A Note on Languages
A Note on Languages
The English we hear in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is not, of course, really English. The look of the ponies' alphabet bears this out. It is Equestrian, and it is only translated to English so that we may be able to understand what is said by Twilight Sparkle, her friends, and the other beings she encounters. The translation is complete and absolute, but it is a translation nonetheless.
J.R.R. Tolkien, whose work has greatly inspired my own, adopts a similar conceit in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The English in those books is not English, either; it is Westron, also called the Common Tongue. It is rendered into English to ease our understanding of the story, and the rendering is so complete that even names are 'translated' from Westron into English, to a degree that some Westron names sound quite different than their English counterparts. For example, Meriadoc Brandybuck's 'real' name is Kalimac Brandagamba; Merry's name is changed in the text of The Lord of the Rings to better preserve the 'sense' of what his name would mean to speakers of Westron. I presume that Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and all the rest have names that similarly sound nothing like how we hear them, but what we do hear has been translated to preserve the same sense they have in the original Equestrian.
Perhaps even less noted in Tolkien's work was what I like to call 'relational translation.' That is, Westron was translated into English, and other languages were translated into other historical languages based on their relationship to Westron. The native language of the Rohirrim from The Lord of the Rings, for example, was translated into Anglo-Saxon, because the Rohirrim's language has the same relationship to Westron that Anglo-Saxon does to English. In the same way, the language of the Men of Dale from The Hobbit was translated into Old Norse, because it is related, and not related, to Westron in the same way that Old Norse is related, and not related, to English.
I do not have Tolkien's gift for languages; indeed, I have always been rather wretched at languages which are not my native one. Nevertheless, I have attempted to undertake a similar 'translation project' in both It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door and Besides the Will of Evil. The Equestrian that the ponies speak has been 'translated' into English. Meanwhile, the other languages in the story have been similarly 'translated' based on their relationship to Equestrian.
In the case of the deerfolk, it is important to remember, as Chapter 8 mentioned, that the six deer species were at one point distinct civilizations with their own languages. Based on each of those languages' eventual relations to Equestrian, I have 'translated' each species' language as follows:
Elk: French
Red Deer: Italian
Mule Deer: Spanish (particularly Castilian Spanish)
Moose: German
White-Tail Deer: Portuguese
Caribou: Dutch
As you can see, some of the translated languages are related to each other in the same way that some of the human languages are related to each other. I suspect that, at some point in the extremely distant past- perhaps tens or even dozens of thousands of years ago- the elk, red deer, mule deer, and white-tail deer all had a kind of common proto-civilization whose common language had the same relationship to their later languages that Latin does to the Romance Languages. Similarly, I suspect that the caribou and the moose, both species from the cold northern reaches, at some point mingled to an extent that they shared a common language that had the same function as the language which gave rise to the Germanic Languages. Regardless of primordial association, however, by the time of The Comrades the six species were distinct, with their own distinct languages- until the Elements of Harmony brought them together.
When the six species decided to unite and form the deerfolk, it was determined that they should have a new language that bound them all together, something wholly distinct from anything any of them were speaking at the time. It fell to the elk, always the greatest writers and poets among the deer species, to invent this language, which they did. This is what I have chosen to call Laewtil, which, if I remember my work from Dangerous Business properly, translates as 'antler tongue.' Laewtil too is translated, but because it is an invented language with vague similarity to the Romance Languages, I have chosen to translate it as another invented language with vague similarity to the Romance Languages: the Elvish that Tolkien himself dreamed up. Particularly, I have chosen to work mostly with Quenya, as that has the most complete grammar and vocabulary; however, where I have been unable to find suitable Quenya words to complete a sentence, I have reluctantly used Sindarin words.
I admit that this project has been only haltingly achieved; as I previously mentioned, I am not good with languages. Any help I might receive in the future on proper use of languages which are not English would be immensely appreciated.
One final note: you have noticed that the various deer species have different-sounding names. Though all the deer species adopted Laewtil, most of them chose to continue naming their children in their original languages, as a way of holding on to their history. Only the elk, the inventors of Laewtil, took it on completely- they fully displaced their old elkish language with Laewtil, even going so far as to name their children with names derived from Laewtil. That is why, while moose have German names, white-tails have Portuguese names, and so on, the elk have Quenya/Sindarin names.
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Nice, and interesting.
By any chance, have you read the Arrow 18 Mission Logs? It's got some interesting language ideas similar to what you're talking about in regards to names.
4400020 Not yet, I'll have to give them a look.
Hey, if ever need help with the Dutch language, feel free to ask. I'd love to help!
Well, this was certainly fascinating, and it answers a few questions I had regarding the languages being used in these stories. I have always sort of had a linguistic as well as a etymological bent. I know both German and Spanish if you're at all in need of assistance with either.
4400194
4400243
I'll probably be taking both of you up on that offer sooner or later.
Nifty, I am a sucker for world building which is what attracted me to 'Dangerous Business' in the first place.
4400304
Sweet, can't wait!
Me gusta where this is going. Not big on non-English languages myself, but from experience I can say that Quenya and Sindarin are fun to work with when it comes to deer.
4400304 Feel free.
Yo soy lo que se dice un experto.
Ich bin das, was man einen Experten hinzuziehen.
Bogen vor mir! Ich bin ein mächtiger Elch!
There's also the work called "A Voice Among the Strangers" that has a human being facing the problem that none of the pastel ponies she finds herself among speaks English. She ends up using cutie marks and coat colours to name them. As by way of example, she names Rarity "Jewel".
