Questions Pertaining to Language

[Pinkcrusade]

So, greetings Playground.

I have looked through many forums and books in an attempt to locate an alphabet or a general sense of what Abyssal would sound/be written out like (similar to Draconic in Dragonomicom), but to no avail. Does anybody here have an idea of what it would sound like?

Thanks.

[Cruiser1]

locate an alphabet or a general sense of what Abyssal would sound/be written out like (similar to Draconic in Dragonomicom), but to no avail. Does anybody here have an idea of what it would sound like?
Abyssal uses the Infernal alphabet (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/speakLanguage.htm). In FC2 it says demons use "a devolved form of the Infernal alphabet", which causes the orderly devils to wince when they look at it. :smalltongue: As creatures of evil and chaos, I imagine Abyssal is a mixture of gross and frightening sounds like groans, hisses, screeches, growls, and other noises that sounds that don't correspond to letters in the English language.

[Duke of Urrel]

Abyssal is a distinct language separate from Infernal, even though it uses the same alphabet. There are probably some cognates shared by the two languages, but "false friends," which appear to be cognates but actually have different meanings, are probably even more numerous. So any assumption that you may make about Abyssal based on what you know of Infernal, or vice versa, is highly dangerous.

The fluff that I prefer to imagine is that Celestial, Infernal, and Abyssal all have a common origin, but that Abyssal has deviated farther from Celestial than Infernal has. In any event, demons and devils have only mutual contempt for each other's native tongues. Devils regard their own language as a rectified, greatly improved version of Celestial, cleansed of any trace of Goodness. They regard Abyssal as a confused, inarticulate, dumbed-down version of their own language with poor spelling and grammar. Demons, in contrast, are proud that their language has deviated so far from Celestial. They regard Infernal as a half-dead language whose tight-sphinctered speakers have no appreciation for the creative possibilities of slang, puns, ambiguity, and the linguistic innovations that these things make possible.

[Cirrylius]

It's from AD&D, and a largely reviled source, but there is one example.

Abyssal is a highly personalized language; While there are local or regional variations, every demon chooses the intonation, vocabulary, dialect, or accent they prefer the most within those boundaries (or not), and use it until they find something they like better, or until someone makes them stop (or not).

There is speculation that one of the reasons that demons are so irritable is because unless they use telepathy, their language is so variable that they have a hard time understanding each others' "bastard" dialects. Higher-ranking demons tend to have a more sophisticated and melifluous tongue, and lower-ranking demons' speech tends to be more guttural, crude, or obstructed, but it's only a tendency, not an absolute.

On a personal note, I imagine Abyssal would have the same cultural and circumstantial biases that languages have IRL, for example the apocryphal "fifty words for snow". Abyssal would have endless nuance regarding subjects of violence, anger, pain, and betrayal, while subjects such as order, organization, kindness, and love would either be underrepresented, lack a coherent definition due to lack of context, or be loaded with hateful, spiteful, or contemptuous subtext.

[georgie_leech]

On a personal note, I imagine Abyssal would have the same cultural and circumstantial biases that languages have IRL, for example the apocryphal "fifty words for snow". Abyssal would have endless nuance regarding subjects of violence, anger, pain, and betrayal, while subjects such as order, organization, kindness, and love would either be underrepresented, lack a coherent definition due to lack of context, or be loaded with hateful, spiteful, or contemptuous subtext.

Eh, the 50 words for snow thing is technically true, but it has more to do with language structure than anything to do with how common something is. Inuit uses a compound word structure, so where we might use "yellow snow" or "fluffy snow," where an adjective alters the noun, they would have "yellowsnow" and "fluffysnow," as distinct words that are basically jamming the adjective and noun together. German is especially known for this structure, using many words to make their "Bandwurmwörter" (literally "tapeworm words"), like "Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung," "motor vehicle indemnity insurance."

As a side note, given how often my only German player makes jokes about evil German sounds, I'm now kind of tempted to have Abyssal be based off of German in my games. :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

@georgie: Well, while that's true to a degree (inuit languages are polysynthetic, which is a very different phenomenon from the free compounding you might find in e.g. Finnish or German - we're talking about different stems, not just fluffy.snow as a compound; plus there's more information included anyways), there's also a greater degree of separation on topics of interest within languages. E.g. Tofa, a moribund language spoken by reindeer herders in certain mountain valleys in Siberia, has a whole system for the classification of reindeers. The language is agglutinative, it's not just absorption of the particles (though it's not in Inuit languages either, they have more actual stems on the topic than e.g. English). For instance, there's a separate noun for a female reindeer pregnant for certain months, or for one in heat. These words stem from the fact that it's convenient to have greater degree of separation for your livestock when the whole culture revolves around them; indeed, it's not just the language, Tofa people can easily recognize the different categories of reindeers their language differs (also the vocabulary related to the mountain regions and local terrain and so on). For other languages, it's not rare for languages spoken in mountain ranges to code the height or vertical direction of an object or an action with affixes, for instance.

