Capitalization Inconsistencies

[Master Inika]

Is anybody else bothered by the inconsistent capitalization in BIONICLE?I've tried to figure out what's right based on the actual media, since BIONICLEsector01 Wiki just capitalized everything. It didn't help that the comic books are written IN ALL CAPS, or that some phrases were only written on BIONICLEstory or in the Chronicles series, neither of which were made by Greg.According to me, at least, this is correct:A Toa of AirA Matoran of SonicsA Turaga of FireA Bohrok of Ice [or Acid/Swamp for Lehvak]A Bohrok-Kal of Electricity [for some reason, only Tahnok-Kal is identified as "of Electricity;" all others are "of Lightning"]A Skakdi of LightningA krana, Krana Ja, krana-kal, Krana Za-Kal, kraata, and kraata-zaA kraata of plasmaA Muaka, kinloka, and kavinika [for some reason, I have never seen kinloka or kavinika capitalized]The fire tribe and bone hunters [i really don't get why they don't capitalize these, but they just didn't]I also generally capitalize anything from Matoran I translate to English, like the VIllage of Air for Le-Koro or Great Scorpion for Nui-Jaga.Typically, I also only capitalize "Species of Element" if the species is capitalized. So, Toa of Air is right, and kraata of power scream also is.Another weird thing is the Matoran language. I just think that certain apsects (like "vahki" meaning "law" in Matoran, "toa" meaning "hero," etc.) are archaic Matoran, like Valmai. The language they all would speak now is some newer version of Matoran, which still has words like "jaga." If we assume all the Matoran words we know are modern Matoran, things would get confusing. For instance, take Garan's famous line from Island of Doom: "You don't have to be a Toa to be a hero." That becomes, "You don't have to be a hero to be a hero." See my point?

Edited January 4, 2012 by Master Inika

[Tavakai]

Yeah, I've noticed that a bit--there's also the fact that "Kanoka disk" translates to "disk disk," "Rahi beast" translates to "beast beast," and so on.The inconsistency is probably there because this is just a children's construction toyline; they didn't expect so much scrutiny.

[Dralcax]

Yeah, I've noticed that a bit--there's also the fact that "Kanoka disk" translates to "disk disk," "Rahi beast" translates to "beast beast," and so on.The inconsistency is probably there because this is just a children's construction toyline; they didn't expect so much scrutiny.

Kanoka/Rahi is the sincerest form of redundancy.

[Voxumo]

Well here is how i see it for example in that line "You don't have to be a toa to be a hero."It's pretty much saying you don't have to be strong or have powers to do good.Also in all reality i Think that the whole this bionicle term means this is more for a explanation of what the terms means for us humans becuase think of all the times they have said Great in the series and don't use the term nui think how weird that would be "you have created a nui piece of art" and you don't see them go Nui Being/ Great Being or for another example is Kuma which when used with nui is Kuma-nui or great rat and you don;t see them going oh no a stone kuma/stone rat. I really believe it's just for proper terms or something similar to how latin is ancient language but is also a base for our basic english.

[Dralcax]

YuGiOh translates to "Game King" in Japanese, but imagine a trading card game literally named "Game King". Same thing. I have no idea what the discrepancy is, though.

[Sumiki]

While the word "Toa" can be literally translated as "hero", there are a lot of things lost in translation between any two languages. There is too much nuance in various languages to capture all when it is shifted into another tongue. In the "Toa/hero" example from earlier, it is literally "You don't have to be a hero to be a hero", but I read it as "You don't have to have all of these insane powers and whoop villain tush all day to be a hero". Because let's be honest, "Toa" implies more than "hero". If it were literal, the Chronicler's Company were Toa, and that didn't happen. (Except for one, of course.)With the Kanoka and Rahi examples, I can't do much more than shake my head, shrug my shoulders, and chalk it up to the fact that it had to be made clear to the kiddies. Having obscure terms in and of itself was pretty amazing, I think. :PI like to capitalize a lot of words from BIONICLE, because, above all, I think they look a bit better that way.

[Master Inika]

Yeah, I've noticed that a bit--there's also the fact that "Kanoka disk" translates to "disk disk," "Rahi beast" translates to "beast beast," and so on.The inconsistency is probably there because this is just a children's construction toyline; they didn't expect so much scrutiny.

