#complex nouns

[nefja]

Send me some kind of prompt, and I'll see how I can bring it to life photographically with Nefja.

[strangestcase]

toki pona is a ploy to get ppl to talk like cavemen in the name of self-realization. <- this is why I like it btw

[mustang-sal]

The Deeper Meanings of Name Cloaks. Unless...?

I would find it so funny if we randomly meet a wizard with a name cloak of a proper noun that doesn't have another meaning (i.e. isn't already a word in English).

Sonder may be the closest we've gotten so far. It's a recently-coined word (at least in English) so potentially might not count yet as a word with a meaning outside of just being a name for this story (though I would not put it past Brennan to have heard of this word and use it for its other meaning).

Anyway, I'm hanging out for the day we meet a new character and

"What up, you can call me the Wizard Stephanie."

[musical-chick-13]

I'm the LAST person to suggest that you have to preface every single comment you make about a character/fictional relationship/etc. you like with a reminder that you Know™ it's pRoBLeMaTiC, but I DO question what the point of acting genuinely for real like there were no problems is.

[baked--baker]

Drunkenly mutually trauma dumping with an equally drunk acquaintance you met though a friend's friend at a party one year ago and you literally only see each other at parties and get togethers and stuff and 70% of the times you are both quite drunk and now you drunkenly stumbled across them at another party and you both start catching up and you both went through Some Shit TM but now you both are recovering and there's this cathartic moment when you both exclaim "OMG YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH THIS *RANDOM SAD AF THING* TOO OMG SAME" and then you hug and say stuff "omg I'm so proud of you and I'm happy you are here and even know we don't know each other that well I'm glad you are in my life" yeah that stuff is like free therapy man.

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

like i literally am obsessed with maybe the perfect old man for me specifically to be obsessed with. like it's so perfect and aligns so well ! it's a miracle, a coincidence, a blessing, a phenomenon. it's almost like there's a reason i like him so much or something!i

[dexaroth]

probably never gonna read warrior cats out of laziness but the naming process is so simple yet effective. just things you can find in nature I think. kind of sad that they took advantage of that bc thats like just a step away from naming a guy Opal or Cloud so of I were to name a character something like leafstone it'd be almost certainly assumed to be a warrior cat

[psychosomaticdeicide]

The only bad thing about LibreOffice Writer is that it does not have a grammar checking system like Microsoft Office Word, meaning I Am the Grammar Check when my sibling is writing an essay.

But also I am the wall getting spaghetti thrown at it.

And the thesaurus.

And the time reminder.

And the shortcut key reminders.

[deliasamed]

