WIP Discussion (Part 1!)

[Siber]

@cacambo43: No glitch, your guess is right. Check out http://www.well-of-souls.com/outsider/loroi_trade.html and you will find no c or k. I imagine Loroi are perfectly capable of making K sounds through roughly the same means that humans do, they just don't use them in their language. Most languages omit a handful of possible sounds.

@Hālian: That seems like it'd be far too much work to fix and probably not relevant to the uses Arioch is likely to put it to.

...is what I was going to say when I first read your post this morning, but some quick research shows there's a possible way to do it easily, so I implemented that. I don't entirely trust it, so I did it as a second section on the site.


Actually a third, since Arioch told me what he'd really get use out of is a numeral conversion, which is understandable. So I did that too. Haven't gotten confirmation yet that it's working as desired, but in my testing it looks right, so there it is.

[GeoModder]

Is it intentional that the 'sh' character in Loroi Trade is used for the 'h' character in our alphabet?
I tried with 'humanity' --> 'itinamoh'.

[Siber]

I'm using a font that Arioch posted many moons ago. There's probably unicode character one could use for sh, but if you want something easily typable, it's gotta be one of the standard 26 letters used for it, and they've got an S but no H, so it makes sense. There's no Y or U, so one does wonder how they'd actually write 'humanity'. Oimaniti?

[GeoModder]

I'm using a font that Arioch posted many moons ago. There's probably unicode character one could use for sh, but if you want something easily typable, it's gotta be one of the standard 26 letters used for it, and they've got an S but no H, so it makes sense. There's no Y or U, so one does wonder how they'd actually write 'humanity'. Oimaniti?

The answer must be somewhere in the forums since I asked that same question years and years ago.

[cacambo43]

@cacambo43: No glitch, your guess is right. Check out http://www.well-of-souls.com/outsider/loroi_trade.html and you will find no c or k. I imagine Loroi are perfectly capable of making K sounds through roughly the same means that humans do, they just don't use them in their language. Most languages omit a handful of possible sounds.

I guess it's good they call him Jardin or Enzin instead of Alex.

CJSF

[Siber]

No J either. Or Y, which would be the most common substitution, I would think.

[Arioch]

Thanks, Siber!

Both versions of the Trade font (Hand and Block) both use the same character mapping, so cut and paste works fine for me.

Loroi typically substitute G for K, and Z for J or TH.

[GeoModder]

I'm using a font that Arioch posted many moons ago. There's probably unicode character one could use for sh, but if you want something easily typable, it's gotta be one of the standard 26 letters used for it, and they've got an S but no H, so it makes sense. There's no Y or U, so one does wonder how they'd actually write 'humanity'. Oimaniti?

The answer must be somewhere in the forums since I asked that same question years and years ago.

Darn. I don't seem able to find that posted answer again.

[Siber]

I imagine for professional reports they'll have something like the International Phonetic Alphabet to describe all the sounds you could encounter in a multi-species society. Informally, vowels are squishy and they can probably use whichever ones they want to replace the u and y. Because of how Hs work vocally I'd imagine they just drop it. My money would be on 'omaniti' if you weren't talking to someone who was making a serious effort.

[Dorfington]

Greetings everyone, long time lurker here and I've been loving the comic. I have a few questions regarding the Loroi language though.

Arioch, I've been having fun using the various insider pages to write out sentences in Loroi trade, and then typing that into Siber's script converter. Good fun.

However, I've noticed that the information regarding the Loroi trade is rather limited, with there only being three pages. Whilst the Lexicon is quite varied (I see you even have "vagina" in that list lol), it is still missing various words such as "my", "your", "toy", "with", "insert", "enter" ect. As well as examples for various elements of grammar such as a possessive suffex ('s). How would you say "The hunter's spear" for example? Would it be "-insert Loroi word for "the"- talas' rezai"?

Judging from the sources you've provided on the insider segments, I believe "Un-shielded" translates to "Sa-leideras", correct?

Is there a much more extensive file regarding Loroi words and what they translate to? And would you be willing to share it? I'm very curious.

