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Asfarian
Contents |
Introduction
Edit
The Asfarian language is fairly simple and was made to be easy to learn.
The Asfarian language focuses a lot on how much you speak. To them, the more you say, the more respectful or humble you are (that's why formal pronouns can get so long); If you're a person who is shy or quiet, straight to the point, and says very little, in Asfaran they would assume you to be arrogant. (This is one of the reasons Zev doesn't like Rezen-he assumes him to be arrogant.)
The AlphabetEdit
There is no upper-case or lower-case; it's just one alphabet. It's read left-to-right, top-to-down. There are symbols to represent words as well, but those are rarely used any longer and are archaic. There is also a cursive version of the alphabet which is only used amongst the wealthy.
PronunciationEdit
Asfarian has a very defined pronunciation. Vowels are taken at max two together, so no three or more vowels could create one sound. Some vowel combinations make the same sound, but other than this, it is very easy to determine how things are spelled from hearing it and even easier to pronounce what one is reading.
| a | long a sound
EXCEPTION: if a follows a y or before is before a w, it is pronounced as "ah" |
| e | "eh" |
| o | "oh" |
| i | "ih"
EXCEPTION: If at the start or end of a word - with no vowels next to it - i pronounced as "EE" |
| u | "ooh" |
| ai | "I" |
| ia | "EE-AH" |
| ei | "I" |
| ie | "EE" |
| iu | "YUH" |
| ui | "OOH-EE" |
| oi | "OY" |
| io | "EE-OH" |
| qu | "KWE" |
| x | "X" |
Silent "Y"?Edit
The "y" is never "silent" - but on words where an "a" follows "y", the y is often sounded softly or quickly, making it seem to not exist. It isn't necessary though since after a y is really the only time you'd have the "AH" sound. (It's "ah" before a "w", but that makes it more like "aw" anyway, so...) It there is an apostrophe between the "y" and "a", than the exception rule is ignored and the "y" is more notably pronounced.
Asfarian NamesEdit
Despite the strict rules on pronunciation their language has, when Asfarians name their children they often completely disregard them. Most follow the rules, but a few spell the names simply however they want. Of FC's main characters, all of them have names which follow the rules except two. Sachi's name is not "SAY-CHI", but "SAH-CHI". And Nisha (who technically is not an Asfarian anyway) is pronounced "NEE-SHAH".
Also, only wealthy upper-class families have middle names; most citizens only have a first and last name.
Word PatternsEdit
You might notice that in Asfarian, words that are opposite meaning of one another tend to be similar. This might seem confusing at first, but as you begin to learn them you will realize there is a pattern to a lot of words and their meanings which make it easier to understand more words as you go. For example:
nasho - small
lana - short
nano - tiny
nay - younger
All of the words contain "na", pronounced as "NAY", and tend to refer to things as being smaller. Here's another example:
rentex - attack
texarm - bastard
urtex - crime
rutex - fight
etexa - hurt / pain
deceartex - kill / murder
texden - offend
arentex - war
daitex - late
There are a lot of words with "tex" in them, and as you can tell pretty much any word which contains it has a negative connotation. It could mean someone was hurt, refer to someone who hurts others, refers to an injury or feeling of hurt, or even show displeasure.
Other patterns:
"sai" refers to knowledge, memory, or the mind.
"kum" refers to time.
"me" or "ma" refers to girls or women, while "de" or "da" refers to boys or men.
There are many more patterns which can be picked up as you learn the language. Some may have multiple patterns to them, but as others combine with each other you can better understand the context.
Formal VS InformalEdit
In Asfaran, if you're being very wordy, they consider that to be speaking formally. If you're too the point, you're being informal. That's the basic gist of it, but our silly little Asfaraians take it a bit farther: If you start speaking what is technically bad grammar, there's nothing wrong with that - now you're just being very informal.
Compare these sentences:
1. Eshin keskai tahn cu bya para, keh levina bya parnai.
2. Eju keskai tahn cu bya para.
3. Ie keskai tahn para.
4. Keskai para.
1. I (formal) believe that to be right, it can't be wrong. The first one here is being "formal"; it is wordy - the speaker is basically stating the same thing twice.
2. I (informal) believe that to be right. This would be more "normal" - not necessarily formal or informal. It's stating the main idea only once, but all the necessary words are there. Whether "eshin" was used instead of "eju", it would still not really be considered to be necessarily formal.
3. I (very informal/slang) believe that right. This is definitely informal - it's to the point like above, but in addition to using the very informal/slang version of "I", it literally translates to "believe that right", which is not grammatical. Still, since the speaker and listening understand what the message, they would automatically translate it into "I believe that is right." even though that is not what they technically said.
4. Believe right. This an extremely informal sentence. The dropping of so many words only happens when those words are considered unnecessary because the listener already knows what's being talked about. So in this case, saying just "believe right" would only work in a case such as who they are speaking to asked for their opinion. Therefore the speaker here, who was likely already speaking to this person informally, dropped the word "I" because they didn't need to confirm this as their opinion since that is what the question asked for. Since the listener already asked for their opinion on 'this', the speaker doesn't feel the need to reinstate that they think 'that' is right - the listener already knows what they're talking about. So the speaker chose to use "believe" to inform they're not 100% sure, but its what they think, and then "right" because that is their answer to the question they were asked. In extremely informal speak, they speak with as few words as possible that get their meaning across.
To summarize: If you're speaking formally, you speak a lot, even repeat yourself in different ways. The more informal you get, the less words you use, to the point of sometimes dropping words that would make the sentence grammatical.
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