Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

starting a little "word" list to make future naming in my own work more consistent.

Basically, I'm making up a ficticious language from the ancient human-naga empire that became the basis for other languages (sort of like latin in Europe).

The Tsaesci uses the almost same language (it originated from ancient naga tongue anyway), but with minor differences in some pronounciations and cultural references (think of it as sort of a close dialect).

The beast folks (tiger-folk, monkey-folk, rat-people etc) originally had no advanced language, instead relying on their own mixture of audible and non-verbal signals to communicate with their own kind, but as they need to communicate with the other races, including other members of the beast folks. Thus, their modern language consists of words and phrases heavily borrowed from other established languages (especially Shinryui), with special phrases/terms for each race which originated from their own beast tongue. In this respect, Ka Po-Tun and Tang Mo shared almost the same tongue (close dialect to each other, more distant dialect to Shinryui/Tsaescii), but most beast folk can still "speak" their own native non-word language (e.g. a slight growl or a slight sway of tail could have specific meanings within a particular race)

Nothing is known about the Kamal having any established spoken or written language at all. (Lore master notes: they have none. They don't have time to spend on "useless" things like written/spoken languages. Instead, they are slightly telepathic to each other << under-design)

So, I thought that I start with the ficticious Shinryui, which I drew elements from asian languages, mainly chinese and japanese as references to pronounciation and possible meanings. The list is small atm, which mainly covers those terms I've used is some of my work. I plan to expand it in parallel as I work on other work.

Note that this covers only SPOKEN language atm. WRITTEN scripts are another thing entirely (e.g. same language could have different scripts, just as different languages could have similar scripts). I've only some pictorial gylphs I've used as "ancient runes" on the pbwiki page. They are regarded as Shinryui runes, which is no longer commonly used in Akavir. i.e. Tsaesci uses a modernized version, Beast folks uses a simplified version, and slaves don't use scripts (at least not openly. Certain slave groups may still secretly teach writing to their younger generations, though it is very risky, especially if it is Shinryui).

Lastly, if there is any request for any "words/phrases/names" of particular meaning, you guys can tell me (maybe post in this thread or another "word request" thread?) I can work on those first. for example:

e.g. say for Knifeblossom, a possible Shinryui name might be
"Rinmei", where "rin" means blade and "mei" refers to plum blossom. Plum blossom is an extremely hardy plant that can flourish in extremely cold environment. Knifeblossom used the plum blossom as the namesake for the connotations of beauty in spite of hardiness and tolerance to harsh environment, and the bared blade for the fact that it is a military fortress that is always ready to protect the nation.

well, just a suggestive example that may have ideas that you guys can use.

shinryu language

HANG ON! :alert:

We where gonna use the japanese language for the Knifeblossom people, it would fit right in with the japanese words that Bethesda already used for all the Tes games (the names of the types of japanese blades).
Now before anyone says: why use a reall world language like japanese?
Well, after all...in cyrodiil they speak english, so why not use japanese language?

However, we could use Sphr's language for the Tsaesci, it could be their language from before they assimulated human culture, so the work is not for nothing

lol.. remember... I'm working on an "ancient" language. And this is basically just a small word list of certain terms. These are more meant for naming/terming (espcially ancient/legendary stuff) rather than daily speaking. E.g. a katana will be called a katana in daily use. But a unique katana might be known by it's "ancient name" e.g, Zanhunto (my adapted form which means the "soul cleaving blade"). (this phenomena is evident in modern japanese too). And besides, there;s nothing wrong with having both an traditional, ancient reference and a modern term for the same thing.

Not to worry too much though. I speak basic japanese you will find a lot of similarities, if not borrowed materials. Why the change is because I'm trying to x-referencing some of the terms/kanji with their ancient chinese source. The reason why I want to do this x-referencing is that chinese is an older language (which was used in ancient japan too) and it is more concise (fully glyphic and single syllabus per glyphy). Although japan is rich in culture, I find that it is a heavily biased view that a lot of people have : asian culture == japanese. There is so much diversity and history in so many areas that I hope that we are not restricted to just one narrow slice of culture. I know that people might argue that perhaps Japanese culture is more well known abroad and such. My thought is : all the more we should capitalize on those things that people are less aware of. That's what the WOW factor is made up of

I'm interested how would Japanese get lip-synched.

