The Language of Okoto Chapter 10: An Okotoan Grammar [crosspost] We have reached the end, so let’s go out with a bang, shall we? All of the previous posts have been solely focused on breaking down the small dataset available to us and fleshing out the form and meaning of various words/lexical items, which is basically just vocabulary-building. But if we want Okotoan to be usable in any form, we’ve gotta mix in a bit of grammar at some point, right? Right. The time has come. Table of C
Oh hi. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? At least, it’s been a while since I posted anything of substance here. I’ve actually been pretty freakishly active on my tumblr blog over the last couple of months, although not so much in recent weeks. That’s due to the fact that the academic year has once again begun, and my time is now mostly consumed by a combination of teaching and coursework. woo But, in spite of that, I have managed to eke out something that might be of interest to the Matoran language
Nuparu and the Dakhi-Na Vahki / The Six Commandments of the Law [ also there] The Onu-Matoran engineer-inventor Nuparu is well-known as the creator of the last generation of law-enforcement automatons to be implemented in the city of Metru Nui prior to the Great Cataclysm. This was the culmination of a series of attempts to control crime-rates and unrest spanning the period after the tragic events of the Matoran Civil War. While it is true that Nuparu was primarily responsible for the
LEARNING MATORAN - LESSON 6 - Well, it’s been a long time. Time makes for changes. Change is scary. But after a long hiatus, I’ve worked up the motivation to post another installment of this project. Recently, I have actually been surprised to see some interest in the continuation of this endeavor, and for that I am grateful. I’m afraid the changes to this conception of the Matoran Language have been significant--enough so that some of the previous lessons are now a bit outdated. This i
After four relatively large entries crammed with information on the Matoran language, it strikes me that I still have enough of this stuff to go on for quite a long time. It’s exhausting (yet somehow rewarding) to put these things together, and I hope someone out there derives as much enjoyment from the topic of Matoran linguistics as I have. With this in mind, I’m considering making this an actual regular thing, possibly weekly or twice-weekly, with smaller, more focused amounts of informatio
You people have brought many a smile to my face the past few days. After the time invested in the Matoran Dictionary project over the last several years, the sudden boost in exposure and overall positive response—both on BZP (thx news!) and off—means a lot. I’m glad to see so many people delving into it and having fun. In the end, that was the impetus for this project: my own personal enjoyment and enjoyment for other members of the Bionicle fandom. It’s all very satisfying. Heartfelt thanks.
Irnakk the Fearsome: As real as pain and death [ yikes] Although Matoran culture doubtless remains the most widely recognized and influential of the cultural systems which arose within the Matoran Universe, it was not the only culture to exist. The various non-Matoran races created by the Great Beings eventually formed their own individual cultural variations, although the imprint of Matoran culture remained. One interesting example of this interplay between cultural concepts – especiall
[oh a tumblr what] Treatise: Translating the Avohkii : Part 3 : Take a stroll through the previous posts for all the juicy, juicy previous details. For now, here’s where we’re at in the translation process: The bolded parts have been translated as follows: The string ke-whenu-ka consists of the word whenu(a) "hidden/secret underground" modified by two particles: the basic locative particle manifesting as ke- "in/at/on" and the origin particle manifesting as -ka "from, out of". Th
July 4th? Independence Day? This seemed appropriate: "The Star-Spangled Banner" (first verse) O say can you see / by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed / at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars / through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, / were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, / the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night / that our flag was still there; O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
If you’re someone who remembers BZPower back before the archive deletion and downtimes (I confess, I’m getting murky) and roughly prior to '08-'09, you might know me as a different person. I mostly lurked 'round this little forum called Artwork II, which was the place where all the shops and "sprite kits" were safely hidden from the world. Back then, most of my contribution to BZP came in the form of pixel art. Yeah, it was a different time. Well, I haven’t done any pixel art for quite a while
This (rather brief) entry focuses on the words in Group 2, as quoted from the start of the previous entry: 2) barraki, brakas, brutaka, brander Group 2: All of the words in Group 2 exhibit an element bar-, b(e)ra-, or some variation thereof. These variants all derive from an ancient compound consisting of the stem kae and the particle ār: kae-ār. barraki, n.cmpd. “warlord, military leader” barra, n. “war, conflict; instability, imbalance, chaos” aki, n. “leader, lord” [from aka “power
[it must be cleaned] The Bohrok have remained shrouded in mystery since the earliest stages of Matoran history, their origin and purpose the subject of much superstition. The first Bohrok nests were discovered by Onu-Matoran mining beneath the city of Metru Nui in the period shortly after the Coming of Mata Nui . The nests were already quite ancient and were at first assumed to be the tombs of the original founders of the City of Legends (It would be another hundred thousand years before this
Lhe ke ovahi o,
gaa kaira teraio’na
a Taka a Kraa, e’ Arta a Khar.
Ie te ngie zyo.
I ava e’ awa ekamo.
