Castithan language

[Britton]

My main question is “Will competency in any of the non-Earth languages provide an competitive advantage in gameplay?” If it will, then this franchise might be truly revolutionary.

[Escyos]

My main question is “Will competency in any of the non-Earth languages provide an competitive advantage in gameplay?” If it will, then this franchise might be truly revolutionary.

I doubt it will. There may be some signs posted around that lead you to some hidden missions/caches, so maybe.

[Shadinaxx]

I doubt it will. There may be some signs posted around that lead you to some hidden missions/caches, so maybe.

This. I fully support this idea, and would love to see it used. Perhaps even puzzle box locked caches that test your comprehension in the language (along the lines of the various puzzle challenges in Rift).

[Nikolak Tarr]

There are a some mistakes with the transcripts, some extra syllables that are not there. I would like to help a little bit here, let's start with the first one:

This is a thread for the Castithan language.

Heres what we got so far (will add as more become available):
Skaháraya (Sha-kar-a-ya) = Cheers - Listen

Well, the transcript was right on, but then the "phonology" is completely messed up. If you want to transcript the "English" phonology of it, I would say it's more like ska-HARA-ya. In IPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA) I would say: [ska'haraja] but never [ʃakaraja] as is written there.

I concede that the "expletive" was transcripted rather well and it is correctly written in the wiki, but the sentence Jaime Murray says is totally distorted I think. Now we have 3 different videos where she says the same phrase, so one can take the 3 and draw conclusions.

The 3 videos are:
http://watch.accesshollywood.com/vid.../1745592422001
http://blip.tv/cbr/cbr-tv-cci-defiance-6297691
http://www.gamespot.com/defiance/vid...-2012-6387130/

You have:

Ok After some trouble I managed to get down what Jaime Murray was saying:
"Ajixa Helenickaka elenja fanolah meliverai maguxwai fingulashai" (A-Jix-a Helenick-a-ka elen-ja fan-o-lah me-liver-ay ma-goox-way fing-ula-shay) - what it means, well I don't know but its a major spoiler.

Clearly from the other 2 videos we can hear that it's "jixa" not "ajixa", and also "helenika" not "helenikaka", in fact, she even goes as far as marking that "helenika" seems to be a word in itself because of the pause she makes in video 3.

My guess about her "spoiler" is something like:

Shiksa helenika elisha fenola me libere me gukse me fin sheleshe

Of course it's a blind guess not knowing where one word ends and the other begins, but that's what I hear. She certainly seems to say "shiksa" and not "ashiksa" and certainly ends "helenika" in that syllable and doesn't repeat another "ka". The rest is pure speculation.

I would suggest someone correct the wiki and in the future we can compare how far off we were from the real thing.

[Escyos]

There are a some mistakes with the transcripts, some extra syllables that are not there. I would like to help a little bit here, let's start with the first one:

Well, the transcript was right on, but then the "phonology" is completely messed up. If you want to transcript the "English" phonology of it, I would say it's more like ska-HARA-ya. In IPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA) I would say: [ska'haraja] but never [ʃakaraja] as is written there.

That was taken directly from Peterson's Twitter post, so its right.

I concede that the "expletive" was transcripted rather well and it is correctly written in the wiki, but the sentence Jaime Murray says is totally distorted I think. Now we have 3 different videos where she says the same phrase, so one can take the 3 and draw conclusions.

The 3 videos are:
http://watch.accesshollywood.com/vid.../1745592422001
http://blip.tv/cbr/cbr-tv-cci-defiance-6297691
http://www.gamespot.com/defiance/vid...-2012-6387130/

You have:

Clearly from the other 2 videos we can hear that it's "jixa" not "ajixa", and also "helenika" not "helenikaka", in fact, she even goes as far as marking that "helenika" seems to be a word in itself because of the pause she makes in video 3.

My guess about her "spoiler" is something like:

Shiksa helenika elisha fenola me libere me gukse me fin sheleshe

Of course it's a blind guess not knowing where one word ends and the other begins, but that's what I hear. She certainly seems to say "shiksa" and not "ashiksa" and certainly ends "helenika" in that syllable and doesn't repeat another "ka". The rest is pure speculation.

I would suggest someone correct the wiki and in the future we can compare how far off we were from the real thing.

Id rather just leave it as its close enough and allows people to say it right without knowing phonetics etc. Plus as recent info has told us, written and spoken is VERY different - Vajuvano is spelt Vaadiubanu but spoken as Vaadiu-ban.

[Nikolak Tarr]

That was taken directly from Peterson's Twitter post, so its right.



