First thread! Ideas on transliteration

[kenro]

I want this thread to reserve for discussion on changing words from one language to another, especially in the case of dead or fake langauges into good literate terms.


It will be moderated...

[kenro]

Canticle Of Sephira is based largely in Sumerian culture, so many of the concepts and words I use should come from there. In one case, I came up on the need for an alien-sounding word for 'beginning student'. I chose the Japanese word for 'student', altered to seem more Sumerian.

eg gaqunsey


After a little research, I realize this isn't quite right. I think 'the beginnings of the bonds of battle' would be more appropriate for the concept I intended.. But maybe 'mumusidru duranki', besides (considering my near-total ignorance of Sumerian) being likely constructed entirely incorrectly, seems just a little -too- alien.

Maybe I could use 'muranki'... Seems to fit language evolution, and even seems vaguely Oriental.

Any suggestions on this issue?

[Electricpanda]

ooh! Linguistics!

Looking at my good friend Wikipedia, Sumerian appears to have an alphabet: p, b, t, d, k, g, dr, m, n, ĝ, s, ts (somewhat like z), š (either like ch or sh), ś (also like sh), l, r, a, e, i, u. Syllables could also have the following structures: C, CV, VC, CVC.

I looked up the Arabic word for 'stirring' (n'shita, I think). We could roughly transliterate it as n.tsa or n.śa, I think. If we wanted to make 'stirring war', we can use the arabic word barax, which would become, I think, badrš. Together, they would be badršn.śa, which you could romanise as batts n'sha. Though I prefer the mangled sumerian XD

[kenro]

Is it me or does 'bahx n'sha' sound Klingon? I hear they took much of it from Arabic...

[Electricpanda]

I don't know - I've never actually heard it XD

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