Subordinate Clauses

Understanding Subordinate Clauses and Their Varieties

A complex sentence, by definition, consists of one independent (main) clause and at least one dependent (subordinate) clause. A subordinate clause, also known as a dependent clause, is a group of words that has both a subject and a verb but cannot stand alone as a complete sentence. It relies on a main clause (independent clause) to provide a complete thought. Subordinate clauses can be categorized into three main types based on their grammatical function within a sentence: noun clauses, adverb clauses, and adjective clauses. Each type serves a different purpose and modifies or complements the main clause in distinct ways.     Noun Clauses: A noun clause is a group of words that functions as a noun within a sentence. It can serve as the subject, object, or complement of the main clause. Example: What she said is important(subject). I don't know what to do (object). The fact that he succeeded is amazing (complement).     Adverb Clauses: An adverb clause is a group of words that functions as an adverb within a sentence. It typically provides information about the time, place, manner, reason, condition, or degree of the action in the main clause. Example: While I was studying, my friends were playing outside (time). She sings as if she were an angel (manner). Because it was raining, we stayed indoors (reason).     Adjective Clauses (Relative Clauses): An adjective clause is a group of words that functions as an adjective within a sentence. It provides additional information about a noun or pronoun in the main clause. Example: The book that I borrowed from the library is fascinating (modifying the noun book). The person who helped me is my neighbor (modifying the noun).             Finite Subordinate clauses: A main clause, or independent clause, is finite. In grammar, a finite clause is one that has a subject and a finite verb. A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and tense and typically indicates a completed action or state.   A subordinate clause can also be finite. A finite subordinate clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a finite verb but cannot stand alone as a complete sentence. The finite verb in a subordinate clause is inflected for person and tense, just like in a main clause.       Here are examples of finite subordinate clauses:   Adverbial Finite Subordinate Clause (Time): After the rain stopped, we went for a walk.     Adjectival Finite Subordinate Clause (Relative Clause): The woman who lives next door is a doctor.     Nominal Finite Subordinate Clause (Subject): What you said surprised everyone.     Adverbial Finite Subordinate Clause (Reason): Because she studied hard, she passed the exam.     Adjectival Finite Subordinate Clause (Conditional): If you finish your homework, you can go out.     Nominal Finite Subordinate Clause (Direct Object): I believe that honesty is the best policy.             Non-Finite Subordinate clauses: Subordinate clauses, nevertheless, can be Non-finite. Non-finite subordinate clauses are characterized by the absence of a finite verb. A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and tense and is typically found in main clauses, marking agreement with the subject and providing information about when the action occurs. Non-finite verbs, on the other hand, lack this inflection for person and tense. Let's explore why the verb in non-finite subordinate clauses is referred to as such:   No Marking of Agreement and Tense: In non-finite subordinate clauses, the verb remains in its base or root form (infinitive, gerund, or participle) and does not change to reflect the person or number of the subject. It does not carry information about when the action takes place. For example: She wants to visit the museum. (Infinitive, non-finite) She visits the museum. (Finite)     Cannot Be Modal Auxiliary: Non-finite verbs cannot function as modal auxiliary verbs. Modal auxiliary verbs (such as can, could, will, would) are used with the base form of a main verb to express modality, possibility, necessity, etc. Non-finite verbs do not have the same modal properties. For example: She can visit the museum. (Finite) She wants to visit the museum. (Non-finite)     Subject Is Not in Subject Case: In non-finite subordinate clauses, the subject of the clause, if present, is often in the objective case or implied, and it does not affect the form of the non-finite verb. For example: I saw him running in the park. (Objective case) She heard them singing in the choir. (Implied subject )                    Nonfinite Subordinate clauses Types : There are several types of nonfinite subordinate clauses, including infinitives, gerunds, participles, and verbless clauses.   Infinitives: Infinitive clauses often function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs within a sentence, serve as the direct object of the verb.   She brought a gift for him to open. They worked hard for the team to succeed. They gathered resources to build a shelter. She bought ingredients to bake a cake. They helped him leave. (bare Infinitive)         Participles: Participial clauses function as adjectives, providing additional information about a noun.   The children, playing in the park, laughed joyfully. The stormy weather, frightening the animals, forced them into hiding. The story, written by a famous author, captivated the readers. The exhausted hiker reached the summit, guided by an experienced mountaineer.         Gerunds: Gerund clauses function as nouns, often serving as subjects, objects, or objects of prepositions. Gerund clauses, being a type of non-finite subordinate clause, can sometimes have the subject omitted, especially when it is the same as the subject of the main clause. Here are examples: He's not very good at remembering names. She wrote an essay about exploring ancient civilizations. I was surprised at finding my lost keys. I was surprised at learning about the sudden change in plans. They asked him about joining the upcoming project team.         Verbless Clauses: Verbless clauses, as the name suggests, lack a finite verb. Instead, they often start with a present or past participle, an infinitive, or a prepositional phrase. These clauses can function as adverbials, providing information about time, manner, or condition.   Examples: Born in Paris, she developed a love for art. Without hesitation, he jumped into the water. His passion for painting evident, he spent hours in the studio. With a smile on her face, she accepted the award.                   Subordinate Clauses Complex Sentences Compound Sentences Imperative Sentences Subject Pronoun/ “One” and “They” as subject meaning About Phonetics Read the full article

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Children's Dialogue

Language is extremely complex, yet children already know most of the grammar of their native language(s) before they are 5 years old.