Also now that I think about it, why did you put "vagina" in the short lexicon page? And why is "penis", "testicles", "anus" and "tits" not included? I'm sure such a deep hard hitting question will take time to answer, but I must know the truth!

[Siber]

I don't know if there's any specific stories Arioch might tell about words included or not, but if I recall correctly the software he used to originally create the lexicon had a core vocabulary of words that you would expect to find in any human culture, which it generated trade words for based on rules he defined. It's my understanding there's a bigger list of 'confirmed' words on Arioch's hard drive, but turning them into the pretty table format for the website takes work.

That's probably something that could be scripted relatively easily, too, come to think of it...

edit: also, I think you overlooked 'roshro'.

[Arioch]

However, I've noticed that the information regarding the Loroi trade is rather limited, with there only being three pages. Whilst the Lexicon is quite varied (I see you even have "vagina" in that list lol), it is still missing various words such as "my", "your", "toy", "with", "insert", "enter" ect.

Is there a much more extensive file regarding Loroi words and what they translate to? And would you be willing to share it? I'm very curious.

Also now that I think about it, why did you put "vagina" in the short lexicon page? And why is "penis", "testicles", "anus" and "tits" not included?

Yes, there is a larger source lexicon from which the smaller "official" lexicon is drawn.

Trade language was created by coming up with a modest set of example words (mostly proper nouns like Loroi, Deinar, Erebas, Taben, Perrein, Eilis, etc.) and then breaking them into phonemes and word rules, which were used to dynamically generate a random list of words. This list was imported into a spreadsheet containing a lexicon of English words, assigning a random word to each. Then I went through the list by hand and massaged and rearranged the words to try to make it seem more like a natural language, so that words with the same word-cell have similar meanings. etc. This last step is essentially an infinite time sink, and so it's never really finished. When a new word is called for, I check to see if there's an existing entry in this source lexicon, and I check it to make sure it makes sense within the context of similar words, and then I mark it as verified. It looks like this:



Unfortunately, I don't always remember to properly mark a word when it's verified, so when I do a dump of verified words for the official lexicon on the web site, some words are inevitably left out. The reason why the word for vagina (rishiri) is in the official lexicon and the word for penis (mizat) isn't is just because the former was marked as verified and the latter never was. (I'm not sure why the former was marked; I'm guessing someone asked me specifically.) So there are still many words missing from the official lexicon, and similarly the grammar rules include only those things I have bothered to work out, and there are still parts of speech that are missing.

It would not be appropriate to release the source lexicon, because most of the words in it are not verified; they're randomly assigned phonemes which might be duplicate or nonsensical or contradictory or otherwise inappropriate when compared to the "official" part of the lexicon. As you can see in the above excerpt, "soybean" and "harpy" don't even belong in an alien lexicon.

As well as examples for various elements of grammar such as a possessive suffex ('s). How would you say "The hunter's spear" for example? Would it be "-insert Loroi word for "the"- talas' rezai"?

You can use the preposition mi ("of") to indicate possessive, and sopis ("this") to make it demonstrative.
talas rezai "hunter spear; hunting spear"
talas mi rezai "hunter's spear; spear of hunter"
sopis talas mi rezai "spear of this hunter"
talas mi sopis rezai "this spear of a hunter"

These modifiers can be chained:

inzil mi nites mi Naosiga mi rezai "spear of Nausicaä of valley of wind"

Judging from the sources you've provided on the insider segments, I believe "Un-shielded" translates to "Sa-leideras", correct?

Leiler ("shield") is a noun, so I don't think you can just conjugate it like a verb. Sal-leiler means "not-shield", which implies some sort of anti-shield. Better options might be:
sallan leiler "no shields"
leiler sena "without shields"
sal-morridas "unprotected" (morri- "protect, defend")

And yeah, I had to pull morri out of the unofficial lexicon. Such is the lot of an artificial language; a word doesn't really exist until someone tries to use it.

[Jayngfet]

To be fair to the word Harpy, there is a word for Mermaid. With three planets to draw from there's probably a word that's "like that other thing, but a bird" in there somewhere, or if not that then some kind of decal. Mythologies have enough birdmen that you can assume any culture with a lot of avians will probably have equivalents. If there's an animal people will compare it's qualities to there, and visual representations probably will follow soon after.

