Doing First Tongue Translations

[Dreaminggod]

So any idea how you'd do a first tongue for Broodmother, Mother of the Swarm? Either or. Thanks. ^.^

[InfernalGoose]

There's one first tongue phrase in the Three Shades of Night novel that always intrigued me: You thing of no place.

As the book describes it the phrase is basically the closest thing that the First Tongue has to an obscenity, and I wonder what I would look like if translated Cheers!

[Sikla Alkis]

There's one first tongue phrase in the Three Shades of Night novel that always intrigued me: You thing of no place.

As the book describes it the phrase is basically the closest thing that the First Tongue has to an obscenity, and I wonder what I would look like if translated Cheers!

How strongly did it appear to be an obscenity? Is it relatively mild, like "crap" is to North Americans?

[InfernalGoose]

It's more along the lines of calling someone a motherfucker I'd say. Given how heirarchial the spirit world is, and how all spirits sprung from some action or even in the physical world, being a creature of no place is probably as low as you could go on the proverbial totem pole.

To give some context of how the phrase was used in the novel. In the novel we follow a pack that has recently lost members to the Pure. An outsider Elodoth steps in and tries to "fix" the pack by bringing in new members to replace the fallen. When one of the packmates hears this, he enters Kuruth and snarls "You thing of no place!" to the Elodoth in the First Tongue.

[Ephsy]

Probably something reserved for Magath.

[Pale_Crusader]

So I have been making some werewolf packs and spirits and I always just use what their name in plain English but if you are willing to use your expertise, I'd be happy to upgrade their names to something epic.

"Kidnap crew", a pack of werewolves known for always taking prisoners as their first step of problem solving any problem.

"Tooth and Nail", a violent pack that fights very hard but also with natural weapons.

"Twisted Licks", LGBT pack that cleaves to the human but not standard gender roles.

Torrent-of-the-Forest. which is a temperate rainforest spirit with an affinity for landslides

Fistful-of-Dollars, a money spirit which also implies force and violence (like punching someone with money)

Shanty -Hovel, a ramshackle structure spirit.

Ass-biter, a vicious dog pack spirit that attacks from behind.

Thank you so much!

[Sikla Alkis]

Oh wow there's a lot of backlog here. o_o

To everyone waiting for translations: I will knuckle down and see if I can get these done before the end of the weekend. No promises, but I'll try.

[Phersus]

I'm going to shamelessly keep feeding you titles and names to translate, Sikla Alkis. Glad to have once more time this thread alive. Whenever you feel like doing them:

Wild Sea
Deep Waters
Soul Glass
Moon Soul
Rock Fortress
Seawall / Groyne
Ancestral
Devourers
Fire possessed
Metal House
Jewel in the Crown

[Sikla Alkis]

This is the way the world ends: Kalki'inase har pelu
- kalki'inase: a compound word made up of kal (to be), ki'in (certainty, stated fact, inevitability), and ase (though it means "now", it also acts as the words "this" or "that" might act here). The word, as a whole, literally means "this is certainly how" or "this now is certain".
- har: World, realm.
- pelu: To put out, to extinguish, to snuff out; it has a poetic quality here, as it refers to the world dying in a lightless cold, like a lantern flame winking out in a wintry wind.

rogue hunt: zirtag, or more insultingly/blasphemously, zirdah.
- tag: To hunt or go hunting. The variant dah refers to a religiously- or spiritually-based hunt, such as the Siskur Dah. The zir prefix here is unsubtly based on the word zi'ir, which carries the implication that the wolf in question went off like a crazy Broken Soul after something insignificant. When zirdah is used, it's an extremely foul exepletive, and is even more scorning and mocking if the rogue hunt was religious in nature.

meaningless fight: urduhabalthu
- urdur: A name for a werewolf child, a wolf-blooded child or a wolf cub. The "r" is dropped here, as it sometimes happens but is not consistent in words.
- habalthu: A challenge of some kind, whether it's the Cinnamon Challenge or a challenge for dominance. The fact that this word and something derived from urdur is squashed together gives a meaning that literally states that a meaningless fight is something inherently childish and fit only for pups.

growing up: nidufala (for females), munufala (for males)
- nidu: Term for an adult female.
- muni: Term for an adult male.
- sufala: To transform, to become, to turn into. Mashed together with the above words as it is, it refers to the inherent act of growing up. There's no gender neutral term here yet, but I imagine sufala, by itself, could be used as a synonym for growing up.

climb the social ladder: shaghu susisa
- shaghu: To rise up, to come up high. Refers to the act of climbing, or can also be used to refer to someone that draws attention or is of high status.
- susisa: To put, to place; to put something somewhere, to rearrange, to move around. Together with shaghu, the phrase literally maens "rising high by rearrangements".