BABBLING

Babbling begins at about 6 months and is considered the earliest stage of language acquisition

By 1 year babbles are composed only of the phonemes used in the language(s) they hear

Deaf babies babble with their hands like hearing babies babble using sounds

FIRST WORDS

After the age of one, children figure out that sounds are related to meanings and start to produce their first words

Usually children go through a holophrastic stage, where their one-word utterances may convey more meaning

Example: "Up" is used to indicate something in the sky or to mean “pick me up”

Most common first words (among the first 10 words uttered in many languages): “mommy,” “daddy,” “woof woof,” “no,” “bye,” “hi,” “yes,” “vroom,” “ball” and “banana”

WORD MEANINGS

When learning words, children often overextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer to any furry, four-legged animal (overextensions tend to be based on shape, size, or texture, but never color)

They may also underextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer only to the family pet, as if dog were a proper noun

The Whole Object Principle: When a child learns a new word, (s)he is likely to interpret the word to refer to a whole object rather than one of its parts

SYNTAX

At about two years of age, children start to put words together to form two-word utterances

The intonation contour extends over the two words as a unit, and the two-word utterances can convey a range of meanings:

Example: "mommy sock" = subject + object or possessive

NOTE: Chronological age is NOT a good measure of linguistic development due to individual differences, so instead linguists use the child’s mean length of utterance (MLU) to measure development

The telegraphic stage describes a phase when children tend to omit function morphemes such as articles, subject pronouns, auxiliaries, and verbal inflection

Examples: "He play little tune" or "Andrew want that"

Between 2;6 and 3;6 a language explosion occurs and children undergo rapid development

By the age of 3, most children consistently use function morphemes and can produce complex syntactic structures:

Examples: "He was stuck and I got him out" / "It’s too early for us to eat"

After 3;6 children can produce wh-questions, and relative pronouns

Sometime after 4;0 children have acquired most of the adult syntactic competence

PRAGMATICS

Deixis: Children often have problems with the shifting reference of pronouns

Children may refer to themselves as "you"

Problems with the context-dependent nature of deictic words: Children often assume the hearer knows who s/he is talking about

AUXILIARIES

In the telegraphic stage, children often omit auxiliaries from their speech but can form questions (with rising intonation) and negative sentences

Examples: "I ride train?" / "I not like this book"

As children acquire auxiliaries in questions and negative sentences, they generally use them correctly

SIGNED LANGUAGES

Deaf babies acquire sign language in the same way that hearing babies acquire spoken language: babbling, holophrastic stage, telegraphic stage

When deaf babies are not exposed to sign language, they will create their own signs, complete with systematic rules

IMITATION, REINFORCEMENT, ANALOGY

Children do imitate the speech heard around them to a certain extent, but language acquisition goes beyond imitation

Children produce utterances that they never hear from adults around them, such as "holded" or "tooths"

Children cannot imitate adults fully while acquiring grammar

Example:

Adult: "Where can I put them?" Child: "Where I can put them?"

Children who develop the ability to speak later in their childhood can understand the language spoken around them even if they cannot imitate it

NOTE: Children May Resist Correction

Example: Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean Berko Gleason) – My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? – Yes. – What did you say she did? – She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say she held them tightly? – No, she holded them loosely.

Another theory asserts that children hear a sentence and then use it as a model to form other sentences by analogy

But while analogy may work in some situations, certainly not in all situations:

– I painted a red barn. – I painted a barn red. – I saw a red barn. – I saw a barn red.

Children never make mistakes of this kind based on analogy which shows that they understand structure dependency at a very young age

BIRTH ORDER

Children’s birth order may affect their speech.

Firstborns often speak earlier than later-born children, most likely because they get more one-on-one attention from parents.

They favor different words than their siblings. 

Whereas firstborns gabble on about animals and favorite colors, the rest of the pack cut to the chase with “brother,” “sister,” “hate” and such treats as “candy,” “popsicles” and “donuts.” 