This is some pretty hardcore nerding out on languages. I love it.
4402712
As I mentioned, I'm playing a bit fast and loose with canon. I slapped the AU label on as a precaution. I'm trying to keep everything from the show in as well as I can, but there may be certain aspects of the show that simply can't be added.
Also, the mother-son relationship between Twilight and Spike has in fact been dropped; in the end, it's just not the nature of their bond. There is one very important part of A Day for Spike and Twilight that is still canon, however, and we'll eventually see its effects.
4403991 I guess that makes some sense of Pinkie's psychic Pinkie Sense.
While I am enjoying what you're doing with languages here and understand what your saying about translating, I refuse to accept it into my personal headcanon. Seeing as the world that contains Equestria is an alternate universe from ours, normal rules don't apply. I think that they really DO speak English and their "Equestrian" developed differently but to similar results. Basically, my headcanon falls back on the multiverse theory, and that there are a basically infinite number of different universes out there. The MLP universe contains ponies that speak English. There are also other universes where all sorts of other things happen, including your fanfiction.
Well this turned into a language barrier headcanon rant...
Anyway, I like how you've set up the languages and their relations, and in THIS universe you've created that is exactly how it is. It works here and I like it.
With season 4 "out of the way" (so to speak), I finally started to read this. And it has already exceeded all expectations I had. I read the first eight chapters in one sitting, because I couldn't stop reading. That's a sign of a good story. It feels amazing to finally have a sequel for It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door and this time I'm not going to procrastinate and wait until the story's finished before reading it.
While I miss the "adventure" part of the first story, I'm not going to let that bother me too much. In these eight chapters so far, you've already managed to capture the same magic the first story has. I hope we'll see Dash riding the lightning again.
Keep up the good work!
This is turning out to be my favorite fanfic.
I'm sorry Pen Stroke, but I think you are about to be outdone by Jetfire2012...
Well this has been in my read later for a while. I can safely say I wasn't disappointed. Looking out for that next update.
That was pretty good! Read it right after rereading Dangerous Business, which I am SO glad to see on FimFic. Do you plan on putting A Day for Spike and Twilight up here too?
4370427
On the pegasi/pegasuses note:
1. Pegasus is the Latinization of the original word, so the -i is correct within the language.
2. The show uses 'pegasi,' and when in doubt, go with show canon. "Pegasuses" shows up once, but it's Pinkie Pie saying and it's clearly meant to be a joke.
3. Even if the above weren't true, and it hadn't been iterated upon by past commenters, one thing remains true: as an author, you need to remain consistent. Throughout Dangerous Business, you had the running joke of rarity correcting everypony about the word. Even if in our universe "pegasi" is wrong, you made it clear that in your FiM universe "pegasi" is correct. That needs to remain consistent in at least this series. It annoyed me every time the word came up, just because it was DIFFERENT from the norm. Jumping from it being a running joke, and then having the decision just reversed like that was jarring, and it needs to be corrected as a matter of style, even if you disagree with the etymology.
Well, like I said before, I'd be happy to help with the Caribou. Anyway, I rather like the premise ^^
Slow going, but this might interest you.
If you need help with castilian spanish, I can help! don't be afraid to ask!
Shoot me a pm, if you need help with german texts. I am a native speaker.
Hmm... I am a hobby linguist, and I spend most of my time making languages for my D&D sessions. I could make you a couple if you are interested.
(Emphasis on hobby. I am self-learned and the languages won't be perfect, but they will work!)
And, presumably, another few millennia back, a single Proto-Cervine which gave rise to Proto-North-Cervine and Proto-South-Cervine?
(Hmm, PIE…
)
nice headcanon
it's needlessly complicated, but interesting
all the same, I do not share it
as such, I shall continue reading your story the way I was before:
by my headcanon
School house Rock
The parts of speech & Mr. Morten Walks will be some help
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=schoolhouse+rock+parts+of+speech&qs=SS&form=QBVR&sp=1&ghc=1&pq=schoolhouse+rock+parts+of&sc=3-25&cvid=169AD0A497DD45C8A9491632D0BF21DF
For example, in English you can turn a noun into an adjective & then into an adverb. AFAIK, you can't in some languages
In English, the verb is buried in the middle of the sentence
In German, the verb the last word is.
Someone said that German is the easiest language in the world to write poetry in because
every sentence ends in a verb & every verb ends in either 'heit' or 'keit'
(There are exceptions & it depends on the verb tense)
In English, the subject of the sentence is usually up front, in Spanish it's sometimes part of the verb
For instance, "Yo" = "I" & "soy" is the first person singular form of the verb "to be"
But you usually just say "Soy" & not "Yo soy"
A lot of languages have an intimate & a formal word tense
For example, Spanish "tu" = you (intimate) & "su" = you (formal)
Using "tu" means that you are either a close friend, a superior (adult to child, for instance), or family
Otherwise you use "su"
English doesn't do that
Languages tend to have a lot of words for stuff that gets talked about
& the word tends to get shortened.
("automobile to "auto', for instance or "horseless carriage" to "car")
Deer probably didn't have a word for "Cutie Mark" until Ponies invented it.
Pegasi probably have a lot of words for various flight maneuvers, for instance
Except for Esperanto (an artificial language), every language has at least some irregular verbs
Turkish has the least (1) & English the most (800+)
Oh & here
https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html
,