Ant Host: gisilu
- gisilu: An ant.
- lu: Standard FT suffix for anything that is a type of Host.

That's all the time I have for translating right now, but you can be sure I'll be getting to the others soon as I can!

[An Fhuiseog]

The first tongue is (mostly) deGrimmed Sumerian, that's cool!

Sikla Alkis, can you apply Sumerian Grammar as well? As a genitive ending example:

Pack leader's son = tumu lukalakh

From dumu lugalak = King's son, I assume "kh" is used for the fricative version of k?

[Sikla Alkis]

The first tongue is (mostly) deGrimmed Sumerian, that's cool!

Sikla Alkis, can you apply Sumerian Grammar as well? As a genitive ending example:

Pack leader's son = tumu lukalakh

From dumu lugalak = King's son, I assume "kh" is used for the fricative version of k?

Unfortunately, I have little to no experience with several features of Sumerian. "Kh" is the aspirated form of "k", so it's still a stop. The endings and grammar I've pulled for First Tongue are cobbled together with what I have been finding FT to have as unique traits of its own; for example, a lot of words have their meaning altered depending on whether a word is prefixed to another, hyphenated, or separated by a space.

[An Fhuiseog]

Unfortunately, I have little to no experience with several features of Sumerian. "Kh" is the aspirated form of "k", so it's still a stop.

Thanks, plus I'm a moron, I Grimmed it! It should be:

Dhumu lughalag

The endings and grammar I've pulled for First Tongue are cobbled together with what I have been finding FT to have as unique traits of its own; for example, a lot of words have their meaning altered depending on whether a word is prefixed to another, hyphenated, or separated by a space.

Ah!, interesting. So it has a bit of its own grammar. Thanks Sikla.

[Sikla Alkis]

Ah!, interesting. So it has a bit of its own grammar. Thanks Sikla.

If you have anything to add, I'd really like to hear it. Mixing in its own grammatical features with features from Sumerian makes for a language that you can argue "dropped" pieces of its vocab as it shifted to Sumerian.

[An Fhuiseog]

This might be more detail than you want, but sure here goes!

Well the most useful thing is that the noun in Sumerian had essentially "slots" after the noun, that small particles were entered into for additional meaning. Schematically:

(1. Derivational) + (2. Noun/Verb) + (3. Genitive) + (4. Possessive pronoun) + (5. Plural) + (6. Case)

I'll explain these below if it helps. First slot two:

2. This is where you put the basic noun itself. You can also put a verb here if you are going to turn a verb into a noun.

Now the rest:

1. You basically put ning here if you want to turn a verb into a noun. Like the verb ba to bestow, you can make ningba gift.
You can also put nam to make nouns abstract, like English -ness or -ship. Lugal King, namlugal kingship.

3. This is where you put ak to indicate possession, like 's in English (the genitive case).

Just to show how these stack up:

Kingship's gift = ningba namlugalak

4. This is where you put possessive pronouns like my, you, ours. The only thing is that Sumerian doesn't have his/her/its, but its(animate) and its(inanimate). I'll take its(animate) ani.
Her Kingship's gift = Ningba namlugalakani

Animate is any sentient being.

5. The plural is ene, although only animate things have plural.

Their Kingship's gift = Ningba namlugalakanene (The i in ani is overrided by the first e in ene)

Their gift of Kingship = Ningbaanene namlugalak

6. This is where case markers are put. To simplify it's basically where you put the markers corresponding to the English words:
to, together with, with, from, into, toward, like, in, next to, for I'll take my ngu (for slot 4), next to e and for ra

Next to my gift = Ningbangue
For the king = Lugalra

In your First Tongue translations you basically have extra sufficies and prefixes. I think these could be taken as noun slots that died out when the First Tongue became Sumerian.
I can deGrimm any of these particles that go into the slots so that you can have their First Tongue versions if you want.

[nikink]

That's great An Fhuiseog! Thanks.

I suspect those markers are present in the spreadsheet already grimmed and degrimmed. Really good to know how to use them though. Would you mind if I copied your post to the spreadsheet for easy reference?