The social dynamics of siblings, it would appear, prime their vocabularies for a reality different than the firstborns’ idyllic world of sheep, owls, the green of the earth and the blue of the sky.

MOTHER'S LEVEL OF EDUCATION

Children may adopt vocabulary quite differently depending on their mother’s level of education.

In American English, among the words disproportionately favored by the children of mothers who have not completed secondary education are: “so,” “walker,” “gum,” “candy,” “each,” “could,” “wish,” “but,” “penny” and “be” (ordered starting with the highest frequency).

The words favored by the children of mothers in the “college and above” category are: “sheep,” “giraffe,” “cockadoodledoo,” “quack quack,” the babysitter’s name, “gentle,” “owl,” “zebra,” “play dough” and “mittens.” 

BOYS / GIRLS

One area of remarkable consistency across language groups is the degree to which the language of children is gendered.

The words more likely to be used by American girls than by boys are: “dress,” “vagina,” “tights,” “doll,” “necklace,” “pretty,” “underpants,” “purse,” “girl” and “sweater.”

Whereas those favored by boys are “penis,” “vroom,” “tractor,” “truck,” “hammer,” “bat,” “dump,” “firetruck,” “police” and “motorcycle.”

Tips for Writing Children's Dialogue (compiled from various sources cited below):

Milestones - The dialogue you write should be consistent with the child's developmental milestones for their age. Of course, other factors should be considered such as if the child has any speech or intellectual difficulties. Also note that developmental milestones are not set in stone and each child is unique in their own way.

Too "Cutesy" - If your child characters are going to be cute, they must be cute naturally through the force of their personality, not because the entire purpose of their existence is to be adorable.

Too Wise - It’s true kids have the benefit of seeing some situations a little more objectively than adults. But when they start calmly and unwittingly spouting all the answers, the results often seem more clichéd and convenient than impressive or ironic.

Unintelligent - Don’t confuse a child’s lack of experience with lack of intelligence. 

Baby Talk - Don’t make a habit of letting them misuse words. Children are more intelligent than most people think.

Unique Individuals - Adults often tend to lump all children into a single category: cute, small, loud, and occasionally annoying. Look beyond the stereotype.

Personal Goals - The single ingredient that transforms someone from a static character to a dynamic character is a goal. It can be easy to forget kids also have goals. Kids are arguably even more defined by their goals than are adults. Kids want something every waking minute. Their entire existence is wrapped up in wanting something and figuring out how to get it.

Don't Forget your Character IS a Child - Most of the pitfalls in how to write child characters have to do with making them too simplistic and childish. But don’t fall into the opposite trap either: don’t create child characters who are essentially adults in little bodies.

Your Personal Observation - To write dialogue that truly sounds like it could come from a child, start by being an attentive listener. Spend time around children and observe how they interact with their peers and adults. You can also study other pieces of media that show/write about children's behaviour (e.g., documentaries, films, TV shows, even other written works like novels and scripts).

Context - The context in which children speak is crucial to creating realistic dialogue. Consider their environment, who they're speaking to, and what's happening around them. Dialogue can change drastically depending on whether a child is talking to a friend, a parent, or a teacher. Additionally, children's language can be influenced by their cultural background, family dynamics, and personal experiences. Make sure the context informs the dialogue, lending credibility to your characters' voices.

Sources and other related articles: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Writing Notes: On Children ⚜ Childhood Bilingualism More: Writing Notes & References

[utilitycaster]

a brief guide to types of fantasy names

I put some syllables together and they sounded nice

I put some syllables together and I can't say they sounded nice per se but they do sound vaguely like they come from Arthuriana so close enough

reasonably common real-world name but a letter or two is changed or added

extremely apt real-world character descriptor but a letter is changed (you know who you are)

two reasonably common real-world names smashed together in some kind of fantasy name particle accelerator

this means something meaningful in a foreign language (real-world)

this means something meaningful in a foreign language (elaborate conlang, self-created)

this means something meaningful in a foreign language (hey Siri, how do you say Fateful in Quenya? Set alarm for D&D Session Zero for 45 minutes from now.)

