Essays Index
Equestrian Culture series: Part 1 - Religion | Part 2 - Government and Military | Part 3 - Values and Morality | Part 4 - Names and Family | Part 5 - Language

Language:
Spoken Equestrian:
Equestrian is the language spoken in the Equestrian Heartland. It is equivalent to American English, sharing many of the same words, meanings, and pronunciations, with several exceptions which are detailed later. Most sapient species on Earth have similar vocal chords to real world humans, and so can vocalise the same sounds, meanings that humans from a world like our own would assume that ponies simply speak English, even if they do not call it English.

Despite the current similarities between English and Equestrian, however, the two languages have very different histories. "Old Equestrian" bore little resemblance to Old English and the Celtic languages, as the Borderworld equivalent to those languages were instead spoken by the bovid species that inhabited the Heartland before the arrival of ponies. The bovid languages are considered influences on Equestrian, but Equestrian is not considered a continuation of those languages, but instead a continuation of a now-extinct "Old Equestrian" that originated from somewhere in Thoroupe.

As well as the bovid languages, Equestrian also owes a lot to Arachnian (equivalent to Latin), and to the various chimeric languages, including Minosian (Greek), Griffonian (French and German), and the Alicornish and Jotunheim tongues (Norse).

Written Equestrian:
Another big difference between Equestrian and English is the way that it is written. While Equestrian does have a dictionary and standardised spelling, it is extremely unwieldy to write in compared to English. This is because it was originally conceived by the unicorns as a form of art rather than as a method of effective, non-verbal communication, which the unicorns could already achieve through other means. While the earth ponies later created a more streamlined script, it was the unicorn style of writing which was adopted by the alicorns of Asgard, and thus it was this variant that was carried through the Reign of Chaos by the Royal Sisters and Star Swirl the Bearded, and which was thus made government standard and taught in schools afterwards.

While the earth pony method of writing did survive long enough to influence the language and somewhat reduce its complexity, written Equestrian today is still unnecessarily difficult to write. Characters in Equestrian are not much more complex than in English, but individual words can be very complex to write, requiring many characters, and relying on lots of nonsensical rules for grammar and spelling, to a degree that is ludicrous even by English standards. Even the alphabet used by Equestrian is nightmarishly long compared to our own. As such, it can take a pony several paragraphs to convey the same amount of meaning that written English could convey in just a few sentences.

For this reason, writing in Equestrian tends to fill a lot of page-space, but sounds much shorter and remarkably simple when read aloud. Use of more complex synonyms for words with a simple meaning also greatly extends the length of writing. For this reason, Equestrians value brevity in writing, choosing to use simple-sounding words and sentences, and being as direct as possible, most especially in non-fiction such as textbooks and personal correspondence. In fiction, the rule of "show don't tell" is not greatly valued, as even with copious telling to shorten a work and leave as little ambiguity as possible, Equestrian authors will still produce novel-length works that require a lot of reader attention to decipher.

Works written for children and works written for adults are thus also a much more blurred line, and are usually distinguished primarily by their subject matter rather than by the kind of words and language that they use. While works written for adults can use more complex wording, this also inevitably results in a much longer work, which appeals more to readers interested in long-form fiction than it does to adult readers in general.

Alliterative appeal:
A common trait of native speakers of Equestrian is that they find a great interest in alliteration. To ponies, alliteration is considered as much as, if not more of an artform than rhyme and poetry. This is rooted in Equestria's written language, as writing alliteration in Equestrian is much more difficult than writing rhymes, and plays more to the language as an art than as communication, as the written form was intended to.

Because of this, alliteration to ponies is a greater indication of skill and sophistication than the use of complex words are. To that end, ponies try to use alliteration in names all the time, whether it be place names, pony names, organisation or group names, or even titles, such as for a book or play. It is not unusual for even formal, academic books to have alliterative titles, even ones that might seem silly from our perspective, as to ponies, the alliterative title evokes the impression that the author is skilled with language. Even in spoken language, where it is much easier to do, dropping alliteration into casual conversation is considered an indication of wit.

Species indication:
As Equestrian is, for the most part, a mirror of the English language, it should come as no surprise that lots of expressions and slang terms from our own language exist in Equestrian as well, though usually substituting distinctly human words for equine ones. Expressions like "lend a hand" would obviously become "lend a hoof" when spoken by ponies, at least if directed to other hooved creatures, but these expressions do often exist in their "original form" as well, for when ponies are instead speaking to species that have hands. Sometimes these non-equine forms are also preferred if it makes the word flow better (e.g. "hoofiwork" is a word in Equestrian, but "handiwork" is preferred by most).

In conversation with non-equines, ponies tend to alter their language to be less equi-centric, but as their world is home to many more sapient species than our own is, most languages have developed integrated species indication for a lot of words (such as "everypony"), and more general and inclusive versions of these words are only spoken in the presence of a more general audience, or in reference to a more diverse group.

Officially, Equestrian only recognises the generalised versions of these words, but species-indicative versions of such words are common parlance, and in fact are more widely-used than the generalised versions. This has led to a culture in Equestria where puns are worked into many words to indicate their association with a particular species, even where it isn't especially necessary, simply because that is the way the language seems to work. This practice began with the naming of the great Equestrian cities, which used horse puns in their name to indicate that those cities were built by and primarily populated by equines.

There have been many such instances of non-specific words being used less in favour of equine-specific ones, at least in cases where they only apply to equines. For example, the word "maretrimony" is often used to replace "matrimony" when specifically referring to a marriage between ponies or other equines, and when one refers to "maretrimony" rather than "matrimony," a listener will instantly understand that one is speaking about a marriage specifically between equines, rather than between chimeras, dragons, or diamond dogs. In many ways, this quirk of the Equestrian language has many uses, but it does sometimes have the effect of making ponies appear more self-centred or egotistic to other species.

One especially notable oddity of the language of ponies is that, despite humans not existing in their world, the words "man" and "woman" do exist in Equestrian as synonyms for "male" and "female" without any species connotations, but both are considered archaisms and are not commonly used. Several other words in Equestrian also have different pony-specific connotations than they do in English, such as the word "ride," which was once a synonym for "walk," until its meaning changed and became more context-dependent over time.

Curses:
Profanity also works differently for ponies than it does for us, both for linguistic and cultural reasons. Human curse words, especially those with biblical origin in our world, such as "damn" and "whore," are present in Equestrian. However, they are much stronger curses for ponies than they are for humans, and so are far less likely to see use in a formal setting. More casual friends are more likely to feel comfortable being vulgar around one another, and so these words may see more use in such settings, but usually only if that vulgarity comes naturally to them. Ponies such as Twilight and her friends, not being naturally vulgar, are more likely to use lighter curse words, such as with some of Applejack's countryisms, or Fluttershy's used of "peeved."

A few stronger human curse words also exist, but are very rarely applied. Human curse words with a sexual connotation are not used as pejoratives by ponies, but instead are used exclusively in reference to literal sexual acts. While other species, such as griffons, do use such words as we do, the practice is confusing to ponies, who are more likely to take such turns of phrase literally, which can be a cause of embarrassment for both parties. Griffons and other species with curse words like these therefore take care to refrain from using their more colourful language around ponies, and instead try their best to adopt pony conventions of insulting others, as could be observed in Gilda's original visit to Ponyville.

Human racial slurs, on the other hand, simply do not exist, as they have no reason to exist in a world without humans. Ponies do have a few racial slurs to refer to each other, such as "mud-hooves" for earth ponies, or "bonehead" for unicorns, but ponies have valued harmony for so long that it is extremely rare to see these words used seriously anymore. They are mostly only ever used in a historical context, but may sometimes also be used non-seriously as banter or terms of endearment between vulgar-minded friends.

Racial slurs directed towards non-ponies are similarly not used hatefully anymore, but for the most part have been forgotten rather than reappropriated, as not all non-ponies buy into pony ideals of friendship and harmony, and for many other species, racism may still be a real issue. Those slurs that have survived, such as most of the derogatory words for mules or donkeys, are rarely ever used hatefully or directed towards their original targets anymore, but are instead used as more general words, with most ponies who use them simply being unaware of their etymology. "Ass," for example, was once a racial slur used against donkeys, but today, the word is only ever used to refer to hindquarters, and most ponies remain ignorant to its original meaning.

Acknowledgements:
-My notes say that the idea for the alternative meaning for the word "ride" came from Horse Voice. I only wish I remember where he wrote it.

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More complicated and ridiculous linguistic rules than English? Yikes. I suppose this does follow from what we've seen on the show, but the very idea is more than slightly disturbing.