Oh, fun fact: "Sahara' is Arabic for "desert," so the Sahara Desert is the Desert Desert.And yeah, that's pretty much the conclusion I've come to. The Matoran language we know (Toa, Kofo-Jaga, Le-Metru, etc.) is all an ancient language, like Latin is to English.One thing that might break this theory is that Hydraxon orders "Manas zya" to Spinax, which is literally "Monster attack." Although, I suspect it's really "Attack monster," like how Metru Nui means "Great City," and not "City Great." Plus, Spinax and Hydraxon were both former agents of the Hand of Artakha, and they probably still spoke Ancient Matoran back then. And they're bilingual and speak Modern Matoran now.One thing still doesn't add up here. The Matoran language itself is a programming language, so why would the Great Beings make two? Perhaps Ancient Matoran was the original language used by the Great Beings, and, like Earth's languages, Matoran evolved over time into Modern Matoran. Is the BSS still active? If so, I think I should send this Ancient Matoran/Modern Matoran thing to them.

[Axilus Prime]

I just capitalize anything in the Matoran language. Simple solution, and probably the most proper way of doing things.

[Black Six]

Since this is about something related to the storyline, moving to S&T...

[Zarohum]

There was a topic on the Matoran speaking Agori now, in which this came up. "Toa Hero" for one is usually only heard from treespeakers, or by a narrator. Think of the word Kleenex. Most people use it to refer to tissues, when the word itself refers to a brand rather than a product. Same with Windex. I always thought that it was an ancient form of Matoran that few spoke, maybe like english has words from Latin that mean one thing in latin, and another when directly translated to english.

[ALVIS]

Personally, in my stories, I prefer to forego official BIONICLE story and capitalize proper nouns (i.e. names, places, organizations) and de-capitalize common nouns (i.e. non-specific places, species names). By my logic, Matoran becomes matoran, Koro becomes koro, and so on and so forth. The only exception to my rule is Toa, because the word just looks weird without a capital letter. :POn the subject of the actual Matoran language (which digresses slightly from the original point of the topic, I'll point out), here's another real-world example. The Greek word utopia means "no place," which is why Thomas Moore used it as the name of his imaginary world where there was no greed, war, or corruption. Nowadays, though, the idea of Utopia as an ideal place is prevalent over the actual Greek meaning, and so it means something different in English.As for why there might be two versions of the Matoran language: the Matoran grew and developed far beyond the GBs' intentions for them. Along the way, they might have customized or revamped their own language to better fit their new mindset. The GBs' programming language wouldn't have given them the capability to say "Hello, world" or anything besides commands or information, so they invented a new version of the language.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Angel Bob

[Grantaire]

This is my way of doing it: title, as in 'Toa of Ice' I capitalize. Species name, such as 'a toa walked down the street' I don't. I find that this tends to match up with bionicle style spelling. Aside from that, I usually ignore noticing whether or not something is capitalized in the story.

[Toa of Nerds]

I'm terribly inconsistent about this. In one topic I said "Toa of Stone" and then I went and made a topic five minutes later that said "toa of stone". Usually, however, I capitalize words such as Toa, Matoran, Makuta, Turaga, and Rahi.As far as the language itself, I think it evovled. The original matoran language was a programming language, but the matoran gradually altered it into what it is today, much like the evolution of the English language. The term "Rahi" may have evovled into a term for the species instead of a generic term for "beast". Same with Toa and other words.-don't touch my pocket protector

[Paleo]

There was a topic on the Matoran speaking Agori now, in which this came up. "Toa Hero" for one is usually only heard from treespeakers, or by a narrator. Think of the word Kleenex. Most people use it to refer to tissues, when the word itself refers to a brand rather than a product. Same with Windex. I always thought that it was an ancient form of Matoran that few spoke, maybe like english has words from Latin that mean one thing in latin, and another when directly translated to english.

Quite correct. For example if you say "A courageous hero charged forward", courageous and heroic are synonyms. However, we use them differently. The same thing likely applies to Toa and other Matoran words.Similar problems arise in Matoran syntax. In the Matoran language, adjectives always follow nouns, such as Mata Nui (Spirit Great), and Metru Nui (City Great). However, Nui Rama and Nui Jaga don't follow this rule. If they did their names would be Rama Nui and Jaga Nui.

[Master Inika]

A funny thing I realized today. In Fall and Rise of the Skrall, one of the Skrall (Tuma or Stronies, maybe Branar) says, "These brings of silent death... these baterra..." So, he's essentially saying, "These brings of silent death... these silent deaths..."I guess there's an Ancient Skrall and a Modern Skrall, too. I'm going to disregard River Dormus meaning River Peace (or probably more like River of Peace, given the grammar we've come to expect), since that actually does make sense.