real-world names, but exclusively ones that are no longer in common usage, frequently either from the ancient Mediterranean region or else medieval European names

"this is Linda and she fights dragons. fuck you."

referred to only by a series of complex and mysterious titles

rigid naming convention across the board, but within that any one of the above is possible

some kind of pun or overly long memeified joke

I don't know what data set the fantasy name generator runs off of and I'm too afraid to ask but not too afraid to reap the benefits

acronym that I never replaced

Literally just a noun

[kara-akaane]

Vode An is actually really interesting cause it was written before mando’a as a language was developed so when Karen Travis first developed mando’a, she used that song as a basis.

So the song like is mando’a, really the first use of mando’a, but it’s also kinda not as the grammar rules and wider language didn’t exist yet. From what I’ve picked up, I think this was some what retconned as songs just not caring about grammar as much in favor of sounding better

In the song it looks like you’re right, they use motir as a noun meaning ‘enemies/those standing before us’. Specifically, the line is “motir ca’tra nau tracinya” or “those standing before us lite the nightsky aflame” with nau being lite, tracinya being flame/aflame, and ca’tra being nightsky which leaves motir to mean “those standing before us” (tho the us could just be implied as pronouns are sometimes dropped in mando’a). Cause “those standing before us” is the subject and subjects have to have nouns, that leaves motir as having to act as a noun in this case.

Both mandocreator and mandoa.org define motir like you would a verb as ‘to stand’ which threw me off when I was translating and im not 100% sure if verbs can/ when they can be treated as nouns in non-sung mando’a. It might just be something that was cut out in later versions of the language but again, I’m not sure.

But also, especially with Disney really only using mando’a for like background noise at most, mando’a is really a fun fan run conlang so you can kinda do whatever lol

If it were me, I’d have translated ‘may the enemies standing before/blocking us know the burning wrath of the blade and die’ as “vercopao aru’e ibac ara’novo mhi kar’tayli a’den hettyc be te kal bal ash’amur” but word order is a bitch and I’m not 100% confident in the wording of that first clause, so I’d probably have simplified the sentence to “vercopao cuun aru’e kar’tayli a’den hettyc be te kal bal ash’amur”

Medieval fantasy AU

(My goodness, I got a bit carried away. Actually spent an hour trying to learn mando’a grammar.)

Transcription: Vercopaö aru’e cuun motir kar’taylir a’den hettyc be te kal bal ash’amur

[jayrockin]

This might be a dumb question, but why are the sophonts species called sophonts? Instead of something like "sapient" or "sentient"?

Sentient: Adjective, capable of sensing or feeling, awareness of one's environment. E.g., animals with sensory organs.

Sapient: Adjective, capable of complex cognition and self awareness comparable to a human. E.g., you.

Sophont: Noun, a sapient being. E.g., also you!

[freemusicdonut]

#avoidplastics #FollowTrafficRules #ourbestqualityproduct #ontimematerialdispatch #bestproducts #goodwillenginnering #DrugFreeSociety #GuideElements Guide elements absorb transverse forces that occur and prevent contact between the piston rod and cylinder cover and between the piston and cylinder barrel in hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders. As nouns, the difference between disadvantage and advantage is that disadvantage is a weakness or undesirable characteristic; a con while the advantage is any condition, circumstance, opportunity, or means, particularly favorable to success, or any desired end. The major advantage of using a priority queue is that you will be able to quickly access the highest priority item with a time complexity of just O(1). The only disadvantage of using Priority Queues are that the enqueue and dequeue operations are slow and have a time complexity

[dedalvs]

Valyrian is impressively complicated and difficult to learn, is it so complicated on purpose or did it surprise you with how complicated it turned out?

When it comes to complexity and language, any complexity you add to the morphology is complexity you take away from the syntax, and vice-versa. For example, when you learn all the noun cases of Finnish, it buys you having to remember fewer constructions with adpositions—or fewer verb augmentations, if the language went that way.

