Vilani Language, Grammar and Lexicon

[sayatmenace]

A while back I started an entry for Vilani in the "Conlang Atlas of Language Structures", going off my old or "original" notes for Vilani. Maybe some of the current wranglers of Vilani could take a look at it, and correct or expand my entries?

http://cals.conlang.org/language/vilani/

 

[Major B]

I'm searching for some help with Vilani ship names. To start, has anyone translated the Vilani names for the Kinunir class into Galanglic equivalents?

I've checked the incredible document from Robject's website but did not find any matches. Here is a list:

Shulgi
Zaggisi
Kinunir
Shulgiili
Allamu
Enki Kalamma
Shuruppak (renamed Regal Splendor)
Markashi
Apishal
Ninkur Sagga
Mukhaldim
Kagukhasaggan
Kharkar
Agidda
Luuru
Ukushki Sar
Gaesh
lshmeilum
Urshu
Adamdun
Adda Dubsar

I'd be interested to hear both 'official' translations and translations anyone may have used in their TU. If anyone else has tried this (I'm sure it isn't a new idea) please chime in with your solution too.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

I'm searching for some help with Vilani ship names. To start, has anyone translated the Vilani names for the Kinunir class into Galanglic equivalents?

They wouldn't necessarily have any Anglic equivalents. The vast majority, if not all, of these names are proper nouns. In particular, they are the names of Imperial worlds.

Many of these worlds are in Dingir and Sol subsectors of the Solomani Rim. This implies that: A) as these worlds have been settled for several thousand years, the etymologies behind their names may be lost, or just plain speculative at best; and B) these worlds played a prominent historical role as major battlegrounds during the early Interstellar Wars Era.

Point B is also bolstered by the fact that the Kinunir system (Solomani Rim 1224) was itself the site of a decisive battle of the Fifth Interstellar War -- marking the high-water point for the Terran advance in that conflict.

Also, a few of the names are not Vilani. Gaesh and Ishmeilum in particular are out, as Standard Vilani doesn't have any gliding vowels (diphthongs). Markashi, on the other hand, could be Vilani, but it's also worth pointing out that it's also a perfectly reasonable Terran proper noun (as a Pakistani place name and surname).

 

[Major B]

They wouldn't necessarily have any Anglic equivalents. The vast majority, if not all, of these names are proper nouns. In particular, they are the names of Imperial worlds.

That would explain why they're not in the Vilani language compendium. And it means I need to dig out my copy of the Solomani Rim Supplement.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

 

[Major B]

Since me first question was so easy, here's another:

The Midu Agashaam destroyer from Supplement 9 doesn't have any mention of what the name means.

I've found mention of another ship of that class but can't find it now. It also had "Midu" as a prefix and can't recall the rest of the name.

And in Vampire Fleets, the ship central to the adventure is a mamber of the class, but it is named Archer.

So, I'm guessing again that Midu Agashaam is a Vilani name though it is entirely likely that I'm wrong again. Any help with this one?

 

[robject]

I'm guessing again that Midu Agashaam is a Vilani name

Sure sounds like one. No idea what it means though. It could well be a personal name, you know... or a title and a name, if "Midu" means something on a social or ranking scale, and "Agashaam" is a family name. Major Tom. Lord Tennyson.

/urshaam/ and /kirshaam/ are both historical personal names, so it's possible that Agashaam could be one, too. Although it could also be an adjectival.

 

[hdan]

You probably already know this, but many Vilani names are just old Sumerian (from real Earth history) names, sometimes mildly "mis-spelled" (if you can say anything is properly spelled in Sumerian when written in the Latin alphabet, LOL.)

For example, "Shulgi" was a Sumerian king around 2000BC. "Zaggisi" looks an awful lot like the "Zaggesi" in "Lugal Zaggesi", another Sumerian King. Ditto for "Shurruppak".

"Enki" is a Sumerian God somewhat similar to the Greek God Prometheus or maybe Hephaestus who is credited with creating mankind and technology, etc.

"Kharkar" is very close to the Sumerian word for "Land" or "Country" (KUR.KUR, which literally means "many mountains" but denotes a nation or tribe. KUR.KUR.MESH means "all countries everywhere", or "the known world", and frequently shows up as "LU.GAL KAR.KAR.MESH" - King of the World).

"DUBSAR" means "scribe".

I don't know enough Sumerian to know if the other terms match up, but I suspect they are at least derived from known Sumerian words or made to sound like them.

 

[Major B]

Wow and thanks hdan. I didn't know that, but now I know what I'll be looking up for the next couple of days.

 

[hdan]

I seem to remember a throw-away comment in an old CT book about the Vilani assuming that Terrans were just descendants of one of their lost colonies in the subsector. The implication being that the Sumerians were actually Vilani colonists who brought writing and stuff to Earth.