And then, as an example easy for me to provide: Finnish, too, has a far greater depth of vocabulary available for the description of different kinds of snow (freshly rained, deepfrozen and then somewhat molten, easily moldable snow that keeps its shape, etc. all have their own nouns), and for different types of marshes than English and as such translating between the two languages on those topics can be very difficult (though the Finnish words are slowly disappearing from the language or at least growing rare in common speech with urbanization).

@topic: Looking at their speakers, well, the vocabulary of a language is indeed the most developed when it comes to things the speakers deal with most frequently. Abyssal would, as such, embody "chaos" and "evil" as defined in D&D, and all the different vices and sins the various demons embody. The Abyss is indeed highly individualistic and those who rule do so through power; different sociolects and slangs within a certain fiend type, certain level of power, etc. would certainly emerge as said.

I would theorize each fiend class has their own slang that's doubly applicable to whatever they specialize in; Succubi in temptation, seduction and sex, Glabrezus in greed, power and wealth, many different types for their brand of combat and deception (assassination, invisibility, etc. in all their guises). More powerful individuals would then have their own sociolects and obviously, I completely agree with the people in this thread on the assumption that there would be an incredible amount of individual variation in Abyssal, as is wont to happen with a language used by creatures embodying chaos. Indeed, I'm not sure hard grammatical rules would even serve as more than vague guidelines; it could actually kind of resemble how English is used online for instance (except instead of stemming from the lack of proficiency, the variation would stem from a lack of regard for the various rules).

[MesiDoomstalker]

Indeed, I'm not sure hard grammatical rules would even serve as more than vague guidelines; it could actually kind of resemble how English is used online for instance (except instead of stemming from the lack of proficiency, the variation would stem from a lack of regard for the various rules).

So you are telling me Demons talk in 1337 Speak and horribly misspelled words? Why does this make too much sense to be true?

[Eldariel]

So you are telling me Demons talk in 1337 Speak and horribly misspelled words? Why does this make too much sense to be true?

Probably less 1337 sp34k and more horribly garbled pronunciation/spelling, syntactical and grammatical relations. I'd almost wager a guess there's no word order whatsoever in Abyssal (well, that's almost the case in Finnish so go figure, maybe it should be taken for granted). There's actually a good example in one of my phonetics books on how much pronunciation can be altered while still remaining intelligible: take the sentence "Mary had a little lamb" and replace every vowel with a long version of the [ɛ] you use for the [e] in "mellow" (so it would be something like [mɛ:rɛ: hɛ:d ɛ: lɛ:tl lɛ:m] - note, it's not the "[i:]" coded by /ea/ in "mead", /ee/ in "feed" or so, but just long version of the same [e] used in "mellow"), learn to say it right and say it to a random native, chances are you'll still be understood. So I'd wager a guess there would be an obscene amount of variety in the vowel sounds (and even variety in the grades and the styles of consonant sounds) used in Abyssal.

I'd say it'd be logical vowels wouldn't be marked in the script ("an abjad"), kind of like in older phonetic writing systems (and even nowadays in many Semitic languages like modern Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic or such use scripts that don't generally write vowels and indeed, vowels vary with inflection categories) - basically everything predating ancient Greek lacks vowels (though many are symbolic of course). Though since Abyssal is based on Infernal and Infernal most likely would mark vowels (unless that's again one of the things where they revel in the legal opportunities presented by minimalistic marking in a document), there's a reasonable case to be made for the users of Abyssal lacking cohesion to the degree that such a change could never actually occur on a grand scale. Of course, much also depends on the vocal apparatus the demons use; human language is restricted by what we can produce after all, so where we have pulmonic sounds, clicks, ejectives and implosives, there could be great variation in the actual sounds available for demons (and indeed, how do they even produce sound since they don't breathe? Can they produce auditory signals corresponding to speech underwater for instance? Are they just awesome enough to produce vibration detectable as speech in a vacuum?).


There's actually an interesting passage on the Infernal script (also relating to Abyssal) in Fiendish Codex II: Formed spontaneously by Asmodeus as he landed in the bottom of the pit, it has a mathematically rigid grammar and is best pronounced with a forked or a wriggling tongue. Apparently it's composed of 33 geometrical glyphs composed of straight lines, and a second similar set for numbers and mathematical symbols, and all statements are unique and can only be constructed in exactly one way (no homonymy exists). Demons apparently use a devolved version of this script, not caring much for the precision or written words in general. So, a language with 33 separate consonants would be quite rare (though not impossible; IPA lists almost 100 possible pulmonic consonants and another such of clicks, implosives and ejectives).

Of course, it'd be just like Infernal to be needlessly complex especially if every meaning is truly to be stated in exactly one unambiguous, unique, distinct way. That actually would, in my opinion, speak for 33 consonants with unmarked vowels. Other options exist too; syllable writing system and a traditional alphabet, especially one in the style of English where letter combinations actually stand for different sounds would work. But from what I glean from the short passage in Fiendish Codex II, it seems more like it's to be extremely exacting in both, script and pronunciation, so I'd imagine it is most likely to actually have 33 glyphs standing for Latin-style letters, but with letter combinations standing for fixed additional sounds (the way e.g. ng stands for ŋ in most Latin-based languages). And then derived from this, Abyssal would have the same glyphs but with a ton of individual variety in how they're drawn and what exactly they mean, and with an English-like lack of correspondence between the written form and phonetic meaning of said form (while in Infernal the correspondence would be 100%).

