World Ancient Wynnic Language Rework

it sure is

 

bumping, we need it

 

Since your suggestion touched upon the origins of Wynncraft’s languages, one thing has always been in the back of my mind: how do most people in Gavel fluently speak modern Wynnic/English? The provinces have only been in contact for about hundred years, and it’s canonically illegal for humans to settle in Gavel. Even secluded species like the Dwarves and Elves use it as their primary language amongst each other. The only species that has trouble with Wynnic are the orcs, but even then they still use Wynnic amongst each other.

So would this project address this by creating languages for each major race, or would you give some other explanation?

 

You step into a deep well. Hours worth of conversation have been had on this exact topic. Short (crushing) story is that the in-game language situation isn't concretely defined and CT mostly do whatever. On our end, we've got lots of big complicated language family trees and a lot of work ahead of us to finish fleshing them out (join Wynnlangs today!), but as to the current in-game situation, here are my personal thoughts. Not everyone will agree with me on this, but it's the best I've got based on what we see in-game:

Fruma
Language for Humans begins with Proto-Wynno-Fruman, which is the ancestor of most major languages spoken south of Gavel. The major western standards of this language are Modern Fruman and Modern Corkian, which are both rather conservative and are still mostly mutually intelligible. There are also a myriad of dialects - Fruma is an old human land, and the accents and dialects shift noticeably from village to village.

Wynn
Now, east to Wynn is where things get a bit wild. The language situation here is a spiraling cauldron mess. Underpinning everything you have the fact that Olm (Witherhead, Mysterious Merchant) were known to survive in Wynn, which lead to the principle of Ancient Wynnic being the original substrate language under everything. It creoles with the Fruman spoken by first wave of expanding humans, giving those humans (and dying bits of Olm) massive chunks of vocabulary, sounds, and grammar. These "most Olmic" dialects can be found in-game in places like the Desert Empire and especially the Dernel tribes (closest to the Olm), some of whom to this day have dialects so divergent you just can't understand them. This stage of the language is either Old Wynnic or Old Wynnian, depending on style guide.

More and more humans flood in, and an initially very Ancient-Wynnic style creole slowly yanks back towards the more conservative Fruman dialects incoming. And then the war hits. This new stage of the language is less of a straight-up creole than Old Wynnic was, though Ancient Wynnic is still prevalent, and as the thousand-year war continues it begins to form a continuum where Ragni citizens sound more like the westernmost Frumans then they do Almujis. The chaos of the corruption means that there's not even a hint of a standard language, although most people can (with difficulty) still understand most others. Think the gap from Spanish to Italian at the most extreme.

Everything gets more chaotic, though, when the Villagers show up, speaking Low Gavellian. Detlas going from tiny village to provincial Capital gives its brand of Wynnic some prestige, but trade with Gavel means that Low Gavellian is heard just as often within its walls. As the war gets better and communication opens up, Detlas-based "Modern Wynnic" becomes more and more of a dialect-displacing vernacular, but the influx of villager citizens helps Low Gavellian compete its way into vernacular usage as well. Most people in Wynn now are in a triglossia of Dialect, Modern Wynnic, and Low Gavellian.

Gavel
The Player is assumed to know both Modern Fruman and a Fruman Dialect broadly intelligible to Ragni, and gets around with that. Their speech acclimates to Modern Wynnic quickly, and when you go to Gavel most villagers know enough of Modern Wynnic (most popular foreign language, natch) that their sorta-knowing-of-it and you also picking up of bits of Low Gavellian get you through most things, even if your accent is stereotypically human and horrendous. From there, the rest of Gavel is easy: Most other races, though they have their own tongues, have also picked up Low Gavellian, which has about the same use in Gavel as English does in the real world.

Yes I know All Roads to Peace contradicts this. I've spoken to the minds behind those decisions though, and am fairly confident that - with respects - they had zero clue what they were on about. Again, the canonical language situation in this game is "devs are confusing languages for writing systems," a fact that has me crying myself to sleep every eleventh night.


Alas, these are all just my private thoughts. I'm not an authoritative voice on this (nor do I even speak for all of Wynntheory here), but the situation above is what I think makes the most sense.

 

tldr: Villagers learn Wynnic because of trading

I doubt that a bit, since not everyone (a minority I would say) gets into contact with it. Llevigarians and some Cinfrasians, yes. But towns like Olux, Gelibord, Thesead and arguably Ahmsord probably not. (also why learn it when they are hated)

also it is possible for there to be a Wynnic-Gavellian pidgin. Or we pick up languages as the time goes (whih is the most probable imo)

Because then there is dwarven, dogun (though they might speak the former to you) and other languages we somehow understand.

 

That helps, but it doesn’t personally make sense to me how everyone in Gavel learned so quickly and with overall little contact with other humans besides trade cities like Llevigar. The species it makes the least sense with are the Doguns; when they got unfrozen, they still spoke English/modern Wynnic despite being frozen for hundreds of years b4 humans came into contact with Gavel. The Elves in Aldorei Valley would be in close second since they are very isolated and ancient.

