#the patented wyrd text wall (tm)

[wyrd66]

I think I’ve covered all of these points on paski languages before, but here is everything consolidated into one post:

There are four paski subspecies (Raatasira, Pilasira, Caandiki, and Binasinga) and four languages (Raatasingh, Pilasingh, Caandisingh, and Binasingh). Since Raatasira rule the world, Raatasingh is the lingua franca of the species. And since all paski speak it, it is becoming the “trade language” between paski and humans.

Each language is based on a real-world language. When I need a word, I plug it into Google translate (which I chose because it is notoriously bad), and then play around with synonyms until I find a sound that I like. Then I change the word, or sometimes combine multiple words, until it is no longer recognizable.

Raatasingh is based on Hindi, Pilasingh is based on Mongolian, Caandisingh is based on Turkish, and Binasingh is based on either Vietnamese or Cambodian, I can’t remember. I want each of them to have distinct sounds and spellings.

The “z” sound does not appear in Raatasingh. If you are speaking Raatasingh and come across a word with a z in it, then that word was stolen from Takasingh, the language of the extinct subspecies, the Takasira. There aren’t a lot of those words, but they are one of the few reminders that the Takasira existed.

The “th” sound does not appear in any of the paski languages. A paski that didn’t learn a human language until adulthood has real trouble with that sound! For example, Cuneyt Kayahan and Mongke don’t say “the”, they say “tuh”. “Timothy” would be pronounced “Timoty”. The “sh” sound also does not appear, so they substitute that sound for the “s” sound. “Shopping” is “sopping”, “shush” is unfair. A paski that grew up around humans and learned that language early doesn’t have that trouble. Bill and Upta, who both grew up on Unity Colony, can speak English fluently. (I didn’t count Banjaree because he has a lisp.)

Paski pronounce their “t”, “d”, and “k” sounds with a distinct click. This is because slurring those sounds drastically changes the meaning of the word. The “kh” aspirant is a fast way to change a word into a slur, or enhance your swear words. “Katen” means “damn”, but “khaten” means “fuck”. Do not slur a paski’s name. Don’t pronounce “Kayahan” as “Khayahan”. If you say their name that way, you are telling them they are khakhaara, trash, barely a member of society. Paski born with congenital deformities, of which Spotties are the most prominent, have trash names:  Dekha Banjaree Keroor, Bayankh mukoBatu. It’s a Big Deal.

I didn’t have my pronunciation rules fully set before I started creating Caandisingh words, so I’m stuck with a “c” that drives me nuts. If I was creating it now, it would be Kaandisingh and we’d have Kuneyt Kayahan, suikastsi instead of our canon Cuneyt Kayahan, suikastci. Instead I have a “c” that obeys the English rule of “it depends on the word”. So I’m saying that whoever was the first person to translate Caandisingh needs to be smacked, and now we’re stuck with that problem. I’ve been saying that the hard “c” makes a slightly different sound than a “k” does, but I have no explanation for the “c” that makes the “s” sound. Gah!

And I get this question a lot, but I’m not making a conlang. I don’t have the patience. XD  I have language rules and some vocabulary for Raatasingh so that I can keep things consistent, and so I can talk about aspects of their culture that just don’t exist in English. Plus it’s fun!

[wyrd66]

I have several headworlds that I’m not interested in sharing on tumblr, however I did come up with what I think is a pretty nifty magical spell so I’m going to share it! For this world, the cliff notes is that there are multiple magical types (eg. elemental, nature, something that greatly resembles runic magic from my Fantasy Thing but uses handsigns instead of written symbols, etc). Some of them you have to born with, some anyone can learn, some require a special rite in order to be able to use it.

The other thing about this world is that a really good indicator of mental illness is the mage being unable to cast a spell on themself. For example, if you know a healing spell and you get a cut, and you try to cast healing on yourself, the spell just won’t take. You can cast on anyone else, but have a really hard time on yourself. Obviously you want to to see a therapist and get a proper diagnosis and treatment, but having a hard time casting on yourself is a sign that you should consider getting help.

So one of the protagonists does have mental illness and he is unable to cast on himself. He is getting help and may be able to do this in the future, but at the time that he invented this spell, he wasn’t able to.

The other thing to know is that no one in this world has been able to invent a true teleportation spell yet, though great minds have been working on it for some time. In this case, true teleportation is being able to transport something or someone anywhere in a given area, instantaneously.

Protag, whose name is Roi, has spent his whole life being unable to cast on himself, so he always has to come up with clever workarounds. He had Plot Reasons where he needed to get from one place to another very quickly, so cribbing off a paper he read where the researchers came very close to true teleportation, he came up with a way to move himself from one set location to another very quickly, without casting on himself.

Okay NOW FOR THE SPELL.

The way the spell is set up is there is a small piece of iron called a “key” that Roi wears on his neck. The key is linked to several other small pieces of iron called “anchors”, that he has buried in various places within his personal spellcasting range, which is several square miles. He activates his spell, and the key is immediately moved to the anchor that the spell is linked to.

