Languages

Languages

These pages provide information about my conlangs: Their history (both lore and their conlanging background), phonology, writing system, and grammar. Some languages are more advanced than others, some are merely drafts or collections of ideas.

On the Llof, there are two very distinct types of languages: Dialects of the TONGUE (in capitals because), native to the Rasvrisuam, and symbolic languages, such as the ones we humans speak. My conlangs are all symbolic languages, but it is important to know about the TONGUE, too.

TONGUE

The native form of communication of the Rasvrisuam, the species inhabiting the Llof, is the TONGUE (as. Nunulm, ry. ko lath). In the TONGUE, meaning is not tied to a fixed sequence of sounds, as in our symbolic languages. Sound has to be made in order to speak the TONGUE, but it does not matter which sound. The TONGUE speakers themselves often describe the sounds they make as carrying the meaning (instead of carrying meaning), like ships transporting wares across an ocean. How they actually (technically) manage to get the meaning across is still mostly unknown. It seems to come over a separate channel unique to Ravrisuam.

You’re probably confused now. Let’s try to make it a little more tangible: When Rasvrisuam speak the TONGUE, they make sounds. The type of sounds they make, the phonotactics, the stress patterns vary with region. This is referred to as TONGUE dialects. However, these are not like symbolic dialects where speakers of very distinct dialects may have trouble understanding each other. This is because meaning is not tied to sounds. Instead, they understand each other telepathically (or so it seems). It is like everyone’s talking gibberish, yet they all know what the other person is trying to say.

There does seem to be some grammar tied to these “floating” meanings, and some have tried to write the structures down, although this is always only an approximation. The most famous attempt is the Rasvrisu Script, an ancient logographic script that appears to be rendering an extinct variant of the TONGUE. Apart from this, written TONGUE is limited to the academic world, and it is normally only spoken. The grammar of the TONGUE can also vary between dialects, but, again, not so greatly that speakers of different TONGUE dialects could not communicate.

The TONGUE is the only kind of language spoken among the Free Tribes in the Dimensions. On the Islands, symbolic languages dominate, and most younger Rasvrisuam there are unable to speak and understand the TONGUE. While all Rasvrisuam are generally capable of learning the TONGUE, it gets harder with age and lower empathy. On the other hand, some Rasvrisuam who grew up with the TONGUE as their native language are unable to learn symbolic languages.

Symbolic languages

The inability to write the TONGUE down properly has given rise to symbolic languages on the Llof. In symbolic languages, a certain sequence of sounds or glyphs is tied to a meaning. The sounds or glyphs are symbols for the meaning. This is the case for all human languages, and nowadays, there is also a growing number of symbolic languages on the Llof.

All symbolic languages of the Rasvrisuam are originally constructed, as they used to only speak the TONGUE and had to consciously invent the symbolic languages. The first one was Ancient Ryka, which emerged as a code language for the Asiuluiam, so that its speakers could communicate without Dakiuzen TONGUE speakers overhearing. They would keep their TONGUE channel closed while speaking or lay an alternative innocent TONGUE meaning onto their speech, while the actual meaning was only encoded in the sounds they made. This was a revolutionary concept at that time. The language also had the advantage of being able to be written down.

Ancient Ryka has several modern descendants, and there is a second branch of languages (the Konoic languages) originating from a separately invented symbolic language, Kono. These are the family trees of the two language families: