#ALSO UR TAGS ON THE LAST THING MADE ME HAPPY. LOOK AT REIJI. U WILL LOOK AT HIM AND F E E L LIKE I DO

[springcatalyst]

Okay, slithering back in here again💕💘💞💗💖💘💕💞. I'm a linguistics freak. I need to know if you have plans for language(s) in your work.

Are there any characters with distinct speech patterns, maybe using different sorts of words than others (due to heritage, education, geographic location)?

Do you ever use modern slang or local vernacular when writing? Is it a conscious or unconscious choice? Do you take influences from any real world english dialects in your work?

My god hello I love this ask so much thank you for the interest ily.

I DO have language things, but I absolutely have NO linquistic background and don't really know how languages are put together most of the time but what i DO have is very specific ideas about what they SOUND like so. Bear with me

Each species has their own native language, and most everybody is also fluent in a common language, Solan (they might be SOME exceptions but you would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know it)

I don't have a TON of specific stuff about Solan, but generally it's a mishmash of words from each individual language, warped over the centuries into a more distinct set of sounds. It began as more of a pidgin language, very disconnected, mostly just enough to serve the purpose of interspecies communication without a whole lot of personality or flow. As time (LOTS of it) passed, some parts of Solan evolved in one way while other languages evolved another until it is now distinct, but you could still trace many words back to their roots in their language of origin, if you wanted.

The species languages are still a work in progress, but I have pretty set ideas about a few of them. Disregard my names if you want because I don't know if i'm gonna want better etymology for them later or anything (right now it's just... what sounds nice to my ears). Montaran (fauns), Arbor (satyrs), and Praetar (ipotanes) are all in the same family, kind of like romance languages or whatnot, but don't draw from each other quite as much as, say, italian and spanish, for example. But they're formed with generally the same collection of sounds, with similar enough grammar structures (particularly Arbor and Praetar) that they are more coherent to each other than to any of the others.

Montaran in particular is the one of these I've fleshed out most thus far: it is heavy in repetition and is mostly hard sounds. I don't know if any of this will make sense because again- no linguistic knowledge in this brain- but Montaran uses the repetition of a base segment, usually a vowel sound, as a distinction between meanings. This is especially evident in names, which all follow a sort of consonant-vowel-repeat-at-will format. (where most non-name words follow a consonant-vowel-consonant format. I know that sounds extremely similar, but the difference is mostly in how they end. Non-name words end in consonants). For example, Natakala might be the name of a town: that's four segments, each with the same vowel sound. Place names are typically long, whereas people's names are typically actually rather short- just two or three syllables, because of the way that fauns use them among families.

This is getting a little off topic now but fauns typically have children in sets of twins- just a little biological quirk (like having litters of kittens or whatnot). Because of this, twins will typically be referred to as one whole, rather than two separate entities. They have individual names, but they are built within each other so as to be used as one- let me give another example because I don't know how else to explain it: you have a twin named Sumaya and a twin named Suna, those twins, as they would typically spend lots of time together, would often be referred to as Sumayasuna, like one single being. That name, and their individual names, were chosen to be part of one another, they are named to be meshed, or rather, they are given an enmeshed name which can be split. And both their individual and twinned names follow that consonant-vowel-repeat format, because that's the rule of faun names.

I feel like this is really long already but you asked and I love to deliver so the other language I have anything concrete on is Shotali (nightlings). They're unique in the sense that the other humanoids have distinctly mammalian phonetics, either because they're mammals, or, in the case of iarans (a species of merfolk- I'll get into nix later), because they evolved to mimic the sounds made by those mammals. Nightlings do utilize much of the same phonetics (again, driven by mimicry), but because there is an evolutionary gap where they did not mimic other humanoids, because they were separated from them, their is a distinct avian aspect to their languages that other species lack. This is also something that makes me have such specific ideas for what nightlngs' voices sound like, but that's another thing entirely so I won't get into it.

Nightlings have an odd ability to make this clicking sound at the back of their throat- like clicking your tongue, but it makes the sound from something specialized for that sound, rather than just jury-rigging something with your tongue and the roof of your mouth. This, naturally, forms a part of their language. It's used much like a glottal stop, but whereas a glottal stop is the absence of sound, this click is an additional one and so is almost treated like a consonant. The only time it's used in conjuncture with another sound is in hard consonants, which are rare in Shotali (it's mostly soft consonants and vowels), in which the sound, say a K or V, is made at the same time as that click. Nightlings new to speaking Solan, particularly early post-cataclysm, as otherwise they would learn it throughout childhood like the other species, may pronounce this clicking consonant even in Solan as part of that accent.