During that time,
Two brothers ruled
Light and Dark, Arta and Khar
They strove against each other
And the first cast down the second.
-- From “The Legend of the Bionicle”
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My, folks, it's been a while. Don't worry. I'm not dead or anything. The project continues!
In fact, it's like...it's like I can't stop.
...
Help me.
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A while back (almost a year, actually) I posted a series of Bionicle short-fiction snippets over on this blog. Each post was an entry into a larger story, which was intended as an expansion of the Bionicle G1 storyline related to the nature of the Red Star (specifically, what if the Red Star fell out of orbit? Who might survive, and what would they do?) I got through five posts (and a sixth was in the works) before burning out, as happens, and they never generated much interest, so I let it re
[ don't forget] I wanted to do one final Matoran Language translation for the year, and what better text to translate than "Auld Lang Syne"? In fact, the theme of the song feels doubly appropriate for the Bionicle fandom this year, with the final closure of the original line and the exciting rise of the new generation of sets and story. With that in mind, I decided to translate the titular Scots refrain Auld Lang Syne "Days of Long Ago" using the familiar Matoran phrase Ivaha Vahai "In the
The Language of Okoto Chapter 2 [crosspost] (Note that the material in this post is basically a culled-down/revised version of this post.) Now that we’ve collected a dataset, the next step in the project to construct an Okotoan Language is to take a part of that dataset and attempt to break it down into smaller units. The best way to do this is to assign some reasonable meanings to a few of the terms available and then use a bit of comparative methodology and some etymological know-how
LEARNING MATORAN - LESSON 8 - I. Objective Particles: You have already encountered the subject, basic objective, and possessive particles in previous lessons, but there are many particles that remain to be discussed. The particles discussed in this lesson can also be classified as objective particles, but, in contrast to the basic objective particle, they provide information on the spatial and temporal positioning of a noun, as well as on nature of the action denoted by the verb. Six pa
TOAVAKAMAJAI - THE PROPHECY I'akua, taka-kui rayaku. Amaja lhikai-na rokha: Toa Mata Nui haya. Ivaha, nga roraga-rhui. Still, all hope was not lost. Legends tell of six mighty heroes, the Toa, Who would arrive to save Mata Nui. Time would reveal that these were not simply myths... -- Toa imahra voya, kouya, Ceura, aku-rhui. Mata Nui'ai Matoroi Ikraaka hau takaya. For the Toa would appear on the shores of the island, it w
Alright, after that brief interlude, we’re back on schedule. This is going to be a semi-regular series, posted on Monday or Tuesday, as possible. I’ve abbreviated “Meaningless Names” to “MN”, since I originally wanted to call it “Matoran Notes”. Best of both worlds, this way. =P Before jumping into the discussion, I’ll start with a brief plan for this entry and the next two entries: Three groups of words, some (seemingly) related, some (seemingly) unrelated. Ultimately, it will be seen that th
Naming the Toa Mata [ over there] Assumption #1: The names of the Toa Mata were constructed at the very beginning of the Matoran Universe and have preserved their forms throughout history; hence, they provide a window on the form of the Matoran Language in its earliest stages. Assumption #2: The names of the Toa Mata should be subjected to only the most limited of sound changes (if any), in contrast to other Bionicle names/terms, which are more likely to have been systematically altere
The Language of Okoto Chapter 7 [crosspost] At this point, I think we’ve pretty much eked out all the information we reasonably can from the topic of the words toa/ta/okoto without having to rely on anything other than the contents of the dataset and some basic hypothesizing. With that in mind, we could stop...or we could move into realms of more-or-less pure speculation. I’ll take the latter choice in this post for the sake of creativity and completionism. In particular, we still haven’
[hey look a tumblr] Treatise: Translating the Avohkii : Part 2 : Check out the previous post for the full lead-in. Here’s a summary: There is an inscription written on the Mask of Light. The Mask of Light film novelization provides the “text” of this inscription, while the Mask of Light film itself has a sequence of actual dialogue where the inscription is pronounced. The two versions are different, but are clearly related. Starting with the version transcribed from the film, I will at
The Language of Okoto Chapter 9 [crosspost] At this stage, we have reached what I think is, for all intents and purposes, “ground zero” for the language of Okoto. We have picked apart, decomposed, rendered down, and theoretically dismantled almost the entirety of the dataset established in Chapter 1 (to the near-exclusion of the names of the Masters, which continue to have an uncertain status). What more is there to do? Quite a bit, it turns out. This post will focus on tying up some loo
Chapter 11 of Mask Maker has been posted, and that's all folks! It's a pretty bittersweet ending...not just for the story, but also for myself, since this is actually the largest piece of Bionicle fanfiction I've completed, and it'll likely be the last (for a good long while at least). In a sense, this story is an attempt at bringing closure to the somewhat open-ended state in which G1 has remained since 2010, as well as a way of transitioning from G1 into G2 and beyond. That's what it is for