[Nuparu1995]

I actually have noticed that. I've never thought much of it. Whenever I have to write about names like that, I just capitalize them by force of habit.

[Waffles]

Yeah, I've noticed that a bit--there's also the fact that "Kanoka disk" translates to "disk disk," "Rahi beast" translates to "beast beast," and so on.The inconsistency is probably there because this is just a children's construction toyline; they didn't expect so much scrutiny.

Kinda like La Brea Tar Pits.I guess the explanation is that Baterra means silent death, but it is still the word for the creatures known as Baterra. Your name may mean something in a language, but it is still your name, and shouldn't be translated.

[ALVIS]

Yes, my name has an official meaning in Hebrew or wherever it initially came from that, indeed, doesn't fit me at all. XD Same with several of my friends. The meanings of our modern names, like "master of the house" for Henry or "manly" for Andrew, don't define us or our actions; most people don't even know theirs. It's probably a very similar situation in BIONICLE.

[Dralcax]

Personally, in my stories, I prefer to forego official BIONICLE story and capitalize proper nouns (i.e. names, places, organizations) and de-capitalize common nouns (i.e. non-specific places, species names). By my logic, Matoran becomes matoran, Koro becomes koro, and so on and so forth. The only exception to my rule is Toa, because the word just looks weird without a capital letter. :POn the subject of the actual Matoran language (which digresses slightly from the original point of the topic, I'll point out), here's another real-world example. The Greek word utopia means "no place," which is why Thomas Moore used it as the name of his imaginary world where there was no greed, war, or corruption. Nowadays, though, the idea of Utopia as an ideal place is prevalent over the actual Greek meaning, and so it means something different in English.As for why there might be two versions of the Matoran language: the Matoran grew and developed far beyond the GBs' intentions for them. Along the way, they might have customized or revamped their own language to better fit their new mindset. The GBs' programming language wouldn't have given them the capability to say "Hello, world" or anything besides commands or information, so they invented a new version of the language.

I thought Utopia was a Yugioh card :PAll joking aside, yeah, the names were archaic Matoran, the original language with nouns, verbs, and modifiers and not much else. Modern Matoran has pronouns, interjections, etc. And, I think when Matoran translated to Agori, all proper nouns in archaic Matoran stay. So "Toa" would not become "Hero" (Although setwise, it sort of did).

[Exo-Kahgarak]

Yeah, I've noticed that a bit--there's also the fact that "Kanoka disk" translates to "disk disk," "Rahi beast" translates to "beast beast," and so on.The inconsistency is probably there because this is just a children's construction toyline; they didn't expect so much scrutiny.

Not necessarily; 'Kanoka' could refer to a 'Disk of Power' or some such specific connotation, and could mean more than just 'disk disk'.

On the subject of the actual Matoran language (which digresses slightly from the original point of the topic, I'll point out), here's another real-world example. The Greek word utopia means "no place," which is why Thomas Moore used it as the name of his imaginary world where there was no greed, war, or corruption. Nowadays, though, the idea of Utopia as an ideal place is prevalent over the actual Greek meaning, and so it means something different in English.As for why there might be two versions of the Matoran language: the Matoran grew and developed far beyond the GBs' intentions for them. Along the way, they might have customized or revamped their own language to better fit their new mindset. The GBs' programming language wouldn't have given them the capability to say "Hello, world" or anything besides commands or information, so they invented a new version of the language.

Except that's not really how programming works. It takes inputs and produces outputs; it only handles commands. If you want to transmit information, you need an actual language.

As far as the language itself, I think it evovled. The original matoran language was a programming language, but the matoran gradually altered it into what it is today, much like the evolution of the English language. The term "Rahi" may have evovled into a term for the species instead of a generic term for "beast". Same with Toa and other words.

Except English didn't evolve from C++; it evolved from West Germanic(incidentally, English and Latin are not very closely related; English simply borrowed a number of words from Latin and French). There really isn't a conceivable way to have started out with a programming language and ended up with Matoran. Even if the Matoran started with an actual language, remember that there are Matoran who were alive before the Shattering, when the MU was still being constructed. In one or two generations, the language isn't going to change much except for slang.

All joking aside, yeah, the names were archaic Matoran, the original language with nouns, verbs, and modifiers and not much else. Modern Matoran has pronouns, interjections, etc. And, I think when Matoran translated to Agori, all proper nouns in archaic Matoran stay. So "Toa" would not become "Hero" (Although setwise, it sort of did).