Merfolk are the other species that has Things, because I just have yet to have any concrete ideas about how Arbor, Praetar, or Homonic (humans) function. Iarans, as vocal mimics, can and do speak, but they actually lack a verbal native language. What they do have is a visual language, stemmed from nix, who lack vocal chords. This sign language (I just... I just called it Handspeak but that sounds stupid so,,, i'll come up with something better maybe eventually) isn't quite like any terrestrial sign, real-world or otherwise, but it IS the linguistic precursor to Solan sign, used on land across species as needed (the only language to not have a 'home' species). Because they use it underwater, it's slower, with less focus on movement than in asl (i'm using asl as an example because it's the one I know, but a lot of sign languages are similar in structure, especially french sign language). Rather, handshape has much greater meaning and is more complex, less repeated, because fast movements underwater are harder to make, so rather than exist in a general-handshape and specific-motion format, Handspeak exists in more of a specific-handshape general-motion form. That 'base motion' is typically slower and larger- accounting a little for decreased visibility in water.

Solan sign, or just Sign, made it's way out of water and is used across the continent, but is very concentrated on coasts, because it's used to talk with merfolk (particularly nix). It's more common than sign languages typically are by hearing folks in the real world, but it's still not necessarily a language that lots of people are familiar with, especially inland. It has a very different structure than Handspeak, as it isn't hindered by water and is used in a different context. Sign typically does follow the more familiar general-handshape specific-motion pattern, so it's a bit easier to learn and moves quicker than Handspeak. A lot of the words use the non-dominant hand as a 'base' of sorts, providing a center point for the other, by which the motion of the dominant hand and its position in reference to the base define the meanings of the words. Another example because I don't know how to explain: Think of the ASL word for 'year' (google it assuming you don't know, handspeak.com my beloved). The 'base' hand is like the one that stays in the middle, while the dominant hand is the one that revolves around the other. So in Sign, that base could be held in the center of the body, or to the right, or wherever you want that's convenient, and the hand that's doing the motion is defining the word by it's relation to that base. If you only have one hand free, the base is assumed to be the center of your body, which requires you to be a little cleaner with your signs, but you can easily do it one-handed, which is useful for when you're busy with other things. ASL relies a lot on placement in relation to the body: one thing by your head means a different thing than if you sign the same motion with the same handshape by your chest, or up in the air, etc. Sign relies less on that, and more on a base hand, or the implication of one, in the case of one-handed signing. Not to say it never uses the body because it does, but not as much, and not as inherently.

Oh god oh fuck I'm writing you an essay.

I haven't played as much with distinct speech patterns as I probably could have, because i'm really uncertain how i would want to go about it???? I mean, i guess i do a little bit but not quite consciously. Like I've written a few things with Julian and/or his family, and in my quest to find a good 'god.' substitute in a christianless environment (lol) i gave them a weird little specific curse that I now realize nobody else has ever used and i don't like enough to extend across others, so it now sounds like either his family specifically, or the region he grew up in, has this way of cussing that nobody else does. And I don't like it as a world thing, but i do like it as a family thing, because then that's a little something specific to just them that I can play around with.

Or say, Reiji speaks very formally. Not in the sense that he's overly stuffy or even... formal isn't quite the right word, but he's very deliberate about his choice of words most of the time. In an attempt to minimize misunderstanding, he is overly specific and/or tries to capture exactly precisely what he's trying to say in a way that is satisfying, which sometimes leaves more questions than if he said something less accurate to what he wants to convey, but more broad and thus easier to understand. He is usually very clear, very little grey area for interpretation, but when even he isn't sure what he's conveying, he gets really confusing really fast if whoever he's talking to can't make the logic leaps that he can in those connections.

And then like the thing about modern slang and local vernacular is that i almost certainly incorporate it into my writing without even meaning to, because that's how I talk and think and hear people talking and thinking. And I am also subject to using hyperspecific words because I want things to mean exactly what I'm thinking and that's how i start to become best friends with words like 'rouged.' The same with dialects, I don't on purpose take influence from them, but the ones I hear and use make their way into my writing because I have different associations for each one. I can't think of a really good example right now but I mean,,, is writing not just returning all the words you've read and heard and said into something else? Into something that's hopefully a little bit more than the sum of its parts?

I'm going to thank you once more in the actual body of this post because this ask made me go "FUUUUCK YESSSSSSSS" and i'm so glad you like to hear about my fucked up world in my fucked up brain or whatever the hell. if you (actually have knowledge of linguistics) want to recommend things or say something doesn't make sense or say literally anything about literally anything PLEASE DO. I LOVE INPUT AND COLLABORATION AND YOU ARE A REAL ONE <3 <3