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Expanding on Skakdi


WhereFMF

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Ladies and gentlemen, I have developed the barely-mentioned Skakdi into a full language. That is, I have created a rudimentary language framework, and all that needs to be filled in is the vocabulary. Also conjunctions. I didn't make up any conjunctions. Edit: and prepositions.

 

Read all about it here: http://www.mediafire.com/view/7b3wjeaxjcs6669/Skakdi.pdf

Edited by WhereFMF
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Reading this .pdf file makes me realize there are still words I don't know. It's like reading A Princess of Mars all over again.

 

I am impressed by your work in building a language almost from scratch, albeit skeletal in depth. You should share this with your family. :D

Edited by Sir Iaredios

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Dude... you're the new Tolkien. This is absolutely amazing.

Don't you mean the third? *rim-shot*

Edited by Sir Iaredios
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Reading this .pdf file makes me realize there are still words I don't know. It's like reading A Princess of Mars all over again.

 

I am impressed by your work in building a language almost from scratch, albeit skeletal in depth. You should share this with your family. :D

 

"What have you done this week, my child?"

 

"Me? I just developed the framework for a fictional language out of several mismatched words, suggested linguistic patterns and mouth anatomy. How about you?"

 

In all seriousness, this is pretty flippin' amazing. I'll hopefully expand on this topic with some phrases and perhaps some sentences later on. Liberties may have to be taken, of course. Please continue blowing my mind in future.

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< -< =<o>= >- >


 


 


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< -< =<o>= >- >

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Reading this .pdf file makes me realize there are still words I don't know. It's like reading A Princess of Mars all over again.

 

I am impressed by your work in building a language almost from scratch, albeit skeletal in depth. You should share this with your family. :D

 

"What have you done this week, my child?"

 

"Me? I just developed the framework for a fictional language out of several mismatched words, suggested linguistic patterns and mouth anatomy. How about you?"

What parent just says that casually?! :superfunny:

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It's because I think hexadecimal is a superior number system.

 

If you want a canonical explanation, cultures don't always develop number systems based on the number of fingers they have. I'm aware of one language that has words for "one", "two", "many", and nothing else; and another (Filipino, I think?) that counts by 27, using their eyes, nose, armpits, all their upper torso's features. Maybe Skakdi use their spines. We don't even know how many fingers the Skakdi have (although movie screenshots show Matoran and Toa with ten).

Edited by WhereFMF
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Very interesting stuff! Great work. I'm wondering if there is any rationale behind the word-creation, or is it mostly a priori? I've done a little creative work on a Skakdi dialect of the Matoran Language, and one of the phonotactic patterns that stuck out to me was the fact that Skakdi doesn't seem to have any stop consonants in word-initial position. The closest it gets is the equivalent of a fricative (zaktan, vezok, hakann, skakdi, thok, etc.) or an approximant/nasal (reidak, nektann). Any other patterns you've identified?

 

Also, note that the term fenrakk looks suspiciously Skakdian in origin to me, in which case you could add [f] to the sound inventory. That said, it would interfere a bit with your explanation of stress (always assigned to a [k]-containing syllable), since BS01 lists the pronunciation as ['fEn.rak]. Likewise, the island name Zakaz would seem a good candidate for a Skakdi term, but would also interfere with the stress rule (BS01 says ['zej.kaz]).

Edited by Tolkien
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I would accept adding [f] to the language, since it's another labial approximant you could make while smiling. But the word "Fenrakk" couldn't possibly be of Skakdi origin. The Fenrakk species was created by the Makuta and inhabited Voya Nui long before the Piraka arrived.

 

I take English pronunciations of Skakdi words as Anglicizations, and assume that the Skakdi would pronounce it [zɑ'kɑz], just like [fræns] versus [fʁɑ̃s].

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I would accept adding [f] to the language, since it's another labial approximant you could make while smiling. But the word "Fenrakk" couldn't possibly be of Skakdi origin. The Fenrakk species was created by the Makuta and inhabited Voya Nui long before the Piraka arrived.

 

I take English pronunciations of Skakdi words as Anglicizations, and assume that the Skakdi would pronounce it [zɑ'kɑz], just like [fræns] versus [fʁɑ̃s].

Fair enough, although saying that fenrakk "couldn't possibly be of Skakdi origin" is a bit strong. It could easily be the case that the species-name Fenrakk is the "Skakdicization" of an otherwise normal Matoran name, and that we are simply introduced to the Skakdi-version of the name because Fenrakk is primarily associated with Vezon. The reason I mention it is that the surface form of the name looks quite Skakdi-ish--at least, no other Matoran word exhibits an ending -kk, but one word that is closely associated with the Skakdi does, namely irnakk, and that ties in with the possibility that gemination of (some) final consonants seems like a good candidate for a Skakdi innovation (hakannnektann...). Maybe, maybe not...

 

I assumed your stress rule was based on the pronunciations listed for words like vezok [vej.'zak], nektann ['nEk.tan], avak [ej.'vak], etc., taking them as literal pronunciations (at least in terms of stress), rather than just Anglicized forms (which was why I thought you explicitly listed reidak ['rej.dak] as an exception). That said, you don't actually have to disregard a word like Zakaz. You could simply alter your syllable-structure rules slightly such that Skakdi (rather weirdly, but hey it's Bionicle) prefers to minimize onset consonants word-medially, so a word like zakaz would be syllabified /zak.az/, hence stressed on the [k]-containing syllable: /'zak.az/. This would still leave reidak /'reid.ak/ as your one exception, but you could then also make the logical step that the names hakann and zaktan (which BS01 is missing a specification of stress for) are syllabified/stressed /'hak.ann/ and /'zakt.an/.

 

Awesome stuff, either way. =)

Edited by Tolkien
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Whoa! This is amazing! I love how you broke it down to its roots. Gotta go develop some words for this. See what I can construct!


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  • 3 weeks later...

Man, this is some seriously cool stuff. Constructing a sophisticated language system from a couple of words is very impressive. Now, I reckon I'll just go and start developing some more words. What are we without conjunctions?

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