckoners ||- violet ||- Earth ||- Violet Bier ||
||Air ||- Blue ||- Serenity ||- Air ||- North ||- Mela ||- Tempestuous Knives ||- Azure Dragons|| ||Earth ||- White || Battle || Earth || Centre || Pasiap || Stone Fists || Ivory Dragons || ||Fire ||- Red ||Journeys || Fire || South || Hesiesh || Burning Swords || Crimson Dragons || ||Water ||- Black || Secrets || Water || West || Daana'd || Drowning Hands || Ebon Dragons || ||Wood ||- Green || Endings || Wood || East || Sextes Jylis || Ashen Bows || Emerald Dragons ||
Mineral - Plant - Animal - Human - Spirit
Mind - Soul - Body - Shard - Blood
Sense - Sight - Hearing - Taste - Touch - Smell
How Many? - None - A - Some - Many - All
1 - 2 - 3 - 4- 5
10 - 100 - 1000 - 10000 - 100000/limitless/uncountable
In - On - Under - Above - Beside - Around
Where? - Here - There - Nowhere - Everywhere - Elsewhere
When? - Beginning - Then/Past - Now - Soon/Future - Ending
Who? - Him/Her - Them - Me - Us - You
What? - This - That - Something - Nothing - Everything
Why? - Because - Chance - Fate - Decree - Decision
Baby - Youth - Adult - Elder - Aged/Dying
Wise - Assured - Brave - Kind - Centred
Places - Wyld - Creation - Heaven - Area - Space
State of being - Blessed - Exalted - Mortal - Divine - Primordial
Known Stuff - Technique - Method - Style - Kata - Movement
Practice - Meditation - Trance - Mantra - Approach - Prana
Oath - Bind - Procedure - Persuade - Proposal
Advance - Motion - Concentration - Attitude - Mode
magical stuff - Charm - Shaping/Sorcery - Mote - Anima - Essence - Prayer - Weaving - Ritual - Elemental - Karma
Pattern - Path - Ordeal - Perfection - Decision
Eye - Nose - Mouth - Ear - Face
Finger - Hand - Elbow - Shoulder - Arm
Silence - Whisper - Speech - Shout - Voice - Tongue - Language - Song - Words
Hit/Strike/Blow - Attack - Victory - Battle/Conflict - Maneuver - Prowess - Onslaught - Injure
Not - Bad - Negative - Dangerous - Against - Opposed
Truth - Knowledge - Savant - Analysis - Law
Physical - Mental - Spiritual - Social - Virtuous
Up - Down - Rise - Fall
Well - Unwell - Sick - Wounded
Grace - Strength - Intelligence - Beauty - Wisdom
Forget - Remember - Hide - Reveal - Guess
Auspicious - Marvellous - Efficient - Decorous - Honorable - Loyal - Benevolent
||||||||||Station:|| ||Slave||Servant||Autonomous||Master||King||
Desire - Fear - Anger - Hate - Apathy
Shape - Thing - Exist - Weight -
Of - Because - Like - And - Or
Swim - Walk/Stride - Climb - Fly - Wait
With - Against - Shroud - Seek -
Weapon - Armor - Shield - Arrow
||||||||||Relations ->|| ||Ally - ||Enemy - ||Family - ||Stranger - ||Aquaintance||
||||||||||Speed ->|| || Still - ||Slow - ||Movement/Alive/Steady - ||Fast - ||Foreward - Backward / Directed||
||||||||||Elements of Life:|| ||Eating || Breathing || Sleeping || Feeling || Tiring / Moving||
||||||||||Size:|| ||Tiny || Small || Large || Huge || Behemoth ||
Protection - Ward - Sanctuary - Home - Defense - Threshold - Gate / Door - Safety - Invulnerable
Legion - Horde - Family / House / Clan / Tribe - Convocation - Nation
Real - Become - Be - Exist
Inspiration - Glow - Radiance - Light - Clear
Quality Of (-ness) - Adverb - Adjective - Plural - Participle