Irl, this would be akin to if everyone in China and even in remote areas such as Tibet could fluently speak English after the English started to trade with China. Even when people live in foreign places, it can be awhile b4 they fluently adopt the language. I have friends whose parents have lived in the US for over 2 decades yet they still mostly speak their native tongue and rely on their kids for translation.

Obviously though Wynncraft isn’t real life and I never have given any media criticism before for not have any actual fictional languages. You all have showed just how much work goes into it and I commend you all for it. If we’re going to make Olmic a language, however, consistency-wise it makes sense if not more to have other languages.

Have you all thought about just using real life languages as fictional languages then? I.e. the Villagers would speak French and the Dwarves would speak German, etc. We have CT members that are bilingual so it would make writing dialogue much easier, and it would have the desired effect. In a way, the game already does this with English and modern Wynnic. It’s not unheard of in other media as well; in Adventure Time there’s a character that speaks Korean, but in-universe it’s a language from another dimension.

 

Slowly, but steadily working on it. Although there is a pause in the group effort, I am working on one and @Crepel allegedly too.

No. Personally it would be cheating, to just steal something. Second, it is not creative, like, come on, they are just germans. Third, there could be problem with making it unique enough, German, French, Italian, etc. are simply normal and from what I gathered quite frown upon because it is unoriginal and boring. And using more "interesting" ones (Arabic, Chinese or better Navajo or hawaian) has similar problems to making our own. Also, it could make unwanted connections (e.g. with racism).

Btw they already use (iirc) Old Irish for "Magic" stuff.

 

Another (boring) solution would be to make the player have some kind of translation magic

Edit 1: This would explain why Gerts don't speak broken "English" anymore as they are actually speaking normal Gerten which wouldn't be broken.
Edit 2: In Troubled Tribesmen, the player can't directly understand the language which may be problematic. However translation magic is comfirmed to exist.

 

the power of plot necesity

 

The entire Wynntheory project is amazing. You people clearly put so much effort into these posts, and you keep spewing out bangers. This is incredible.

 

thanks! it took quite a lot of effort and sanity to make this one.

 

i like to imagine the player just knows basic wynnic from fruma, and learned gavellian at some unclear point so they both appear as english despite being different languages, while everything else appears as its actual language/script (ancient wynnic, high gavellian, entamis tribal, gerten :pray:)
so for the most part we just get lucky that everyone already uses either basic wynnic or gavellian since its easier for cross-species communication

 

Goblin, greenskin, Dwarven, (Dogun), Owl/Eagle/Bremminglar tribal, we understand all those languages yet we shouldn't.

(also Entamis tribal uses normal latin script but ciphered)

 

lhyanynnynn anol

 

lhyanynnynn - move, present tense, emphatic (reduplication)
anol - above

Is this proper grammar? The document doesn't really say how to use prepositions...

 

I have no idea. Probably not, I am not very fluent in the language.

On the other hand, considering what I had to work with...

 

ADDENDUM: PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
Tightening that syntax up a bit more.

Via the dark and terrible compulsion of pointing out that yes, the rules are really vague in the adposition department, you've set me to spending like two hours trying to more rigorously define them. Tentative eyes say this looks good, so until I'm awake enough to edit it, this addendum overrides the OP wherever they conflict.

Test Clauses:
The person entered their home - The person saw god - The person survived - The family heard the person.
Arg o eryt wozer sam - Arg o lih thacyen arannan - Arg opoc mernnan - Lih er arg o venra.


Prepositions
ES - in/side
ROS - out/side
ANOL - above / before
REN - below / after
KONRO - left / to the left of
FRERO - right / to the right of
EFARE - in front of
REFARE - behind
EREV - close to
YMYR - in the area of
VERGON - from / away from
LE - to / towards
ORZ - alongside/with/simultaneously
OZE - with which
Words of this class are considered to be "inside" clauses, altering phrases. They always preposition the noun that they depend on. They can either attatch to a single noun as a determiner or link multiple nouns into a greater phrase. Special consideration goes to "oze" at the end, which requires an entire clause as dependent and creates a noun phrase.


The Ones That Link Clauses
KRON - then
PHE KAN - due to / for / because
KANRE - despite / even though
KRIN - since
IO - And
STY - Or
STA - Nand (Actually negates both attached clauses. "I'm here sta I want to be" would actually translate to "I'm not here and I don't want to be")
SAYL - Nor (This one does work how you think it does, though)

In the simple case, words of this class link two independent clauses.

Arg o eryt wozer sam kron arg o lih thacyen arannan. (The person entered the house, then the person saw god.)
This can keep chaining forever. Following clauses can also eliminate agent or patient, should one be the same. Sole remaining argument must be marked.

Arg o eryt wozer sam phe kan lih thacyenpoc arannan. (The person entered the house because [they] saw god.)