Syntactically, Valyrian is usually (MODIFIER) NOMINATIVE-NOUN (MODIFIER) OTHER-CASE-NOUN* (ADVERB) VERB. It's quite simple. There's not a lot you have to remember, and things can move around a little bit, if it feels right. You don't have to remember a ton of auxiliaries with different applications and slightly different usages. For the most part the heavy hitters (the nouns and verbs themselves) take care of things rather nicely. This is what complexity within the words themselves buys you: simplicity elsewhere.

The reason you get this is because all languages are doing the same thing: describing human experience. And humans are the same language to language. The other small tidbit is that when creating a naturalistic language—and it doesn't matter what method you use—you are, unconsciously or not, aiming for the lowest common denominator in terms of grammatical complexity. You don't have to do that, but generally if you're trying to create a language for humans with no other goals, you do. With a language like Ithkuil, John was intentionally pushing away from what is standard in human languages, and so there are needless levels of complexity that push beyond the boundaries of ordinary human language.

Now, when I say "needless", this is what I mean.

In Turkish, if you want to say "The girl is reading a book", you say:

Kız kitap okuyor.

Turkish is a language with noun cases, but you only see the nominative here. Why? Because the girl is reading A book. When the object is indefinite in Turksih you don't need to use the accusative case—in fact, you shouldn't. If you wanted to say "The girl is reading the book", that's when the accusative case pops up:

Kız kitabı okuyor.

Okay, with this in mind, you've introduced—just in the nouns—four possibilities:

Nominative + indefinite

Nominative + definite

Accusative + indefinite

Accusative + definite

In a maximally complex language, all of this would be marked. In Turkish, only one of these is marked. (Well, maybe two, if you were to say Bir kız for nominative + indefinite. Turkish has an indefinite article that pops up sometimes.) Certainly there are languages where all of these have some sort of marking, but then those very same languages will have other situations where maximal marking is possible but not present.

Human languages all have this in common. There are areas in the language where more categories could be marked but are not. It doesn't matter what the language is. This is because humans have limits for how much junk they'll tolerate in the language they're using. It isn't long before something that could be inferred from context is inferred from context. It collapses every so often (i.e. too little is marked and so marking pops up), but the unconscious goal is for the language to have a balance between morphological and syntactic complexity and also explicitness and implicitness.

A language doesn't have to do this, though, and so conlangs can be more or less explicit/implicit. Can they work? Certainly, but they may be more than humans will comfortably tolerate, and so humans may not want to use them.

Take Láadan, for example. Had Láadan been created later it might have had a better shot at being used, but this was 1982 before conlangers had started getting together. Láadan primary flaw is that it's trying to be a deep philosophical experiment while also trying to be a language a lot of people speak. That was never going to work. Suzette Haden Elgin lamented that maybe women didn't want a language of their own to use, and so the experiment was doomed from the start. A simpler explanation is she saw an ocean and built a train to cross it.

In Láadan, every sentence begins with one of six speech act particles (copied from Wikipedia):

Bíi: Indicates a declarative sentence (usually optional)

Báa: ndicates a question

Bó: Indicates a command; very rare, except to small children

Bóo: Indicates a request; this is the usual imperative/"command" form

Bé: Indicates a promise

Bée: Indicates a warning

And then in addition to that, every sentence ends with one of the following (also copied from Wikipedia):

wa: Known to speaker because perceived by speaker, externally or internally

wi: Known to speaker because self-evident

we: Perceived by speaker in a dream

wáa: Assumed true by speaker because speaker trusts source

waá: Assumed false by speaker because speaker distrusts source; if evil intent by the source is also assumed, the form is waálh

wo: Imagined or invented by speaker, hypothetical

wóo: Used to indicate that the speaker states a total lack of knowledge as to the validity of the matter

This is too much! Evidential systems in language exist, but they are so much smaller than this, and usually the markers pull double duty—and there's often a null marker.