I can see the spontaneous creation of interjections, but I can't see how pronouns would suddenly appear out of nowhere; pro-verbs and pro-adjectives are possible word classes, but they haven't arisen in English, so there's no reason to think pronouns would have arisen from an archaic Matoran language which lacked them. Also, why would archaic Matoran lack pronouns and interjections? (Also note that 'Toa' is no more a proper noun than 'human' is.)

[Master Inika]

I notice that, not just in BIONICLE, but science fiction in general, they capitalize the names of races. In Star Wars, they have Wookies, Trandoshans, Togruta, Kel Dor, etc., and Star Trek has the Vulcan. Plus, the scientific name of humans (Homo sapiens) is capitalize (the first part, at least). I think Toa/Matoran/etc. should be capitalized.Like I asked before, is the BSS still doing stuff? And forget what I said about baterra (not sure why they don't capitalize that). The story itself said that it was an ancient Skrall word.

[Waffles]

@Exo-Kahgarak: Suspension of disbelief, perhaps?Nevertheless, that's not really what the topic is about, capitalization inconsistencies.

[Toa of Nerds]

As far as the language itself, I think it evovled. The original matoran language was a programming language, but the matoran gradually altered it into what it is today, much like the evolution of the English language. The term "Rahi" may have evovled into a term for the species instead of a generic term for "beast". Same with Toa and other words.

Except English didn't evolve from C++; it evolved from West Germanic(incidentally, English and Latin are not very closely related; English simply borrowed a number of words from Latin and French). There really isn't a conceivable way to have started out with a programming language and ended up with Matoran. Even if the Matoran started with an actual language, remember that there are Matoran who were alive before the Shattering, when the MU was still being constructed. In one or two generations, the language isn't going to change much except for slang.

But English people didn't evolve from robots controlled by C++.-don't touch my pocket protector

[Master Inika]

My understanding now is that Ancient Matoran was the programming language used by the Great Beings and initially programmed into the Matoran and all inhabitants of the Great Spirit robot. This is the language with (with koro, jaga, etc.). Ancient Matoran was since then used to name Rahi, villages, and such (and Vezon, now that I think about it). Since they ended up being actual feeling beings, with desires and emotions, they created Modern Matoran (thus, it is a constructed language).One thing that bothered me was the Seeking which was done in Ko-Koro. My current belief is that Nuju and the other Turaga produced all those carvings and, when the Matoran had their minds wiped, they forgot Ancient Matoran. Nuju started the Seeking to help them learn it again.

[Dralcax]

Yeah, I've noticed that a bit--there's also the fact that "Kanoka disk" translates to "disk disk," "Rahi beast" translates to "beast beast," and so on.The inconsistency is probably there because this is just a children's construction toyline; they didn't expect so much scrutiny.

Not necessarily; 'Kanoka' could refer to a 'Disk of Power' or some such specific connotation, and could mean more than just 'disk disk'.

On the subject of the actual Matoran language (which digresses slightly from the original point of the topic, I'll point out), here's another real-world example. The Greek word utopia means "no place," which is why Thomas Moore used it as the name of his imaginary world where there was no greed, war, or corruption. Nowadays, though, the idea of Utopia as an ideal place is prevalent over the actual Greek meaning, and so it means something different in English.As for why there might be two versions of the Matoran language: the Matoran grew and developed far beyond the GBs' intentions for them. Along the way, they might have customized or revamped their own language to better fit their new mindset. The GBs' programming language wouldn't have given them the capability to say "Hello, world" or anything besides commands or information, so they invented a new version of the language.

Except that's not really how programming works. It takes inputs and produces outputs; it only handles commands. If you want to transmit information, you need an actual language.

As far as the language itself, I think it evovled. The original matoran language was a programming language, but the matoran gradually altered it into what it is today, much like the evolution of the English language. The term "Rahi" may have evovled into a term for the species instead of a generic term for "beast". Same with Toa and other words.

Except English didn't evolve from C++; it evolved from West Germanic(incidentally, English and Latin are not very closely related; English simply borrowed a number of words from Latin and French). There really isn't a conceivable way to have started out with a programming language and ended up with Matoran. Even if the Matoran started with an actual language, remember that there are Matoran who were alive before the Shattering, when the MU was still being constructed. In one or two generations, the language isn't going to change much except for slang.

