Language Lesson: Pofnu

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Pofnu is what they speak in Hajina. It is sort of like Ketherian, but, like all divergent languages, tosses out some useful and important things, and elaborates the impedimentia beyond all reason. Or beyond all chance of memorization.

Unlike our trip to Srineia, we don’t have anyone on board from a Pofnu-speaking region. We have some energetic linguistic students, like Strappie, and some experienced linguistics students, like Hrone. So we had a study group a few times, before it sort of fell apart due to a general lack of interest.

Vocabulary

Strappie: “My absolute favorite part about Pofnu is that it’s very very precise! Like, ‘padi’ is thick cloth, like felt or something, and ‘dejing’ is thin cloth! So far that’s just an important distinction we don’t have in Ketherian! It’s important! You won’t be trying to buy thick pajamas in Hanija and buy thin ones by mistake!”

Me: “A mistake I have never managed to make, even in deficient Ketherian.” What I really meant is, I don’t go looking for ‘thin cloth’, I will go looking for ‘aerophane’ or ‘cambric’ or ‘grenadine’ or what have you.

Arfaen: “That’s because you sleep in the fireplace when you’re sleeping alone. No pajamas there!”

Nalche: “I’ve never bought pajamas. Stolen them from my sister a few times though.”

Strappie: “But! It goes beyond more than that! When you fold that cloth, you ‘geno padi’, but you ‘geyi dejing’! See, it’s two different verbs too!”

Nalche: “And this is a good thing?”

Hrone: “For the employment prospects of language teachers, certainly.”

Me: “Anyone who wants a few extra weeks to try to memorize all those verbs before we get there, see me in my laboratory after class.”

Arfaen: “Especially cute Orrens! Hey! Sythyry, what’s that vicious look for? I’m just trying to help you out here!”

Caste Markers

Hrone: “Now, different sorts of people will use slightly different vocabulary when they talk to each other.”

Jyondre: “I read about this! The good news is, it’s easier than Srineian. The bad news is, it’s different from Srineian.”

Hrone: “I don’t know about Srineian…”

Jyondre: “Srineian is very simple! We have status markers on pronouns, mostly. So Sythyry used I-nob to imply that zie was a noble…”

Me: “Falsely!”

Hrone: “Well, Pofnu doesn’t do that. You don’t say you’re a noble — you say you’re higher or lower status than the person you’re talking to.”

Jyondre: “That is so obnoxious! Suppose I say I’m higher-status than you, and you’re really a Great Baron but I don’t know it?”

Hrone: “I believe that the Guild of Administerers of Social Correctives can be called in that sort of case. You might call them hired torturers.”

Strappie: “No! Don’t call them that! They will torture you for it!”

Jyondre: “I think this completely proves my case. You can’t be tortured for missing status markers in Eigrach or Heleshario!”

Hrone: “Foreigners probably won’t be tortured in Hanija either. Not for that anyhow. Just use the neutral markers and you should be fine.”

Me: “Very good. What, then, are the neutral markers?”

Hrone: “Well, that depends on what sort of a question you’re asking. For a ‘where’ question, the marker is ‘kuza’; for a ‘how’ or some ‘why’ questions, it’s ‘tasapahu’, and for most other questions it’s ‘ropaf’.”

Jyondre: “What about for statements and commands?”

Hrone: “You can’t give a command without knowing the status of the person you’re commanding. That’s not Hanijan, that’s just politeness.”

Me: “And statements?”

Hrone: “Oh. Statements. That’s in the advanced book. I didn’t get that far yet.”

Phaniet: “We’re going to be so very, very rude.”

Comments

[rowyn]

*giggles at Phaniet*

What words do the markers go on? All of them? Or is it a whole separate language? >:)

[(Anonymous)]

The gods invented language purely to torment you, you realize this, yes?

(( On a side note, I just bought the World Tree sourcebook and Sythyry's Journal. I enjoyed reading the journal so much online I wanted a hard-copy! I also bought the book, The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem, :D and a bunch of new camping supplies. They should all arrive in a week. ))

[ragarth.livejournal.com]

Gah, that was me. :-(

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I rejoice with delight at these purchases! Well, except for the camping stuff. [Just don't make Nothing.]

[I'm glad you're enjoying it!]

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Sythyry, this is an...odd question, but have you read any parts of our 'Sourcebook'? The one that we use as a (flawed) primer and guide to your world? You know, the one written to be entertaining before it was meant to be academic, peer reviewed and precise? I presume because it was made to be fun and entertaining, there are quite a few flaws -- for example, I know for a fact that the numbers in that book that were used for measuring Vitality wasn't the same scale that you use; it was simplified to 'hit points'. Have you glanced at it?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

My library is inadequate in unfortunate ways; I have no copy, nor do I know how to get ahold of one.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Ask your translator about it sometime! Zie might know how to get you a copy, or at least an edited copy (It might not make the universe transition completely unscathed). Zie seems to have had SOMETHING to do with this book, somehow.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

I don't think gods did invent language. If they had, there'd be a noun god for that.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

One of our storytellers gave writ to a creature called "The Babelfish". It was a reference to...well...nevermind what it was in reference to, but suffice to say it was a tiny, slug-like fish that you would stick in your ear.

