Esolan is a large country, or empire, rather, covering most of the continent east of Dunderhill. Esolanean is the Dunderer name for the language spoken there. I know very few words of Esolanean, but I thought it could make an interesting test language for WordBuilder.
I’m no expert conlanger, so I’m probably going about this all backwards, but here goes.
One word that I know is the word for magic: /sint/. From that word come words for magic-user, /sintor/, and for a master of magic, /sintaro/. I made those up back in the day without giving much thought to why they’d be named so, but I’ve made up an explanation:
The stem of the word is /sin/, actually meaning “river”. Magic in the world of Dunderhill and Esolan is of the channeling kind, so it would make sense for magic users to describe it as a river. The /-t/ suffix works to mark the determinant form, so /sint/ means “the river”.
The /-or/ suffix changes a noun into “a slave of <noun>” – so a magic user to the Esolaneans is basically “a slave of the river”.
The /-aro/ suffix works like /-or/, but turns the noun into “a master of <noun>” – that is to say, “the owner of a <noun> slave.”
Let’s say Esolaneans are pretty keen on this slave/master relationship. I’m thinking I can use the slave suffix for genitive forms in general, but also to indicate reliance on, or addiction to, something, and the master suffix could be used for people who master a trade or skill. A regular mercenary could be a slave of the sword, while a highly regarded warrior hero might be a master of swords.
As for WordBuilder, this already gives me a bunch of tokens (phonemes, I think they’re called) that Esolanean must allow: the vowels [a] [e] [i] [o] and the consonants [l] [n] [r] [s] and [t].
7 kommentarer til “Esolanean”
Say, “las,” for sword, “last,” for, “The Sword,” meaning… war(?), “lastor,” for soldier(“Slave of War”), and “lastaro,” for, warmaster. Or perhaps, “lasor,” for soldier(swordslave?), and “lasaro,” for swordmaster. I like lastor and lastaro, as well as lasaro, I’m not keen on lasor. Anyway…
Yeah, the principle seems to work out pretty well, I think. With your example, you don’t even have to let “last” mean anything but “The Sword” – “lastor”, “Slave of the sword” for soldier (or maybe rather mercenary), and “lastaro”, “Master of the sword” could be used for a great hero, or as you said, a swordmaster.
I don’t seem to have my password saved on windows.
I kind of like the idea of metaphorical structuring in language. Thus sint(The River) for magic and my example of last(The Sword). So if horak is the word for orc, could the Orc War be, “Last Horaktor,” (or “Last Horaktaro,” in Esolanean propaganda)?
Well, yeah… I actually pondered making Esolanean a language rich on metaphors just yesterday.
horaktor would be ‘Slave of the orcs’, though.
I think I need some kind of “turn noun into an adjective” rule. My first thought was to append -i or maybe -ni.
So ‘War of the orcs’ or ‘The orcish war’ would be ‘last horakti’, assuming suffixed adjectives.
Last Horaktaro could be The Sword, Master of the Orcs, literally. Not bad that.
I’m very interested in your language work. Seems fresh to this nincompoop, anyway.
By the way:(a)I found my password, so I’m logged in, (b)after many headaches and much pulling of hair I got dotnet3.5 installed, (b1)I have the latest version of WordBuilder up and running. Yay!
It looks like horak wouldn’t be a valid vowel in Esolanean. Oh well. Las works, though.
Well, there aren’t really any orcs in Esolan anyway, so it doesn’t matter much. Also, the list of valid letters isn’t complete, so horak might be a valid noun. Irregular, though, as they’d normally end in -r or -n.