All joking aside, yeah, the names were archaic Matoran, the original language with nouns, verbs, and modifiers and not much else. Modern Matoran has pronouns, interjections, etc. And, I think when Matoran translated to Agori, all proper nouns in archaic Matoran stay. So "Toa" would not become "Hero" (Although setwise, it sort of did).

I can see the spontaneous creation of interjections, but I can't see how pronouns would suddenly appear out of nowhere; pro-verbs and pro-adjectives are possible word classes, but they haven't arisen in English, so there's no reason to think pronouns would have arisen from an archaic Matoran language which lacked them. Also, why would archaic Matoran lack pronouns and interjections? (Also note that 'Toa' is no more a proper noun than 'human' is.)

Because, being a programming language, it was meant for simple commands. "Pick up big rock" "Fix cart" are two examples. When sentience was gained, they got more out of their language, making it a full language with all parts of speech.

[Waffles]

Yes, but there's a huge transition between commands and a fully-fledged language. An incredibly huge leap that we can't really fathom. Plus, when they gained sentience, it would still be very difficult to even comprehend the new ideas.After all, this is looking at it that way. One should just take it as it is.

[bonesiii]

Is anybody else bothered by the inconsistent capitalization in BIONICLE?I've tried to figure out what's right based on the actual media, since BIONICLEsector01 Wiki just capitalized everything. It didn't help that the comic books are written IN ALL CAPS, or that some phrases were only written on BIONICLEstory or in the Chronicles series, neither of which were made by Greg.

The key is to keep in mind that we are not (in most cases) reading the official Matoran language (whether modern or ancient). We are reading an English translation of it (or German, etc.) and in some cases an Englicization (English-style spelling of a Matoran word) like "Toa."And in Matoran, there is not capitalization.So how we choose to capitalize or not in English is really a translator's convention, officially speaking. Thus even though we can have official conventions, they are not put forth by LEGO as "correct" to the fictional language the Matoran speak. They're really arbitrary.Yes, it is a little annoying how inconsistant it can be, but the best fix is to simply capitalize just about every name, including names of elements, as BS01 does. Since it's arbitrary anyways, it's not really "unofficial" because none of the capitalization is really official.The all-caps in the comics, BTW, is a lot closer to the actual Matoran than this style of writing, since you could see all Matoran letters as capital. (Most of them are based on English capital letters anyways.)

According to me, at least, this is correct:...A krana, Krana Ja, krana-kal, Krana Za-Kal, kraata, and kraata-zaA kraata of plasma

Well, Toa of Plasma is put capitalized, so the latter "should be" at least kraata of Plasma. And personally I have always thought Krana and Kraata are better capitalized anyways, since they're creature names just like Muaka or Nui-Jaga. But again, all of it is just a "translator's convention", so it's just as correct, technically, to all-lowercase everything.The main reason we don't do that is that in English, we always capitalize the first letter of a sentence. (Unless it begins with "bonesiii". ) So capitalizing them all makes more sense.

A Bohrok-Kal of Lightning [for some reason, only Tahnok-Kal is identified as "of Lightning;" all others are "of Electricity"]

This is OT, but isn't the other way around? Tahnok was called Electricity, I thought, and Toa of that element are called Lightning. Anywho...

The fire tribe and bone hunters [i really don't get why they don't capitalize these, but they just didn't]

Fire tribe is odd, I agree, not capped, at least the "fire" part (but then I just did 'cuz first in sentence lol). But "bone hunters" has no name in it; it uses purely English words with no special meaning attached. This is usually done for purely English names, especially names of creatures, in Bionicle. It's inconsistent too, though, as with "Dark Hunters".But if you want to capitalize Bone Hunters, more power to ya, 'cuz again it's arbitrary (most likely, anyways, since this is Agori, not Matoran, but Matoran is based on Agori).

Another weird thing is the Matoran language. I just think that certain apsects (like "vahki" meaning "law" in Matoran, "toa" meaning "hero," etc.) are archaic Matoran, like Valmai. The language they all would speak now is some newer version of Matoran, which still has words like "jaga." If we assume all the Matoran words we know are modern Matoran, things would get confusing. For instance, take Garan's famous line from Island of Doom: "You don't have to be a Toa to be a hero." That becomes, "You don't have to be a hero to be a hero." See my point?