The fish would wriggle it's way into your ear and press itself up against your eardrum, where it would live quite happily, feeding off the electrical energy of your thoughts and brainwaves. Since it was a symbiote, the benefit YOU got was that any spoken word uttered around you would be instantly and flawlessly translated for you.

The sheer usefulness of such a creature wasn't lost upon philosophers, who sought to use its existence as a logic bomb to destroy deities. But as with all such endeavors, it ended badly for the philosophers.

Anyway, the point is, the Babelfish was subsequently responsible for the very worst, most hideous amounts of war and bloodshed seen by anything else in all of history. This is because sometimes, it's just better to be thought of as ignorant and inadvertently rude, rather than being proven deliberately rude.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

This is why mind-magic is so evil.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should just speak common, and throw in random words here and there for things that common doesn't have a word for! Then... you'd... have a language identical to every other language in existence, probably. Nevermind.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Why don't you just HIRE a translator?? You're wealthy!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Where's the fun in that!

It reminds me of this book I read once. There is this man who goes to Japan a lot for business. He is very affluent with Japanese Culture and can speak it perfectly. He went to this country inn once. He asked for a room in perfect Japanese. He was responded back in English "You won't like it here, you have to sleep on the floor". He responded that it was okay by him, back in perfect Japanese. The Innkeeper kept responding back with reasons why the businessman wouldn't like it, always in English, to which the business man would refute, always in Japanese. The conversation ended when the door to the inn was closed because the Business man, despite providing a perfect Japanese conversation, was not Japanese!

I'm sure there are places still like this in our world. Heck, there are places in my neighborhood where if you don't speak the right lingo, you don't get the really good stuff.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

I was sure, halfway through this, that the ending was going to be "this was their face-saving way of saying the hotel was full, and he just didn't understand the cultural convention despite knowing the language." I guess some people are just jerks regardless of culture.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Plenty of places are very much still like that.

There's always mistrust of outsiders.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

This is one of the situations in which it really is unfortunate that Mentador is socially unacceptable in your society. It would be immensely useful in issues of communication like this.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yeah, Vae will have no trouble with the language.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

And could easily help others have no trouble with it!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The problem will be, keeping her from helping others!

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

I wonder how reputation spoiling would "Being mind bent by a nendrai" be for Princely corruption purposes...

*laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I love this! Tormenting characters with foreign languages is SO much fun. They just sit there at the table, writhing in distress and casting piteous looks at you.

Re: *laugh*

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

I cheated with this in my campaign by giving the PCs magic to understand any spoken language. I wonder if it would've been more fun to make them spend time learning several languages.

Re: *laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Depends on the campaign, of course, but I have often found that to be fun. Side effects with linguistic spells are entertaining too.

Re: *laugh*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[That's a pretty common approach. Fussing with language isn't going to help the plot generally. Sythyry's plot is just "give the lizard every doom available", so I do it here. In Mating Flight, I don't feel like messing with it, so the invaders have language-spells aplenty. In the unnamed hatchling novel-in-progress, there are two languages being spoken, and it's pretty important who is speaking what. -bb]

Re: *laugh*

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

WHat is this Mating Flight you speak of, and where might this crazy old bird get a copy of it?

I think I must point out, if you want to learn a weird language, you sould try some of the outworld monster tongues. I know of one that has several words that sound exactly the same, yet thay each mean something diferent, in some cases dramaticly diferent. Never mind that most of the rules you are saposed to follow all the time, except when your not saposed to follow them.

Re: *laugh*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Mating Flight and Wrath of Trees are unpublished novels. I'm planning to self-publish them in 2011, but we will see. ("The unnamed hatchling novel" is my current work-in-progress.)

Re: *laugh*

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

Humm, well let me know if thay ever get published, might be interested in snaging a copy. Even if thay are published on a small press or self published.

Re: *laugh*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oh, if you're reading Sythyry, you won't hear the end of it!

Re: *laugh*

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

Oh I read lots and lots of things, you would be amazed. I also do not limit myself to the grownup section. Several rather nice books have been published under 'young adult' 'teen' or even childrens.

Re: *laugh*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Yup! I'm reading lots of my son's books now, and my current work-in-progress is aimed at young adult.]

Re: *laugh*

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

If you can find it, I would sudjest "Dark Lord of Derkholme" Very good book, and the sequal, "Year of the Griffon" Though, truth to tell, the Harry Potter books where a suprisingly decent read, a bit silly but fun for the most part. Perhaps I should start writing again, I keep wanting to but I am so unmotavated.

Re: *laugh*

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Oh, there's a sequel to "Dark Lord"? Thanks for telling me. Diane Wynne Jones' "Tough Guide To Fantasyland" is good too, though I didn't care for "Howl's Moving Castle" (she wrote the original novel).

Re: *laugh*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I loved "Howl's Moving Castle" -- I have this thing for cute fire elementals -- but found Tough Guide to be rather overlong for the joke.

Re: *laugh*

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

The sourcebook says that WT languages are as far apart linguistically as English and Italian... which really isn't much. There's a theory that humans have a "language instinct" with a "universal grammar", but it can't be nearly as specific as WT's Common language that the others are based on.

Re: *laugh*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[I suspect there are a handful of words in human Common -- "mama" or some variant is a very common word for mother -- but not many and not nearly so heavily inscribed.]

Re: *laugh*

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Tonal languages are infamous for that. There's a poem in Chinese that reads (in Pinyin):

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den )