Arg o eryt wozer sam kanre arg opoc mernnan. (The person entered the house even though they survived.) <-- infinite chaining is possible but would get weird quick here.

Alternatively, a clause can be attatched with a new agent marked. In this case, the agent is understood to be acting upon the original clause's agent. All required verbs mutate:

Arg o eryt wozer sam kron lih thacyenor aramnan kron lih eror venra. (The person entered their home, then god saw [them], then the family heard [them]. Def a run-on, though!)


These Ones All Got Explicit Definitions in the Opening Post
ORV - genitive marker
KOX - adjective marker (nouns)
OZDO - adjective marker (verbs) / with which one can
KER / KER TEN / KERE / KEDUR - adverb markers.

Place words in this class before their attatched noun or verb. Put any dependent arguments after these, but before the head:

Iste kedur yt kuo mena. (I speak too quickly.)


The Weird Ones
REO - who
WO - which / that

These words are strange and have strange realizations. To start with, they postposition their root noun. Word case with these particles leads to different meanings, both full clauses:

Arg o reo thacyenpoc arannan eryt wozer sam. (The person - who saw god - entered the house.)

Arg o reo thacyenor aramnan eryt wozer sam. (The person - who god saw - entered the house.)

Attatching no word case leads to a third meaning, creating a giant noun phrase:

Arg o reo thacyen arannan eryt wozer sam. (The person who saw [that] god entered the house).

 

Well, how, would you say, should "bump" or "I move this (thread) to the top (of the subforum)" be translated?

 

Short Answer: Iste uzufred ynm le ker eryt anol.

Long Answer:
Let's take it step-by-step.

Step 1: Pronouns got, like, a line in "Noun Assembly" and some confusing sentences in the lexicon, so here's how to make every single one. Inside of this chart are the possessive prefixes (my, your, his, theirs etc.):

Spoiler: Possessives Chart

Attach these to te (self) to get a pronoun. There's no difference between "I" and "me," they're both iste.

Step 2: "to Move" is ynn. Thank the gods, it's not irregular. We also don't have to conjugate it at all (yay!) though we will have to mutate it (இ௰இ).

Step 3: "This," which we'd normally have to translate as "this thing," but we're going to assume that the Olm didn't have internet forums and use thread as directly as a loanword. Since the english sound made by "th" isn't in Olmic, I'm gonna pull a french and replace it with an "s" to create the Olmic-friendly Sred.

Wait, no, that doesn't work. That's pronounced as "Shed." Er, how about an "f"? Fred. I absolutely love when organic rules produce words ridiculous to our ears. (Latin students may remember the endless giggles of the Six Pines.)

Next, we need to add a prefix to specify that we're talking about this "fred".

Spoiler: Distance Prefixes Chart

Clear tends to be the default, but hey let's be cool and say that a thread on some random forum is kinda obscure and that just feels deep to me. "This thread" would then be uzufred. Unfortunately for simplicity, this means that the patient of the sentence is a deep noun, and so the verb ynn mutates to ynm. Due to fun phonetic rules, the sole remaining "n" is now silent.

Alright, that's the first clause down. Our sentence is currently: Iste uzufred ynm... (I move this thread...)
We want to finish our sentence off with something that roughly means "to the top."

Step 4: "Le". It means "to" or "towards." It works almost exactly the same as in english. Iste uzufred ynm le...

Step 5: The finale. We need to say "the top." Now, in any sane language this would be a short and sweet noun, but Ancient Wynnic shall again be concerningly French in this department.

Spoiler: poor wynnic, so far from toki pona, so close to the dark beast

5a: Above is anol, and though Olmic temporal norms would usually have this mean earlier instead of later I think we can let it slide just this once. Let's run a quick noun conversion (every word in Ancient Wynnic secretly wants to be a noun, we're just gonna stick the word "the" in front)

Eryt anol.

5b: That's "the above," let's make it "the above-est" to firmly establish that this is the tippy-top. Add ker (most) to create ker eryt anol.

Final Sentence: Iste uzufred ynm le ker eryt anol. "I move this thread to the top" "I this thread move to most the above."

Should Olmic internet forums have existed I'd imagine that they'd make like that meme and shorten it to "Ynm ker anol" and then "Ymceran" (v.) almost immediately. Or maybe keryta? Lecryta? They've got options.




Edit: I keep getting sucked on back into this thread. This is some serious nerd sniping going on here. I've got other languages I want to be working on, and I've also been set to translate a Passage of Concerning Length too, so like. Please continue asking questions I love them but also aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa this is a lot, ask at peril.

Edit 2: The contents of the Addendum have been added to the Opening Post proper.

 

I think that should "thread" be translated into Olmic, it's more likely to be a word or phrase meaning either "topic", "discussion", "list", "chain", or "string". However, if an English loan is required, I would make the English "th" be spelled as "t" in Olmic as it is stated in the phoneme inventory that sometimes "t" is pronounced as [θ].

Edit: If thought of as "list", "chain", or "string", perhaps the word oryorn in another word class may work?