Of course the whole "Chariots of the Gods" thing was all the rage back then, so it's not surprising such a thing appeared in CT.

 

[FreeTrav]

...I suspect they are at least derived from known Sumerian words or made to sound like them.

Can't provide specific citations at this point, but there was definitely discussion at some point in the past where SOMEONE closely associated with GDW said outright that the Vilani language generation tables were taken from Sumerian phoneme frequency data.

 

[robject]

Can't provide specific citations at this point, but there was definitely discussion at some point in the past where SOMEONE closely associated with GDW said outright that the Vilani language generation tables were taken from Sumerian phoneme frequency data.

They were, and then some. For some dead giveaways look at the worlds from the Imperium boardgame and the names of the Kinunir-class cruisers.

The regional capital for the Imperium game was Dingir, which is one old name for Babylon. And the one Kininur names I can remember, Adda Dubsar, is pure Sumerian.

 

[Major B]

The regional capital for the Imperium game was Dingir, which is one old name for Babylon. And the one Kininur names I can remember, Adda Dubsar, is pure Sumerian.

I've been doing a bit of research but haven't had much time to devote to it. Here are the first three vessels of the Kinunir Class:

Shulgi: second king of the Sumerian renaissance and founder of the third dynasty of Ur.

Zaggisi: last Sumerian king before the conquest by Sargon of Akkad.

Kinunir: a village near Lagash referred to in some translated cuneiform tablets.

I've also found a great resource in the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/index.html). I'll be using this to come up with some new vessel names but it is no help with finding the source of Kinunir-class vessel names as so far they all seem to be taken from the names of people and places. I'm still looking for an Encyclopedia Sumerica but until then I'm stuck using my imperfect google-fu.

 

[Mithras]

Hi Mike, I have a few good books on Sumer and Babylon, I wonder if a scan of an index might be of any use to you at all?

 

[Major B]

Hi Mike, I have a few good books on Sumer and Babylon, I wonder if a scan of an index might be of any use to you at all?

Thanks very much - I think it would save me some time and I happen to be very short on that lately because we're transferring our mission to another unit and packing to go home.

A peek at the index will probably lead to some new reading material waiting at the house for when I get home.

 

[Mithras]

email sent!

 

[sayatmenace]

Vilani are long-lived, this isn't necromancy!

Just one note of general interest and one personal:

1) Some years back I created an entry for Vilani in the Conlang Atlas of Language Structures (CALS). CALS is the conlang counterpart to the (pukka linguists') WALS -- World Atlas of Language Structures -- which is a database of typological features of human languages. And extremely cool if you are of that persuasion.

The version of Vilani I started describing was the one I was last involved with, ending around 2000 or 2001. I know that illustrious others have carried on the design/evolution/ramification of Vilani in the decade since then, and I'd like to encourage them -- and anyone else who feels comfortable doing so -- to get involved with the Vilani entry in CALS.

2) I'm working on a new version of Vilani, for personal enjoyment. It jettisons much -- no, most -- of the material that was created back in the late '90s and starts with a pretty clean slate. I don't know how 'canonized' the current versions of Vilani are, but in any case I don't want to compete with them or cause any confusion. So, while I will probably post my work eventually in conlang forums/wikis, I'll say here (and again there) that mine is a strictly private bit of 'fanon'.

What it keeps from the old: Ergativity, verb-initial clause structure.

What's new: More violations of (Terran) human linguistic universals; more isolating and less agglutinative; serial verbs; little or no person marking; weirder phonetics hiding under the transcription; and finally, fully integrated tonology!

 

[robject]

Oh kugganzir, Kenji, do you have to do that? Just saying it's a "fan" version doesn't make it so.

The reason I say this, is because you were not simply "involved" in the first creation.

The other reason I say this, is because I have tried to grow the language appropriately, and use it in canonical contexts, not because I understood why you designed what you did, but because it was there and there was nothing else to use. And now it's invested, at least to some extent, so to speak.

The other other reason I say this, is because Vilani is not an easy language to grasp already. Now you put me in the uncomfortable position of evaluating a new edition, using lessons learned in the last 15 years, which may be an improvement in many areas (while also likely being annoying in many other areas).

In short, I would like to reform Vilani, but I don't necessarily want to make it more annoying than it is, while at the same time not wanting to turn it into a cipher of an existing language, and not completely changing it, etc.

 

[sayatmenace]

Oh kugganzir, Kenji, do you have to do that? Just saying it's a "fan" version doesn't make it so.

It doesn't? I honestly don't know what the status of Vilani language materials are, in terms of canon or Marc-approval. I thought there were already several other Vilani languages floating around out there -- G. Kashkanun Anderson's work, IIRC? I don't see why mine is any different -- I needn't even call it Vilani, as far as I'm concerned.