Arbiter, i guess it would look like a badly dubbed movie

Sphr, you worry too much about "asian culture == japanese" i have told you before (twice) that we are not gonna turn Akavir into one big japanese island.
The only culture that will be 100% japanese is Knifeblossom, it's also the smallest country on the Akavir islands (Tsaesci will have a lot of japanese influences but will not be 100% japanese).
No one here is thinking that "asian culture == japanese" in fact, i believe that India is the "mother" of asian culture :check:

You might have noticed that we are working on japanese models a lot right now and that might give the wrong impression that we are only gonna use that.
The sad fact is, the only asian models that we could get are japanese...so we make a lot of posts about them

I hope that will clear some things up, don't worry Sphr :]

As far as comparisons go, I think of Knifeblossom as more Japanese and Tsaesci as more Hindu in influence. Tang Mo would be a combination of Mongolian/Polynesian. Ka Po'Tun closer to Southeast Asian (which covers a multitude of cultures by the way). Kamal is...well...Kamal.

Thanks for the reassurance, Kodama .

Actually in my design, Hindu influence is more in the elder races (the demi-immortals and semi-devils), especially Asura, the reputed eldest race (who conveniently dissappeared JUST before the Tsaesci troubles. rumors that they can foretell future may have some basis *wink*). Most of the elder races have roots that are influenced by this (including their traditional names), but had developed seprately into different cultures.

The Naga have had their own culture, but had been influenced by the Asura, which were undisputedly, the "most civilized" race during that era. But the Naga had developed and evolved much of its own culture until it became a small but almost independent and distinctive cultural entity. I'm modelling this using very early history of China. The emergence of the humans and the subsequent cooperation between the human and the naga resulted in one of the most important event in early history : the formation of the Shinryu Empire. The Empire conquered and absorbed smaller nations and proceeded to unify the written and spoken language, and created a very strong cultural identity that rivals the Asura (The Asura is vibrant but is slower in development, while the Shinryu match not only in being just vibrant, but also extremely innovative and creative). I'm using the very early Qin Dynasty as a model, where the first common language used large-scale finds its source. So in my design, Shinryu uses something like the ancient Chinese language (which happens to be what ancient Japan uses).

I amost modern Akaviri language finds its roots there. (remember, Shinryu was wasted 5000 years ago. It is more than enough time for new language and culture to arise, so modern language does not have to be that "close").

The most traditional ones are those that followed the Shinryu most closely. I suggest that the Tsaesci uses that (think of them as ancient Japanese, or a full Kanji system with no hiragana/katakana, and the pronounciation uses the single syllabus version, for those who knows japanese), with the exception for some pronounciation.

There are also those that learn the spoken language but adopted a much simpler writing system so that it is easier for people to learn them. Among them are the Beast folks who then needed a common language to speak with each other (their native tongue is only good within their sub-species : e.g. canine-people might use their tail as an important non-verbal part of communication, but it would be impossible for other races with dissimilar tails to communicate as such). They started off by borrowing lots of stuff from existing fully verbal languages (mostly from the human) but may contain words from other less-spoken languages or even imitation of certain beast calls. This evolved into their own language with its own flavor. But for written, instead of using the glyphic system, where there are potentially thousands (even tens of thousands) of unique glyphs to learn (most of the common beast folks would rather you kill them directly), they created alternate systems of writing where they write down the pronounciation/intonation itself. By following the writing, they can "recreate" the verbal part, but will have to intepret the meaning in context, cos different words which originally had differen glyphs may have the same pronounciation. (for those who speak japanese, this is like pure hiragana. I don;t speak Korean, but I believed that modern Korean is also evolved in a similar way from the chinese scripts? Any Korean speakers can affirm that?).