Id rather just leave it as its close enough and allows people to say it right without knowing phonetics etc. Plus as recent info has told us, written and spoken is VERY different - Vajuvano is spelt Vaadiubanu but spoken as Vaadiu-ban.

If that is so, where's that twitter post? I follow David and I don't remember it, could you please point towards it? Because I very much doubt that he said "ska" is pronounced "sha" when in the listening he clearly says "ska-ha-raya". Do you really hear this word begins with "sha-ka" as in "Shaquille O'Neal"?

Also he never said that vajuvano is "spoken" as "vaadiu-ban" he just showed how vajuvano is actually written "vaa-diu-ba-nu" and that it comes from a proto *vaadiu-ban as rejo comes from a proto *raidi, that's why he used an asterisk, an asterisk in linguistics means an unattested form. I bet that as "rai-diu" becomes "rejo" (pronounced ['redʒo]) then certainly "vaa-diu-ba-nu" becomes "vajuvano" (IPA: [vadʒuvano] or similar).

The problem is you get confused with the writing but think of it as similar to Japanese, where you write "jyuu-kyuu" but say "jûkyû", or for example "tiyoujin" but say "chôjin", this is very similar to that.

Also... how is "helenickaka" similar to the correct "helenika"? You are adding a syllable. Plus "ajixa" has an extra a there which is not part of the word, listen carefully to the different videos. Being a linguist who loves languages I just want to help out the community, please don't take it the wrong way.

[Escyos]

If that is so, where's that twitter post? I follow David and I don't remember it, could you please point towards it? Because I very much doubt that he said "ska" is pronounced "sha" when in the listening he clearly says "ska-ha-raya". Do you really hear this word begins with "sha-ka" as in "Shaquille O'Neal"?

Also he never said that vajuvano is "spoken" as "vaadiu-ban" he just showed how vajuvano is actually written "vaa-diu-ba-nu" and that it comes from a proto *vaadiu-ban as rejo comes from a proto *raidi, that's why he used an asterisk, an asterisk in linguistics means an unattested form. I bet that as "rai-diu" becomes "rejo" (pronounced ['redʒo]) then certainly "vaa-diu-ba-nu" becomes "vajuvano" (IPA: [vadʒuvano] or similar).

The problem is you get confused with the writing but think of it as similar to Japanese, where you write "jyuu-kyuu" but say "jûkyû", or for example "tiyoujin" but say "chôjin", this is very similar to that.

Also... how is "helenickaka" similar to the correct "helenika"? You are adding a syllable. Plus "ajixa" has an extra a there which is not part of the word, listen carefully to the different videos. Being a linguist who loves languages I just want to help out the community, please don't take it the wrong way.

I looked over my work and realized that when i added it to the wiki i did add a few extra letters. So I changed it. If you truly have a better understanding of it, please sign up and help out.

[Nikolak Tarr]

I looked over my work and realized that when i added it to the wiki i did add a few extra letters. So I changed it. If you truly have a better understanding of it, please sign up and help out.

Well, I would totally love to! In fact I think I did but even then I couldn't edit the wiki entry because I didn't have permits or something like that. But I would love to help, this is something I do for a living and I love doing it. I've been studying every bit of Castithan I could find, and that's little enough, but some things seems pretty clear for me. Also I studied languages my whole life, and I've already done attempts of transcripting different weird alien dialogues. I'm not saying my opinion is the law, but I would love to help, plus I love David's languages such as Dothraki and been a follower since I heard about them.

In fact I would like to correct my previous transcription, with what I know now I would say it is:

Shiksa helenika elija fenola me livere me gukse me finje leje

Of course I have doubts about "ks" because it doesn't seem to appear anywhere else. All the rest of the language seems to be very syllabic, almost mimicking Japanese (think, for example, of "Difayantso", in Japanese it would probably be "Difayansu", they both use a final vowel). I wish we could get our hand on that chart for all the Castithan syllabary, we could learn a lot from it.

So, how can I help further?

[Javel_Remois]

Ok After some trouble I managed to get down what Jaime Murray was saying:
"Ajixa Helenickaka elenja fanolah meliverai maguxwai fingulashai" (A-Jix-a Helenick-a-ka elen-ja fan-o-lah me-liver-ay ma-goox-way fing-ula-shay) - what it means, well I don't know but its a major spoiler.

The question is can you say it and sound like a Thai hooker like Ms Jaime Murray?

[Rowan]

Someday I imagine being at a convention and hearing two people speaking Castithan fluently next to me.
I'm pretty sure if I tried I'd butcher it some though...may still try anyway.