Doing First Tongue Translations

[wyrdhamster]

Need a name for new Idigam: Fear of Scales ( like on body of lizard )

[MrBreaksIt]

If you're still around, could you translate "Make the Peaceful Red" as a name? Red, in this instance, referring to blood red.

[AberrantEyes]

If anyone's done a First Tongue translation of "This story is true", I haven't seen it.

[nikink]

Really? That's been translated a few times over the years, iirc. I may not rc, mind you... I'll see if I can find it again in the next couple of days. Unless someone beats me to it.

[nikink]

"This story is True": "Cahha kal nihhina" - a common beginning to most werewolf stories. It's roughly equivalent to "once upon a time", "once..." or "long ago", but with more historical and important connotations.

That's from Sikla Alkis' dictionary and phrase book as linked to on the first tab of my own Sumerian De-Grimmifier google spreadsheet.

[Korogra]

I have a few new ones regarding the spirit allies of my Kukthidum, if anyone if kind enough to give a crack at them

Forge Fangs, or " Those Who Bite Through Hot Metal"- Ensah who are thought to be faithful Fang-Shapers who Creator Wolf remakes into powerful spirit servants upon deathas a reward for their service.

Nature's Remedies- Hursah of naturally found medicinal substances that represent healing and recovery, to help tie with Danu-Urs aspect of being a force of renewal

The Unfinished/ "Inspired Dreams Left Unsung"- Hursih of concepts and ideas that have gone unrealized, these spirits are used to help inspire Fang-Shapers to create things that no human hands have actually produced, therefore helping the tribe subvert Humanity's monopoly on Technology.

Tool-Maker / "He Who First Tamed False Fire"- A Dihir who is the spiritual reincarnation of the very first Uratha who bound himself to Creator Wolf, and who acts as her most powerful servant/ envoy between her and the Tribe.

Smoldering Wolf- The Secondborn offspring of Danu-Ur and the Totem for the Lodge of The Seething Maw, a Fang-Shaper Lodge dedicated to hunting the most terrifying of creatures as their Sacred Prey: the Uratha of the Blood Talons.

[Goatmanofcoffee]

I'd like some more stuff to use in Fire-Touched rites. My players are due to spy on one of their ceremonies in a couple weeks.

[BigDamnHero]

A spirit named "The Edge of the Blade", referring to the tipping point, boiling point, or what-have-you.

[Sikla Alkis]

*falls down from the ceiling*

So I've been reworking the First Tongue dictionary from the ground up to better match 2e's translations. That's why this thread's been so inactive. @_@ I'm starting with the letters with the least amount of entries and working my way up. Translations for vampire names, mage names, different splats — all of it's going to be redone. Once that's done, I'll go back and edit everything else I have so far so that canon entries are accounted for, and that old First Tongue translations better fit the new.

[Sikla Alkis]

I have 15 pages of rewritten First Tongue entries up, and 3 pages of those are ready to go. I'll get to everybody's requested translations soon, but in the meantime, here's the revised translations I've started with. Once the entire base Sumerian dictionary is covered, then I'll go back to gathering canon entries and creating new words for concepts that don't exist in the Sumerian language dictionary I'm using.