Just a little brainstorming, you can of course draw your own conclusions.

[GolemsVoice]

I'd say it'd be logical vowels wouldn't be marked in the script ("an abjad"), kind of like in older phonetic writing systems (and even nowadays in many Semitic languages like modern Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic or such use scripts that don't generally write vowels and indeed, vowels vary with inflection categories) - basically everything predating ancient Greek lacks vowels (though many are symbolic of course). Though since Abyssal is based on Infernal and Infernal most likely would mark vowels (unless that's again one of the things where they revel in the legal opportunities presented by minimalistic marking in a document), there's a reasonable case to be made for the users of Abyssal lacking cohesion to the degree that such a change could never actually occur on a grand scale. Of course, much also depends on the vocal apparatus the demons use; human language is restricted by what we can produce after all, so where we have pulmonic sounds, clicks, ejectives and implosives, there could be great variation in the actual sounds available for demons (and indeed, how do they even produce sound since they don't breathe? Can they produce auditory signals corresponding to speech underwater for instance? Are they just awesome enough to produce vibration detectable as speech in a vacuum?).

First, respect for the linguistic analysis, wow!

Second, given the confusion that can occur by not marking vowels, I'm sure devils would love them, along with all kind of legalese, abbreviations and stuff, so that an actual document is almost it's own language, while the devils can still declare that it's normal infernal. Just written differently.

[Cirrylius]

and indeed, how do they even produce sound since they don't breathe?
Oh, they breathe. They just don't suffer any consequences if they decide not to breathe.


Are they just awesome enough to produce vibration detectable as speech in a vacuum?.
Yup. It's called telepathy:smallwink:


it has a mathematically rigid grammar and is best pronounced with a forked or a wriggling tongue. Apparently it's composed of 33 geometrical glyphs composed of straight lines, and a second similar set for numbers and mathematical symbols, and all statements are unique and can only be constructed in exactly one way (no homonymy exists).
Continuing on the aforementioned outdated source, Infernal is-

-bewilderingly complex,

-always establishes the relationship of dominance, equality, or submission between the speaker and listener,

- virtually impossible to tell the whole truth in; tenses and vocabulary encourage half-truths and implications for both speaker and listener

-peculiar in that the individual sounds bear no relationship to one another; alternately barking, melodious, squealing, and cultured (this could almost be a misprint, and doesn't really mesh with the FC version of events, but if Asmodeus did make the language up himself, it might sound like a complex glossolalia,

-broken into four castes, based on the devil's station. Each dialect is noticably different, and it is a punishable act to use a higher-caste tongue than your own.

Spinagons are the least, with a harsh, barking, battlefield dialect suited for simple commands and mockery by implying stupidity.

The second tongue, used by Lesser devils, is equal to a prime language in complexity, and begins to demonstrate a noticably darker tone and a definite pattern.

The third, spoken by Greater devils, is stilted and formal, full of patterns that go nowhere until they suddenly reach a conclusion; it requires planning, forethought, and the ability to lead your listener on the most subtle cues, (it's rumored that Greater devils can speak an entire conversation merely by speaking the first sentence and extrapolating the resulting pattern) and is almost impossible for mortals to learn.

The fourth tongue is spoken exclusively by Pit Fiends and Nobles, and has a complexity and awfulness that hover at the edge of human comprehension. The letters of the court tongue are also subtly curved, meaning that the natual shape of the devils' court script is a spiral... or a circle. Put another way, a properly constructed argument in the fourth tongue is logically self-evident, ending where it began, self reinforcing... just like a summoning circle. That devil you summoned is being held in place by a seamless, magically enforced argument :smallamused:
[/QUOTE]

[Eldariel]

First, respect for the linguistic analysis, wow!

Second, given the confusion that can occur by not marking vowels, I'm sure devils would love them, along with all kind of legalese, abbreviations and stuff, so that an actual document is almost it's own language, while the devils can still declare that it's normal infernal. Just written differently.

Mh, I would agree if I were to think of it on my own. However, based on the mini description in Fiendish Codex II, I got the picture that it is actually an extremely rigid system, where everything is marked one way or another. It feels like the vowels would either be marked or rigid, unmarked. The absoluteness of the language would therefore require that no variable vowels be unmarked (though again, if the vowels only have one option for each word there's no real need to mark them). There are certainly other ways to create legal garbling; such as a huge vocabulary and a complex morphological system to that very purpose. Much like Tofan people can have a different word for a female reindeer in heat and for one that will be in heat in one month, there could be a rich lexicon for different types of documents with different composition with minute affixal marking pointing out their actual function that you can use to create just as much opportunity for outwitting any prospective partners.


Yup. It's called telepathy:smallwink:

Yeah, I was thinking beyond that. Sounds are, after all, quite characterized by the material they're passing through but who knows what can be accomplished with magic and alien conceptual physiology :smalltongue: