Observations

by BaeroRemedy

Breakthroughs

Spring, Twenty-First Day of the Third Moon, Year of Peace

I was awoken by the fillies. They had come out to my tent as the sun rose and had gotten inside. I did learn some new phrases, though. Learning something new is a wonderful way to start the day.

“Ehp-eel say-loos-ah-steen-uh hall-en.” This was spoken by the white filly, obviously. The second word is her name. The first two words are things I have heard multiple times now in the same configuration. It is a greeting “I am…name.” The last word sounds like ‘hello’. I will assume this is more of a formal greeting, whereas before it was a declaration of identity. “I am [this pony] and hello.”

“Ehp-krehs hall-en” This one is new! Hall-en means hello, but the first word is a mystery! “Ehp” is the root word and is indicative of a pronoun. “-krehs” is a new twist. I have no clue as to what it could mean or why the blue filly would not simply say the same thing as her sister but by inserting her own name.

Perhaps I upset her and this is a subdued greeting? She is a foal though and she could just be grumpy. Her level of energy is much lower than her sister’s at the moment. Maybe she is just not a morning pony. I know in my days I have mumbled half-hearted greetings to ponies after a long night. Who is to say they are not the same?

Now I am sharing breakfast with them. The white filly has taken a sweet roll but, surprisingly, the blue one has instead joined me in having a small bar of oats with mixed fruit embedded in it. I had assumed after the way she had mauled me the other day that she would have the sweet tooth.

I have just now had the realization that I did not see any kind of food storage in their cave. I did not see traces of grazing near it either. They do eat, though. I am seeing the act right now with my own eyes.

This is a chance for research.

“Eat?” Said as I pick up my oat bar in my magic and mimic taking a bite of it.

“Eet-ah” Responded to by the both of them. Fairly simple. Easy to remember. I like words like that. Once more, another possible sign of a distant common language.

“Eat next when?” Said while mimicking eating and then motioning to the sky.

There was no immediate response. They are now conversing quietly between themselves to decipher what it was that I said.

“Eet-uh-fet ken?” The white filly spoke to me. I know that “Eet-uh” means eat.

“Fet” is a new modifier.

“Ken” is also a new word from their mouths, but considering I know this is a question and the interrogative for ‘where’ shared the same general noise, I can assume that it means ‘when’.

They have rephrased my question in their own language!

“-fet” is a modifier that must signify time.

When will we eat next? It was asking for clarification!

“Yay.” Said while nodding at the two of them.

“Ken eh-seb dest-fet. Ehp-eell nah-weh-tan.”

A FULL RESPONSE!

I had to ask them to repeat that a few times with a hoof to my ear. I got them both to say it as well, which earned a laugh from the blue one. This is astounding! I can now break this down…with them both looking over my shoulders as I write yet again.

“Ken” Presumed to mean “when”

“Eh-seb” Another new word, but similar construction to other known pronouns. I must assume this is another one for now.

“Dest-fet” I believe that -fet is a modifier that signals some passage of time, as previously stated. We will assume that it means next.

There is a problem with this sentence. I thought I already knew the word for “you”. The blue one used a third person pronoun for me the first night they joined me at my camp. “Leg-eel” when I was asked “Where are your wings?” I suppose that it might be the difference between “your” as a possessive and “you” as an individual linguistically. Why that wouldn’t just be a modifier is beyond me.

Either way.

“When you(?) ___ next” “Dest” is the only word of the bunch I do not have any context for. I will ask them what it means. Hopefully if I just repeat it enough in a confused manner they will grasp that I do not understand the word.

That worked. I repeated the word a few times and eventually the blue one picked up a rock with a hoof then put it in my hoof and repeated it back.

“Dest” - Give. At least, I think.

“Ken eh-seb dest-fest.” When you give next. Another simplistic translation. I will assume there is nuance here I am not grasping quite yet and not that this is an underdeveloped language.

“Ehp nah-weh-tan.”

“Ehp” is a twist on a known quantity. I know of ‘ehp-eel’ which I thought meant “I”. This brings to new light that -eel is a modifier, which recontextualizes what I know about their pronoun systems. What does the modifier signify? Context gives me no clues.

“Nah-weh-tan” There is yet another known, -tan is negation modifier. So whatever “nah-weh” means, -tan makes it not that anymore. I will once again demonstrate my own ignorance and hope that the foals can enlighten me.

Once again, it worked. They are quite bright for being so young.

When prompted to explain, they muttered between themselves for a few minutes. When they next broke up, they each did separate things. The white one took deep overexaggerated breaths while the blue one just generally moved around aimlessly.

Now I am here mulling over what they mean by it.

Need?

They had been demonstrating needs: breathing and moving around. While the latter is hardly a ‘hard’ need, I suppose it is something one requires to stay sane. It is not the first thing I would have thought of, but if it is the logic then I understand it.

“Nah-weh” Need.

“Ehp nah-weh-tan.” I need-not.

Well, that is a little disturbing now that I write it down and say it aloud. Both sentences in full: “When you give next. I need-not” That is literal but if I were to attach the connotation from body language and translate the feeling more than just the words, I would say it means “Whenever you give us more. I don’t need food.”

This is a chance to construct a follow-up question! How exciting! I believe I have enough knowledge to do so! This will be clumsy and most likely wrong, but it will be enlightening all the same.

“Eh-seb nah-weh-tan eet-ah?” You needn’t eat? We will see what happens.

I, Starswirl the Bearded, the greatest of all of King Bullion’s many mages, have been mocked by foals. It is truly a day I will never forget. It was humbling to have the two of them laugh at me and mock my words in silly voices. It also felt good to bring them joy.

I was corrected by the white one. She gave me a playful ‘tsk-tsk’ and repeated my question but corrected the grammar for me.

“Ehz eet-ah nah-weh-tan”

Ehz is yet another new pronoun. There seem to be an unending number of them floating around in this language and their uses are confusing to a novice such as myself. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding somewhere. I will go through my notes to see if I can interpret something else differently.

-Starswirl

—-Addendum—-

I believe I have found it. The first night where I spoke with them. The blue one was not asking “Where are your wings?” she had been asking the other one “Where are their wings?” leg-eel is a third person pronoun, whereas ep-eel is a first person and it seems as if “ez” is second person.

Could -eel signify possession of something? When they say their names they say “ep-eel”, so they are saying “I am in possession of this name”? “Leg-eel” in reference to my wings. “Where are the wings they have?” It is a possibility but I am still uncertain.

The white one has badgered me for one of my journals and a quill. I am hesitant to give one as they are as valuable as gold in this new environment with these strange fillies, but I must think of the possible gains. If I can get her to write, perhaps I can learn more. I will show her the words I have learned from them so far, speak them, and ask her to write them if she is indeed able.

Already I can see her testing the quill upon the page. I know they share similar characters to our own, but I feel like I will need to take some liberties to make the words fit within Ponish letters.

—-Addendum—-

I went over every word I have learned so far with little Celusastisina, that is how her name is spelled, and learned much. Her ability to write is rudimentary, as is to be expected by somepony of her age, but it is legible. The blue one, Celuleunelnen, is not so lucky. She can write, but the letters are hardly legible.

I suppose before I go into transcribing all of the words I have learned so far, I should point out something I have noticed but have not recorded yet. They have limited vowel sounds, only five if my ears are to be trusted.

A - Ah

E - Eh

I - Ee

O - Oh

U - Oo

I will try to keep this in mind as I learn these words. This makes their language simple to the ear, but I fear that it masks the more complex things. Already I find their pronoun system labyrinthine and I fear there is yet more uncovered.

Proper Nouns

Celusastisina - say-loo-sas-tees-een-ah - The name of the white filly with the blue, pink, and green mane.

Celuleunelnen - say-loo-lay-oo-nel-nen - The name of the blue filly with the blue mane.

Averlas - Ah-vehr-lahs - Mother.

Skaros - Skah-rohs - Their homeland across the sea.

Avertanlas - Ah-vehr-tan-las - Father. (Now that I am not in a strange mental state, I have looked at this word more. -tan here is negating Aver. Which means that Aver and -las are two different things and not one whole word. -las is another modifier. I have not encountered it in any other words yet so I do not know what it might mean.)

Pronouns

Epil - Ehp-eel - First person pronoun. “I/me” (Unsure if the addition of -eel marks the pronoun as possessive. I need more information.)

Ez - Ez - Second person pronoun. “You/yours”

Eseb - eh-seb - Second person pronoun. (I feel like I am missing something with this one as well. It is possible the root word is Es and -eb is a modifier but it is impossible to tell. The context in which it was said might mark it as a pronoun when an action is taken?)

Legil - Leg-eel - Third person pronoun. “They/them/theirs” (See note on Epil)

Nouns

Fetra - Feh-trah - Wing

Ker - Kehr - Horn

Sapon - Sah-pohn - Hoof

Mud - Mood - Mouth

Nima - Nee-mah - Mane

Agen - Ah-gen - Eye

Ropik - Roh-peek - Rock

Ved - Vehd - Water

Verbs

Ita - eet-ah - Eat.

Dest - Dehst - Give

Nawe - Nah-weh - Need

Statements/Interjections/Answers

(Polly Glot cannot decide what parts of speech ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are, so I will just throw them into a category of their own.)

Ye - Yeh - Yes

Yetan - Yeh-tan - No. (The addition of -tan as a suffix signifies negation as stated before. This is not literally ‘no’, but instead ‘not yes’.)

Interrogatives

Ke - Keh - Where

Ken - Ken - When

Modifiers

-tan - tan - As stated above, this signifies negation. Literally ‘not’.

-elis - eh-lees - denotes a place or area holding/composed of something.

-fet - fet - Presumed to be a measure of time/proximal modifier. ‘Next’ is my current understanding of it.

-las - lahs - Inconclusive. I require more examples of this in use to understand.

-kres - krehs - Unknown. (Only used once as a modifier for a pronoun. Epkres. It was said in relation to a greeting.)

Other

Hallen - Hah-len - Hello

Other Observations

I have tried to teach them some of our words as well. They have trouble with -th as a sound, same with -nd and -tch. Indicative that this is not a sound prevalent in their language. Interesting divergence if so.

As stated previously, their pronoun system is currently beyond my understanding. I can grasp what has been told to me, but I feel like I am missing the core of it. There is something fundamental here, perhaps cultural, that I am not aware of.

Language and culture evolve simultaneously. As I am speaking with foals, it is impossible to get a clear grasp of even the language side of the equation. The culture side is a complete unknown and, depending on how long these two have been abandoned here, I may never have a full view of that. If only I could ask them about what Skaros was like, then I might learn more.

Perhaps one day I might go there.

Comments

[BaeroRemedy]

11790650
It's a coincidence. Skaros is an adapted name of a canon place in the show. I had to make it fit in with the language.

[Clawfoot]

11790650
Now imagine a young Celestia and Luna going "Exterminate" as they fire harmless magic spells at each other.

[Sigmacipher]

11790790
That would be adorable.

[Jman14102]

We're going to need a spreadsheet or something like that to keep track of all these terms.

Either way I can't tell if Starswirl will grow into a sort of paternal figure for the girls, or if he'll simply be really good friends to them. The more they "talk" about their family and where they're from, though, the more it leaves me wondering where alicorns fit in to the grand scheme of this version of Equestria.

[BaeroRemedy]

11791004
Don't worry, we're putting out a glossary with rules and grammar at the end of the story.