zusig: to pluck or remove hair or feathers from an animal, such as pulling off dead hair from a groomed animal, or plucking feathers from poultry to prepare it for food; a time of deh set up for plucking animals
zusigha: sheep that are kept or meant to be prepared for clothing, skinning or tanning; sheep used to create wool and sheepskin garments
zuses: a word for the proto-birds such as Archaeopteryx, literally meaning “fanged bird” or “sharp-toothed bird”, or the pelagornithid seabirds of the Late Pleistocene (which had toothy beaks)
shumme-khukh: the First Tongue name for a merganser, a type of duck with a serrated beak that eats fish and lives in rivers
khukh: a bird’s beak or a beak-like structure, such as the “beak” on a beaked whale
shumme: a saw, such as a wood saw; a serrated or saw-like edge
zuska: a roaring rumble or a muffled roar, such as the roar of an earthquake or the roar of a furnace
zurzubh: a hollow type of utensil, such as a cup or pitcher
zurzar: the sound of something breaking, smashing or shattering, like a stack of dropped plates
zurzar za: to make a smashing or crashing noise
zurak: a siege weapon meant to break down walls with projectiles, such as a catapult or trebuchet
zubish: pest birds that attack fruit trees or steal fruit; any kind of fruit-eating bird
zurzur: to break, to smash, to shatter
zuur: to roil, to boil rapidly, to heat rapidly and to great temperatures; to seethe, to fume
zur: to take care of something, to care for something
zumbhi: a starling
zumgu: a fish swimming in a school; a poetic name for star-spirits used by ocean-spirits (referring to how stars seem to move with Luna in the sky, the sky being like an ocean and the stars like fish)
zum: to spin, to revolve, to orbit (around a fixed point)
zulun: to have a powerful voice; to project one’s voice; to have booming speech, to speak loudly
zulum: a date-fruit from a date palm tree
zugesedh: the payment or services owed for short-term hired group of people for the means of getting something done, such as a band of mercenaries or a group of part-time farmers; payment or favours given in exchange for part-time services; one who works a part-time job or finds work by being hired at intervals, rather than perform a long-term job
zugesh: birds that live in large flocks; the birds seen in large flocks that live in places like marshes and around watering holes
zukul: to pierce, to stab
zuk: to steal, to snatch; to grab something out of a container, usually with an illicit or criminal undertone (such as stealing something from a box in a store)
zubhuth: a mace or mace-like weapon; a blunt, stick-like weapon with a spiked ball at its tip; a fish that resembles a mace or the head of a mace in appearance; an ugly fish
zufi: an artificial watercourse; an irrigation canal
zuf: a throwing-stick
zu’ek: worn, dishevelled, about to fall apart; full of holes, moth-eaten
zu ur: to tear with fangs or teeth; to rip apart, eat or attack something as a wolf or dog would; a canine’s attack
ur: wolf, canine
zu suth: to grind down with the teeth; to gnaw, to chew on; to grate between the teeth
zu rak: to bite down hard on; to try and bite through
zu guth: to tear or rip off with one’s teeth
zu geseth: to gather something together; to assemble or organize something; to tie something up, or bind something together
geseth: to tie or bind
zu hubh: to eat; to begin eating
hubh: to assign to a task; to get to work; to perform a task; to set to work
huf: to stand; to wait around
zu ghu: to chew (as if chewing food)
zu ghaz: to chew (on something like chewing tobacco, or to chew something to turn into a paste or spit out)
ghu: to eat, to devour, to consume
ghaz: to grind or grate down; to turn into a powder or paste
thu: to hold in place, to hold down; to keep in custody
zu thu: to bite down on something in order to hold it in place or keep it from escaping; to catch something with a bite; to catch something in one’s mouth
zu fir: to laugh; laughter, laughing
fir: to shred, to tear to pieces
zu: a tooth, a fang; the share of a plow; the point of a battering ram; the blade of a hoe; a poetic term for a sharp point; to know; to learn something or gain knowledge
guth: to tear or rip off; to mutilate

[Thorbes]

Good to have you back,Sikla! I was wondering if you had collapsed like a supernova under the weight of your genius and success with this thread

[Sikla Alkis]

Good to have you back,Sikla! I was wondering if you had collapsed like a supernova under the weight of your genius and success with this thread

Nope! I've disappeared before and come back, this is normal. In addition to retranslating everything so far, I'm working on a fanon grammar, seeing what existed in Indo-European and whether or not some translations are too "modern" and can be safely ignored in the Sumerian dictionary, and working on a fanon pronunciation that, hopefully, can be understood by most English speakrs and takes into account provided canon pronunciations of existing canon words. It will combine this, Sumerian, and CatDoom's previous attempts at constructing pronunciation earlier in the thread. I'm aiming for the grammar to be heavily Sumerian-influenced, but with touches of Proto-Indo-European here and there to show its "ancestry", so to speak. Once that's done, I'm looking at a potential writing system as a follow up, as it seems to borrow some glyphs from Werewolf: the Apocalypse. (The pack glyph from that game and the pack glyph I saw in the First Edition corebook are pretty much one and the same.)

The goal is to have a first version of something that, hypothetically, can be spoken and written by players and storytellers alike. The Klingon of the CofD games, if you will.

[Thorbes]

That sounds positively amazing. Is the writing system also inspired partially on cuneiform? I always pictured First Tongue as cuneiform but made with claw marks (so maybe a little like the Word Walls of Skyrim,to use a pop culture reference)

[Sikla Alkis]

That sounds positively amazing. Is the writing system also inspired partially on cuneiform? I always pictured First Tongue as cuneiform but made with claw marks (so maybe a little like the Word Walls of Skyrim,to use a pop culture reference)

It will very likely have a claw-like or cuneiform influence. Early Sumerian writing was based on shapes clay tokens were made into, so it'll likely be "figures as crudely drawn by claws". The glyphs of Forsaken have a painted look to them, however, so I'm wondering if the glyphs were written via finger-painting rather than claws digging into something. Wouldn't be out of the ordinary for werewolves to paint warnings (probably in blood) at the edge of a territory.

[wyrdhamster]

It will very likely have a claw-like or cuneiform influence. Early Sumerian writing was based on shapes clay tokens were made into, so it'll likely be "figures as crudely drawn by claws". The glyphs of Forsaken have a painted look to them, however, so I'm wondering if the glyphs were written via finger-painting rather than claws digging into something. Wouldn't be out of the ordinary for werewolves to paint warnings (probably in blood) at the edge of a territory.

Or maybe first First Tongue glyphs ( ) were claw-based, but modern Uratha used their finger-painting also, so they would be easier to read and reproduce by Hishu and Dalu forms?