[Dorfington]

Thank you for the answers. I didn't expect to get a response so soon.



That image! It is like a glimpse into heaven, however flawed and unpolished it may be.

You can use the preposition mi ("of") to indicate possessive, and sopis ("this") to make it demonstrative.
talas rezai "hunter spear; hunting spear"
talas mi rezai "hunter's spear; spear of hunter"
sopis talas mi rezai "spear of this hunter"
talas mi sopis rezai "this spear of a hunter"

These modifiers can be chained:

inzil mi nites mi Naosiga mi rezai "spear of Nausicaä of valley of wind"

Thank you for the clarification, though I fear your answer has only generated more questions. There are still some missing words such as "my", "with" (I assume it is "sen" as "without" is listed as "Sena") and "your". For example, how would I say;

"I bend down towards my toy and pick it up with my hands."

"You insert your key into the lock and open the door."

"They fell down the big hole".

"I would like to try a different activity"

"It's getting a little sexual in here"

"Do you regret answering me yet?"

And yeah, I had to pull morri out of the unofficial lexicon. Such is the lot of an artificial language; a word doesn't really exist until someone tries to use it.

Do you happen to update the lexicon page every time you verify a new word?

The reason why the word for vagina (rishiri) is in the official lexicon and the word for penis (mizat) isn't is just because the former was marked as verified and the latter never was. (I'm not sure why the former was marked; I'm guessing someone asked me specifically.)

Someone asked you for that word specifically? Haha, what a weirdo ...




... so what is "anus" in Loroi?

[Arioch]

There are still some missing words such as "my", "with" (I assume it is "sen" as "without" is listed as "Sena") and "your".

Trade doesn't have possessive pronouns; you just apply the possessive modifier as normal: "my" and "your" would be tezair mi and lozen mi.

"With" in the sense of the preposition "accompanied by, including" is pazed, but in the sense of the verb "use or utilize" is neimo.

"I bend down towards my toy and pick it up with my hands."

Tezair mi pezendes monnen (tezair me) tillo tii mezi to tezair mi lishran neimodas (tezair me) lallai.
"My toy towards (I) bend, and it using my hands (I) retrieve."

(The explicit tezair me "I, the subject" is assumed in most speech and therefore usually omitted.)

"You insert your key into the lock and open the door."

Sopis saia moidir lozen mi daio lozen me nibato tii sallit ditii
"This lock in your key you insert, and door open."

"They fell down the big hole".

Sopis dirred raridis moidir toizi sinas.
"This big hole in they fell."

"Do you regret answering me yet?"

Not exactly, but I will decline to translate the rest unless you have a specific need for those translations.

Do you happen to update the lexicon page every time you verify a new word?

No. Because of the dual-column nature of the table on that page, individual insertions are problematic, and re-exporting the entire lexicon takes significant effort. I suppose there are things I could do to automate it... but that's a task for another time.

... so what is "anus" in Loroi?

tiio

[Dorfington]

Thanks for the answers Arioch, very intriguing. Apologies for making you scroll through what must be a rather daunting file.

Not exactly, but I will decline to translate the rest unless you have a specific need for those translations.

Actually I would like a translation for "I would like to try a different activity", but I swear that's the last I will ask of you.

For now of course

[Arioch]

Actually I would like a translation for "I would like to try a different activity", but I swear that's the last I will ask of you.

Nozota rizes tizilad to nazira.
"Different activity attempting (I) want."

[Hālian]

No. Because of the dual-column nature of the table on that page, individual insertions are problematic, and re-exporting the entire lexicon takes significant effort. I suppose there are things I could do to automate it... but that's a task for another time.

Perhaps a single, three- or four-column table, with (from left to right) the word transliterated, its English translation, the part of speech, and maybe the word in the Trade script, if making a webfont isn't too difficult?

[bunnyboy]

... so what is "anus" in Loroi?

I wonder if we can expect explicit fanfiction coming soon.

[Dorfington]

... so what is "anus" in Loroi?

I wonder if we can expect explicit fanfiction coming soon.

Don't tempt me boy!