Again, though, it's about the goals! This is fine for a philosophical language. And if it was simply a philosophical language, then how many people "speak" it is irrelevant. For example, John Quijada doesn't lament that after twenty years there isn't a community of Ithkuil speakers—indeed, he's baffled whenever he hears of someone who wants to try to "speak" Ithkuil. It's not designed for that, and so the metric isn't a fair one. Based on the structure of Láadan, I'd argue the same: the number of speakers/users isn't a fair metric, and shouldn't have been a design goal. Because while a language like High Valyrian looks more complex, with its declension classes and conjugations, Láadan is more complex in that it exceeds the expectations of explicitness a human user expects from a language.

Long answer to the question, but no, High Valyrian ended up as complex as I intended, and I don't think it's more complex than one would expect from either a natural or naturalistic language.

[jedi-enthusiasm-blog]

Many people have taken one look at this and inmediately leaped to the conclusion that Jedi forbid emotions. Which is, huh… interesting.

What people don't realize is that the Jedi Order are a religious organization, and as such they have their own sacred texts, such as this meditation mantra (because yeah, that's the only time it's ever mentioned, during meditation).

And the trick about this kind of texts is that they're not meant to be taken literally. You're not supposed to take it at face value, you're supposed to think about it, reflect about it, and then interpretate it. I'm sure the average "fan" hasn't actually thought about it beyond "code bad Jedi evil", nevermind that it's not actually the Jedi Code mentioned in the films.

Since it's a meditation mantra, one used to focus to make connecting with the Force easier, it makes perfect sense that this is how you should feel when using the Force.

You shouldn't be overwhelmed with emotions or passions, you shouldn't act if you don't have knowledge. This is obvious: if you can command the essence of life, then maybe you should actually be in the state of mind to do it.

However, the other lines of "no chaos but harmony" and "no death but the Force" don't fit into this. So, what do they mean?

Here is the other version of the Code. It was seen for the first time in the Kanan comics, and is arguably more canon than the previous one.

(People have called it the Gray Jedi Code, which is hilarious in and on itself and another point in favor of the argument that the so called Gray Jedi are just canon Jedi.)

I'm sure everyone can agree that this one is good.

Feel, but find peace in your emotions. Know nothing, but figure it out. Suffer, but look past it to find serenity. Just like there is chaos, there is harmony. And just like there is death, there is the Force.

But what if I told you that both Codes are saying the same thing?

I know, I know. You probably think I'm crazy, but… what if they're saying the same things, in different ways?

To expand on the interpretation that the first one is how you should be when using the Force (and I admit with my whole chest that this is my interpretation), we can say that the Force isn't naturally things like emotion and chaos. They are only what we bring with us.

That doesn't make them any less real. They are, and they are important, but they are subjective experiences. Everyone will have different emotions, different passions, different things they are ignorant of. Even death, even as it will come for everyone, is something private and personal. I don't know what X person felt or thought when they died.

However, things like peace, harmony and the Force are universal.

Chaos (noun): "complete disorder and confusion." "the property of a complex system whose behaviour is so unpredictable as to appear random"

Dictionary definition, bear with me. "Whose behavior is so unpredictable as to appear random". It isn't random, it has patterns and reasons to happen just like everything else. We simply don't know those patterns. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Just because we don't know something doesn't mean we can't learn it. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. Therefore there is no such thing as chaos, not really, just a pattern, an order, a harmony, we don't know yet. First definition is about human reaction, not anything about the object itself. There is no chaos, there is harmony.

Emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos, even death. They are all feelings, subjective experiences, things that, ultimately, can change as you find new understanding (well, death only happens once and is permanent but you get the point). But inner peace, knowledge (about situations, about people's reactions), serenity and harmony are all universal. They exist, and will exist long after we die, we just have to find them.

And, long as we remember people, as we understand that all lives have left a mark, big or small, we will keep those who have passed alive within our hearts.

Death, yet the Force. There is no death, there is the Force. Or, perhaps…

"(The Force)'s an energy field created by all living things" Obi-Wan Kenobi, ANH

"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter" Yoda, ESB

"No one's ever really gone" Luke Skywalker, TLJ

Death, yet the essence of living beings. There is no death, there is life.