And of course, there will be those that adopted a mixture, since not everybody has the long life-span of the elder races, nor the highly civilized society of the Shinryu Empire. I'm thinking that since Shinryu was booted 5k years ago, the original script is probably only known by a small number of sage/scholars among the remaining human, whose knowledge may not be complete (so it is possible to come across ancient text with never-seen-before glyphs, which are hot research topics for the scholars). since most of the energy has to be spent on survival instead of learning unique glyphs, they may adopt a partial pronounciation based writing system so that even the non-scholarly inclined can write after learning 50-100 characters. (there, you guys can use the modern japanese as we know it.. lol ). But the ancient script is still used for formal things (e.g. if they were to write treaties... though they have no formal allies atm) as well as by the priests/mages if any, esp when they need to read ancient books or use relics from the distant past. Ancient scripts are also used for names (of places, items, people), though they will also have the simplified version for common use.

The other cultural entities, such as those inspired by polynesian, mongolian etc, can be attributed to minor nations/tribes/people that lived beyond the old borders of the Shinryu Empire. They could have been scattered by the Tsaesci, but could be rediscovered later (i.e. when we find the time and chance to add them into the mod?). They could also be attributed to influence from some of the other races that had disappeared/become extinct/gone into hiding. And the two major beast-folks nations are melting pots of culture, so it could very well have any number of unique cultural entities.

As for Kamal, Kamal is...well...Kamal.

So what do you guys think of this? Suggestions and new ideas are greatly welcomed.

Hey, I was just reading up of Akavir and such and stumbled on ur forums, good fun. I hope you guys odnt mind if I give my 2 cents.

Hmmm, I always thought the Tsaesci had a more Japanese influenec given that they use katanas and wakazachis and members in their tribe have Japanese names, and their history also closely resembes Japans Imperial era where they tried to conquer all of Asia like the Tsaesci tried to conquer all of Akavir.

The Ka Po' Tun to me was more Chinese/Korean, given their obsession with Dragons and the fact that they actually try to become dragons so screams "decendents of the dragon". Not to mention their History with the Tsaesci which closly reflects China and Japans relations, how the Ka Po'Tun still holds a grudge against the Tsaesci for murdering their idols (the rape of nanking), and the fact that the Ka Po'Tun empire has gotten bigger than the Tsaeci which pretty much concerns the Tsaeci just like China's growth now is a major concern of Japan.

The Tang Mo I always thought was closer to the Mauryan Empire of India, arguably the greatest empire ever in Asia (I'm biased ^_^). The word 'unconquered' really stuck out in the Tang-Mo's description which is pretty much like the Mauryan Empire since they had similarities that many nations tried to invade or conquer them, and everyone of them had their asses handed back to them with a banana shoved up it. Also bothe Tang-Mo and Mauryan have been described as peace loving and pacifist. The empire only fell due to internal problems.

The Kamal I have no idea since not much was given about their history, but they used the word "demons" rather vaguely, so I think it might not be just one clan, but alot of other smaller nations that merged together when they driven out and dispalced by the Snake vs Tiger war. I leaning towards a combination of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.

I came across a modder online that posted screenshots of his akavir mods that included a Chinese Fu Dog companion and an Indian Gryphon mountable creature, although I don't think he actually released it since the topics been stale for some time now.

I see that many people (including team members) are not aware that we have sub-races and sub-cultures for the Tang Mo (4 sub-races + their own cultures), the Tsaesci (2 sub-races + mixed culture), Ka Po (2 subraces and later maybe 3, they will have 2 or 3 sub-cultures).
The humans will have a Tsaesci slave culture and there will be a japanese free state too (samurai + ninja = =) ).

Anyway, i think i have to start a tread that explains all of the (sub) races and cultures, just so people wil get an idea of "who is what"

As someone on the official TES Forums once said:
"If we compare the Elder Scrolls races to the ones in real life, it loses it's sense of intrest."

Don't compare them TOO much, or else the races might start acting, and looking like normal humans. The races on Akavir are a little bit too unknown at this point for us to start comparing, especially the Kamal.