The other reason I say this, is because I have tried to grow the language appropriately, and use it in canonical contexts, not because I understood why you designed what you did, but because it was there and there was nothing else to use. And now it's invested, at least to some extent, so to speak.

The other other reason I say this, is because Vilani is not an easy language to grasp already. Now you put me in the uncomfortable position of evaluating a new edition, using lessons learned in the last 15 years, which may be an improvement in many areas (while also likely being annoying in many other areas).

In short, I would like to reform Vilani, but I don't necessarily want to make it more annoying than it is, while at the same time not wanting to turn it into a cipher of an existing language, and not completely changing it, etc.

I honestly feel bad about leaving Vilani hanging out there like I did, so that people were tempted to try and use it -- none more successfully and diligently than yourself! Because it really is a dog's dinner.

The grammar itself is not all that bad, but the lexicon is awful -- and I include myself in the blame for that. The bigger problem is the absolutely crap writeup of it that I did; sloppy, fragmented, missing great chunks, and hardly any examples given to work with. Actually, I'm pretty embarrassed to have it floating around out there.

I remember being particularly pissed off that after we had picked apart the geographical names on Vland given in Vilani & Vargr and developed some morphology based on that, being told that anything by DGP was now non-canon and couldn't be referenced in future work. So, in other words, the only prior art paying any attention to the Vilani was off-limits.

What I want to do now with -- let's call it, say, My Own Private Vilani -- is a clean break, taking only the original brief phonological writeup in JTAS as a starting point, and work systematically and carefully through a template for a descriptive grammar. Less kitchen-sink work, more careful documentation.

I am going to go forward with this, and was frankly planning on sharing it with other conlangers rather than with Trav fans -- there being very little overlap between the two groups, unless things have changed in the last decade But if you and other stakeholders really feel that this is destabilizing or problematic, I don't have any problem with filing off the serial numbers and not presenting it as part of the Traveller universe.

 

[aramis]

DGP isn't "Non-Canon" but "No-Quote and may be overwritten Canon"... nothing naming was "off-limits," just the text itself (as names are below the requisite lengths for copyright protection). Marc was pretty clear about that, at least as quoth by Hunter, as were SJG and QLI. (MGP's position on canon is a whole different can of snakes.)

There's no reason your bilandin writeup shouldn't be used and abused -- the lexical issues add credibility, not detract, as it implies multiple dialectical overwrites.

Just look at some of the lexical issues with English or Frisian.

Edit: Oh, and the Bilandin frequencies table was also presented, with a couple words, in MT core texts, not just DGP ones, so the example words, which are immune to copyright due to short length, and their meanings, immune from copyright due to being a lexicon, are all fair game as products produceable by the system.

 

[sayatmenace]

DGP isn't "Non-Canon" but "No-Quote and may be overwritten Canon"... nothing naming was "off-limits," just the text itself (as names are below the requisite lengths for copyright protection). Marc was pretty clear about that, at least as quoth by Hunter, as were SJG and QLI. (MGP's position on canon is a whole different can of snakes.)

Unfortunately this happened before the years I spent learning and working with IP law, and what I was hearing sounded very definitive: _any_ DGP-created material couldn't be used in any 'official'/published works. That's what I went with!

There's no reason your bilandin writeup shouldn't be used and abused -- the lexical issues add credibility, not detract, as it implies multiple dialectical overwrites.

It's the quality of the lexical 'issues' rather than the quantity that are the problem. They only thing they actually imply are 1) total abuse of random word generators rather than dealing with morphology or etymology, and 2) cheesy and deeply anachronistic borrowing from Terran languages. I was very guilty of #2.

Edit: Oh, and the Bilandin frequencies table was also presented, with a couple words, in MT core texts, not just DGP ones, so the example words, which are immune to copyright due to short length, and their meanings, immune from copyright due to being a lexicon, are all fair game as products produceable by the system.

I know the random generator is from CT days (deo gratia!), but I'd point out that the association of random lexemes with meanings is definitely not part of that system and is pretty clearly new work (however petty). Not, at this point, that I really care... I'm really not interested in any future canon at this point.

One of the things that just killed me -- I mean, really; and definitely killed my investment in 'official' Vilani language going forward -- was the use in publication of random Vilani word generator programs that got it wrong, and created words that were impossible under the original (and therefore perfect and true!!!) description given in JTAS. Hey, the computer gave me this list, so it's accurate, right??? T:0 was particularly horrific, but I've seen it even lately. Gahhh.

I know, right? You're all thinking it's a tempest in a teacup, but it is just as aggravating to me as somebody talking about parsecs as a unit of time, or the need for recoil compensators on laser carbines, or whatever the hell.