Well, I don't know if that's an example of it, but we do apparently know that Matoran language has modernized since their origins, because with the Kanohi Rau, mention has been made of translating from ancient languages, including the writing on the Mask of Light. (Maybe it's been said this was Agori, not sure, but as far as I know it was Matoran.)But I doubt it has changed much, because it's a programming language. Most likely words that were assigned meanings at the beginning, like Toa, have remained the same throughout. Most of the changes, if they did occur, are probably naming new things; like the discovery of a new mask power or the making of a new Rahi species, or just the making of a new individual.As for "You don't have to be a Toa to be a hero," this might seem odd in English, but in many other Earth languages, the meanings of names are identical to their origin words in the same language, and it is not seen as strange or confusing in those languages. Fun is often had with this in movies with such foreigners asking Americans what their names mean, and we of course usually have no idea. :PSo probably the context or grammatical format would make it clear to the Matoran that the one "hero" means the guys with masks and elemental powers and the other is the original word.

Yeah, I've noticed that a bit--there's also the fact that "Kanoka disk" translates to "disk disk," "Rahi beast" translates to "beast beast," and so on.The inconsistency is probably there because this is just a children's construction toyline; they didn't expect so much scrutiny.

Actually those examples aren't inconsistencies -- you're forgetting that most fans aren't familiar with the Bionicle words as we are; when you heard "Kanoka" for the first time, you didn't know already that it meant "disk." Officially there is no repetition in the Matoran; it's just "put there in the translation". This is actually done often in real-world translation; the original word is first Englicized (if it's from a language that doesn't already use the same letters) and then the English translation is put after it.And Greg's always been clear about this, so this isn't an oversight or anything. It's done intentionally as a simple way for newcomers to learn what the names refer to.

YuGiOh translates to "Game King" in Japanese, but imagine a trading card game literally named "Game King". Same thing. I have no idea what the discrepancy is, though.

Yeah, I heard on TV somewhere the other day that Tai Chi means "Supreme Ultimate Fist". XD Say a bully is facing you and you say "Be careful, I know Supreme Ultimate Fist!" Actually, that might work; they'd double up with laughter and you could slip away lol...

With the Kanoka and Rahi examples, I can't do much more than shake my head, shrug my shoulders, and chalk it up to the fact that it had to be made clear to the kiddies. Having obscure terms in and of itself was pretty amazing, I think.

Yeah, but not just the kiddies. None of us knew what they meant the first time, and don't take for granted that you were helped in learning them so well by that strategy.

Oh, fun fact: "Sahara' is Arabic for "desert," so the Sahara Desert is the Desert Desert.

Well, that's a good example of a translator's convention. Not sure how they actually say it in Arabic, but it's not actually "Desert Desert" in English. It makes for a fun joke, but really, the proper definition is more of "The Desert named after the Arabic word for Desert."

One thing still doesn't add up here. The Matoran language itself is a programming language, so why would the Great Beings make two? Perhaps Ancient Matoran was the original language used by the Great Beings, and, like Earth's languages, Matoran evolved over time into Modern Matoran.

There's no clear evidence that there are two distinct languages. Every time a new Kanohi is named, a new individual, etc. the Matoran language grows, and old words could fall out of use. So there isn't even a Modern Matoran language per se; it's still changing. But all of the programming syntax is probably intact, so that all of it works in programming. So it's really the same language, just expanded (or so I think).

As for why there might be two versions of the Matoran language: the Matoran grew and developed far beyond the GBs' intentions for them. Along the way, they might have customized or revamped their own language to better fit their new mindset. The GBs' programming language wouldn't have given them the capability to say "Hello, world" or anything besides commands or information, so they invented a new version of the language.

I think it could have. Programming languages are amazingly versatile because you can always add content and definition into existing basic syntax. The original programming language was probably, IMO, designed to accept new definitions. Most likely an always-running program in Mata Nui handled this, sensing whenever the beings inside him assigned a new name to something.So for example, in "hello, world," the idea of world is probably already defined, or can be adapted a little. And "hello" simply defines a new type of labelling or declaration of relationship action. These are not foreign to programming languages; when you say "hello" you are saying in a sense, "I declare myself related to you and my future actions can affect you." Like when you plug in a flash drive to your computer, a declaration action happens automatically that says "I'm on the scene now and future actions here can involve me."This principle is how we have used real-world programming languages to design speech recognition programs and the like.

A funny thing I realized today. In Fall and Rise of the Skrall, one of the Skrall (Tuma or Stronies, maybe Branar) says, "These brings of silent death... these baterra..." So, he's essentially saying, "These brings of silent death... these silent deaths..."

