Making some noise: G1 ponies and Linguistic nerdery

The folks who worked with me on the now-moribund PonyEarthVerse project may or may not be aware of a secondary thing that I was working on: An Equestrian "conlang."

Despite my bowing out of the project because ... well, I'm a slow author, I've still fiddled for time to time with "Ikostan."

Some of the grammar was suggested by others in the group, and a proto-fork wound up in another author's pony RP forum thread.

Basically the idea behind the current version of Ikostan was to have G1's Megan, Danny and Molly be a source of an "ancient prestige language substrate" that is applied to the Equestrian eqivalent of "proto-Indo-European..." That is, Dream Valley had a Pony Language that is the source for the kinds of words that don't change often, and the Moochik cast a spell that let Megan, Danny, and Molly communicate... but the Variety of English spoken by kids from 1980s rural Kentucky became a source of Meaningful Names and future magibabble terms, as well as coloring prestige accents. Prior to this G1 Applejack likely had a name that meant "Fermented Windfalls" in the original pony language but liked what her name sounded like coming from Megan just before the Moochik's spell was reapplied. Thus it fills a role much like Hebrew and Latin do to English.

Eventually the Pony Tribes began to split, and the languages drifted further... probably not as far as Vulgar Latin split into Italian, French, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and others, but closer to the mutual intelligibility of Surfer Dude Californians and Ocean Fishermen New Zealanders... This is the part I've yet to really get into in coining vocabulary, but magic terms will have a more "Unicornian" slant unless describing weather or farming, etc etc.

The Unification of course tried to reunite the language, and the Royal Sisters probably did more to solidify sound change than anything else.

Discord's first reign is likely a source for an Equestrian Babel story, even if actual events were just folks not being able to travel to communicate effectively instead of "Why do we have 'Prench,' 'Spanish' etc accents in the show?"

Enough about that, I just thought I'd share a couple sentences I had worked up:

This first one can pretty much be said by most ponies in Ponyville, though this particular pronunciation is very typically Unicorn: Rarity is my mental model for this pronunciation, perhaps clarifying an overblown paean to a particularly divine apple slice:
I lihro hepu-za vo.
"ee LEEH-rro HEY-poo-zaa vo" or, in IPA: / i lih'ro he'pu zɑ βo /
1s. LIKE/ENJOY APPLE-dat. prs.
"I like apples/the apple."
Ah, that wonderful Dream Valley substrate...

All vowels are as in Italian and Japanese: "a" as in "father"; "e" as in "anime"; "i" as in "machine"; "o" as in "cocoa"; "u" as in "soup." The "h" is always pronounced, though I can see someone not used to the language saying "lihro" as "Lee Crow," especially as the "r" in a Rarity/Canterlot snob accent is trilled. Most other consonants are pronounced the same as in English, though "f" and "v" are pronounced like Greek "phi" and "beta:" Imagine "f" and "v" pronounced with just the lips, no teeth. Additionally, the apostrophe commonly sprinkled around amateur conlangs represents the glottal stop. (The best description for Americans is the hyphen in "uh-oh," our Commonwealth friends can be pretty much be told "what people say in "bottle" when they don't use "t.")

This next example uses more Old Ikostan sources, more Earth Pony/Middle Class pronunciation, a few intentional grammar mistakes, and a lot of childish enthusiasm:

Dua fefade-vef vo. Pinkipai, dua-n dunihin, vis sal inpai- i!
"Dwa feff-AW-day-VEF vo <Pinkie Pie> DWAN doo-NEE- heen vees sall een-PIE~"
2s WORRY-neg. prs. "Pinkie Pie" 2s-poss. "auntie" fut. EVERYTHING HANDLE/MANAGE-(emphasizing cuteness/familiarity)
"You don't worry. (More of a statement than a command.) Pinkie Pie, your Auntie, will everything handle."
"Don't worry. Your Auntie Pinkie will handle everything!"

Pinkie being Pinkie aside, this is a mess grammatically, but perhaps not poetically: she's making it rhyme.
Note that Pinkie has "lazy" pronunciation (or, Doylistically, acceptable mistakes folks not into linguistics *will* make when reading this stuff): she uses the "V" and "F" native English speakers are used to. She may also use the more familiar "R," but occasionally really likes to rrrrroll her "rrrrrrrrrs".

The first sentence should perhaps be more properly "Dua fefade vo-vef." With a rough implication of "You don't worry, do you?" or "Dua fefade val-vef." for "Don't worry." As it is, it implies familiarity and slightly playful condescension.

The second sentence in a more proper form would be "Pinkipai, duan dunihin, inpai sal-za vis." Mainly because Formal Grammar places "timestamps," or Tense, Aspect, and Mood markers, at the end of the sentence as a form of compromise between the grammars beginning to drift apart: Pegasi liked four-word sentences, and "trotted" sentences to make them more complex like "Fox jumped over target. Target was a dog. The fox was quick. The fox was brown. The dog was lazy." Unicorns tended to the stilted and formal: "Were the expedient tawny vulpine to vault above a chronically somnolent canine, 'twould be presently." And the Earth Ponies would of course say "Y'all know y'can just say: 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,' right?"

Meh I'm rambling. If you want more info, post a comment!

Later!