Roi gets to be transported along with the key because he manipulates the spell to read the key as being quite large, so it beings along a Roi-shaped field with it. If he took off the key without adjusting the field and activated the spell, a Roi-shaped bunch of air would be taken along.

Since it isn’t true teleportation, the spell is called relocation.

Important factors to keep in mind when relocating:

1) The anchors should be in an area where they aren’t going to be messed with by random citizens. It would suck a whole lot if someone found a nice piece of iron and moved it somewhere else. Roi buried his about three feet deep in places off the beaten path. He set up the spell so that he would appear a few feet above the anchor, so he doesn’t end up half-buried.

2) The key and anchor need to be of the same material, or they can’t be connected. They also need to be durable, so the anchors don’t rot, and they need to be fairly slow to heat. He tried wood but linking three anchors to one key sets the anchors on fire. So far he has had the best success with iron, because it’s tough, it accepts spells well, and it isn’t too expensive.

3) On a related note, the number of anchors you can link to a single key depends on how hot you are comfortable making things. Iron seems to be able to handle six anchors really well. The number of anchors the actual mage can handle is dependent on the mage. When he first invented the spell, Roi struggled with four anchors; several years later he has over thirty in his network.

4) Do not under any circumstances try to send a key to two anchors at the same time. This will vaporize everything and give you one hell of a backlash headache.

5) Be very, very careful setting up your field. Anything within the field attached to the key is relocated, and anything outside the field is left behind. If the field is too small to contain the entire object (or person) being relocated, then... everything inside the field will be relocated and everything outside will be left behind.

6) For some reason, objects that are relocated while in motion always reappear spinning in a clockwise direction. The rate of spin appears to be linked to the object’s velocity before it was relocated, but hell if Roi can figure out why this happens.

7) Mass matters a lot less than volume. A forty-five pound dumbbell weight is less difficult to relocate than a forty-five pound mattress, because the mattress requires a larger field to encompass it.

8) Relocation is an extremely complex spell that has an extremely high energy requirement. Roi is trying to translate it into another magic system that uses the environment for energy instead of his own calories, but it’s fucking complicated and requires a lot of math, and so far he hasn’t be able to replicate it.

So that’s relocation! I just think it’s neat and wanted to share.

[wyrd66]

haanpere replied to your post “I have the day off from work and will be at the computer most of the...”

I'm interested in what kind of art and media paski might have(if any)? :D From all that I've gathered, they don't seem to regard anything that doesn't serve a practical purpose as having a reason to exist, and they seem very serious in general so I wonder, do paski do anything recreational just for the sake of it? Like, create music, make art, write stories/poetry, make movies, anything of the sort? o3o

Oh yes, they absolutely have art and music! They are actually kind of obsessed with beautiful things in general. My idea was that the average paski house (on Duniyaa, or in space) is just adorned with plants and flowers, and on the walls are bright and happy sayings like “happy family”, “full of love”, etc. written in beautiful script. More upper-class houses on Duniyaa may be adorned with precious stones and crystals, or may have mosiacs painted on the walls. Gardens and arboretums are also a Big Thing to paski. The powerful Dar family manages an enormous arboretum that is both world-famous and open to the public. The gardens there are stunning.

They also do paint, and make sculptures, and the like. Ceramics are an enormous part of their culture-- instead of going the way of metals, like us, they use ceramics. There is a ton of clay mud on Duniyaa. Everything is pottery. They have vases and sculptures to die for. Paintings are also very popular to adorn homes, workplaces, etc. with. Banjaree’s Papa, Geet, is actually a very accomplished artist, and his paintings are in quite a few homes on Unity, and some have even been shipped off-planet. And jewelers are always in high demand; very lucrative career.

They also write books and poetry. My idea was that Raatasingh especially is a beautifully poetic language, full of metaphors and epithets. For example, the name for the secondary slashing claw in Raatasingh translates to “moon-shard”. “Moon-shard” is also a way to refer to warships, as they are another weapon. And artificial intelligences, which don’t exist in paski society (being a purely human invention), are referred to in Raatasingh as “mirrors” or “reflections”. So yeah, super poetic language. They produce a lot of written works, though all of it is heavily censored by the government.

They make a lot of movies, and they also have video games. I have some old posts on those in my #society tag, though I can’t be bothered to find them at the moment. XD

For music each subspecies has their own flavor. I was thinking that Pilasira have a lot of hard drum beats and pounding rhythms, and chants in unison-- sort of like a haka? A Daget might have a solo verse because they are that awesome and badass, but otherwise it’s a group thing. For Raatasira I’ve always pictured beautiful stringed instruments like shamisen, and long, drawn-out notes in harmony for singing. No one ever solos, as that’s being selfish and a braggart. I haven’t really found something for Caandiki and Binasinga yet; they’re definitely the less-developed subspecies.

Thank you for asking!