In the Agori/Skrall grammar, though, the placement probably means "this is a name" to them. They might not even think much anymore about the etymology of the name.We do this with English figures of speech all the time; even though they're made totally of modern English words, we often have no idea how or why that figure of speech came to mean that idea. Sometimes if we just slow down and think about it (like Baterra), we can figure out the meaning, but we still usually don't bother, because we merely meant its new meaning.By context, emphasis, and syntax, we know the figure of speech's added meaning is meant, instead of whatever original meaning there might have been. (Even in English, in your example, it's clear "silent deaths" means something different than the bringers OF those silent deaths, so we can tell it's probably a nickname for the bringers, not a name for the actions they bring.)Also, many languages, and some poetic uses of English, make use of the repetitiveness of such examples for emphasis. The Skrall speaking that may have meant both the simple meaning of the Baterra, and to emphasize that the name is fitting.

Not necessarily; 'Kanoka' could refer to a 'Disk of Power' or some such specific connotation, and could mean more than just 'disk disk'.

That's a good point. I think it's incorrect in this case, but for sake of discussion I'm gonna pretend for a moment, because you're illustrating the way we should think -- don't assume it's a mistake, but use your imagination -- what LEGO's about -- to think how it might be intentional.In this case, IF the Matoran really did say it repeated, then they would know "when they repeat the word, it refers to something specific". So "Disk Disk" means the kind with powers, and they would never use it to refer to a bamboo disk. Those they would just call Disk.The reason I say it's incorrect is that Greg confirmed this was just "in the translation" as a learning tool, but it's good thinking anyways.

Except English didn't evolve from C++; it evolved from West Germanic(incidentally, English and Latin are not very closely related; English simply borrowed a number of words from Latin and French). There really isn't a conceivable way to have started out with a programming language and ended up with Matoran.

Not really sure what you mean here, but Matoran is the programming language, and in case anyone is unclear on this, it is still the programming language. It has not evolved into something that doesn't work for programming. It HAS changed, though how much so we don't know -- but it still works.But C++ and other programming languages are changed over time as well. New versions come out, etc. This example is actually very close to Bionicle -- Matoran was a programming language based on Agori, which has been added to since then.Also the programming languages themselves are designed to allow you to use longer phrases to define new actions, and assign them labels. Basically you write a long program, and then say all of that "= this label" and from then on, that new word will activate the other program. In fact all the former words in the programming language were defined this way, some down to the binary, in order to make it possible to begin with.

Even if the Matoran started with an actual language

What do you mean by an actual language? I've seen several of you in here seeming to assume something unstated about a limitation of the programming Matoran (they started out with) compared to spoken languages like English or Agori. But you seem to be forgetting that the GBs designed it to be spoken by living beings.I think you may (may) be getting mixed up with the fact that the GBs did not intend all this culture and stuff to develop. But they very much did want the Matoran to be inventive and imaginative (as I point out often; this is why they went with semi-living beings rather than mere robots, so they could solve new unforeseen problems), and it was a spoken language from the start. I think they intended all of this capability from the start.They just didn't think the living beings would form their own cultures beyond the practical considerations of maintaining their world. This showed a sentience beyond what they had dreamed they'd made, but that doesn't mean the Matoran started out as simple programs.

I can see the spontaneous creation of interjections, but I can't see how pronouns would suddenly appear out of nowhere

Why are you assuming they weren't there to begin with? It was based on Agori, and they probably had concepts like that.Also, do we know they use pronouns? It's translated that way into English, whether or not it's in Matoran, because it's unacceptable in English to repeat the proper names over and over when a simple he or she or it would suffice. But Matoran might not have such a rule; many languages in the real world don't.But let's pretend for the moment that they do have pronouns and that they weren't put in originally (for some reason ).Then their origin is easy to expect; pronouns are shorter and thus more efficient. Same reason fully sapient beings invented them; it's no different for computers. Defining a shorter word to activate a long program speeds things up and saves storage/recording space, etc. In this case, simply define, for example, "he = the most recently used male proper name".

Yes, but there's a huge transition between commands and a fully-fledged language. An incredibly huge leap that we can't really fathom.

How so? Explain then speech recognition programs. They're getting better all the time. Watch the Jeopardy episodes with Watson, for example. We're not (as they said in that) yet to the Star Trek computer, but we know the sort of things to do to get there.Also, you seem to be assuming that the Matoran programming language started out far below a fully fledged language to begin with. But it was made by the brilliant Great Beings, based on a fully-fledged language for use with living beings. I see no reason it couldn't be fully-fledged to begin with except for a few things like the naming of new beings and new concepts. The basic grammar should be able to handle all of that, including defining new cultural terms.

Plus, when they gained sentience, it would still be very difficult to even comprehend the new ideas.

I'm gonna have to revive the Myths and Misconceptions series or something, 'cuz this one just won't die lol. They did not "gain" sentience; they always had it, the GBs just weren't sure they had achieved it (remember the reaction when that one found out; it was that they had achieved it, not that it had magically come along later -- they simply didn't keep paying attention long enough to figure it out at the time).They did intend them to be self-aware in the sense of being able to apply a sentient-like imagination to new problems. It is as if a fully-formed group of humans had their memories wiped and were given practical jobs, speaking the English language but simply not having learned cultural words. They would be able to both understand culture, naturally desire it (this is why they developed it in the first place), and be able to expand their language to describe it.

[BenLuke]

^Random note: sentient and sapient are different things. Could people please stop mixing then up?I personally just capitalize any Bionicle word or element ( For example; Toa of Fire is capitalized, "He created a blazing fire" is not.).

[Master Inika]

A Bohrok-Kal of Lightning [for some reason, only Tahnok-Kal is identified as "of Lightning;" all others are "of Electricity"]

This is OT, but isn't the other way around? Tahnok was called Electricity, I thought, and Toa of that element are called Lightning. Anywho...

Oh, you're right. I'll change it.

[ALVIS]

^Random note: sentient and sapient are different things. Could people please stop mixing then up?

I agree completely. So as to avoid people mixing them up later, here are the definitions: sentient means the subject has senses, i.e. sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste, and any other sixth or seventh or fortieth senses I'm not aware of. Sapient means the subject is capable of thinking and reasoning, such as a chimpanzee or several other intelligent animals.

[Baron Von Nebula]

Another weird thing is the Matoran language. I just think that certain apsects (like "vahki" meaning "law" in Matoran, "toa" meaning "hero," etc.) are archaic Matoran, like Valmai. The language they all would speak now is some newer version of Matoran, which still has words like "jaga." If we assume all the Matoran words we know are modern Matoran, things would get confusing. For instance, take Garan's famous line from Island of Doom: "You don't have to be a Toa to be a hero." That becomes, "You don't have to be a hero to be a hero." See my point?

I would agree with this, considering how "Spiriah" can be slang for "failure". As the Great Beings created the Matoran language as well as the first Toa, I would think that Toa was originally the name for these beings, and came to mean "hero" later, as the Great Beings did not expect the MU inhabitants to have emotions/personalities, and consequently heroism. I can only say that Garan means Toa as the form of being, not as the person who acts heroically. Matoran could even have another word to mean "hero" for beings besides Toa.

[bonesiii]

^Random note: sentient and sapient are different things. Could people please stop mixing then up?

I agree completely. So as to avoid people mixing them up later, here are the definitions: sentient means the subject has senses, i.e. sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste, and any other sixth or seventh or fortieth senses I'm not aware of. Sapient means the subject is capable of thinking and reasoning, such as a chimpanzee or several other intelligent animals.

Actually those aren't the definitions usually meant or the definitions Greg has given for Bionicle. Before I explain the latter, just to be clear, I above used both words in the casual, nontechnical sense in which they are synonyms; people usually use "sentient" to mean "that which distinguishes humans from animals, and would distinguish any fictional aliens or similar humanlike intelligences." But "sapient" is the more proper word for that concept, so that's why I switched to that, in the hopes someone would bring up the difference so we could discuss in later posts. :biggrin:The reason "sentient" is not the proper word for that concept is that it means "self-aware." Some people ignorantly assume animals aren't self-aware, so they think this is what sets humans apart, but (as Greg has pointed out), animals ARE self-aware. Anyone with a dog or cat knows this. What sets us apart is more of the level of wisdom we can acquire, and sapient literally means wise (essentially), so that's a better term for it.But there's nothing wrong with using the terms interchangeably either; "sentient" has been used so often to mean "the difference" that it has actually taken that on as its most common meaning nowadays, and need not imply animals aren't self-aware. The problem with demanding only the use of sapient is that people don't usually know it, so you have to go out of your way to define it.But that's what we've now done, happily, so it's aaaall good. Edited January 9, 2012 by bonesiii