Talk:Sylvan (Titanian)

Notes made while working on this

some notes for general guidance on fey languages: All of this is available on the avlis website seeking language and Orleron. The posts get interesting between 2003 and 2004.

Orl wrote that the name of the language of arcane magic on avlis is called Magya. and while he encouraged us to not develop this language it is similar to hebrew. The similarity of magya to nanshilae he gives as example is english - german. This makes me wonder which of these two languages would be most similar to spirit language. I assume nanshilae, while magya is sort of an adopted trade dialect. Kind of like leet speak. All wizards speak magya. The importance of the lineage of fey languages to magya is directly proportional to the importance of early spirit language derived languages like magya and nanshilae to the efficacy of fey magic.

Spirit language is a dead language and is the precursor to elven and other languages ( I assume here we mean just Magya)

All languages in the avlissian family of "spirit" languages have to follow hebrew/nanshilae grammar. Titanian however has no template. FR elven is out for this due to it being pre-empted by dragonari, Tolkein elven is a possibility to supplement whatever non-copyrighted work we can lift online because IMO titanian sylvan should be similar between all game worlds. However Orl has written that on avlis the language of her fey have changed somewhat.

Orl wrote: The language that fairies speak is common to all fairy races (both O'Ma and Titanian), and many of them speak the common tongue as well. In a lot of cases, common fairies can speak elven and sylvan languages too. O'Ma and Titania have different versions of sylvan, with O'Ma's version being derived from the same spirit language as elven, and thus related about as closely as sanskrit and german, which are both indo-european languages. Each race within both fairy races has its own dialect of sylvan, which is regarded as a separate language, and is about as close as Italian and Spanish. Centaurs on Avlis have their own mishmosh language which combines both Titanian and O'Ma sylvan.

This was written for entries of both Avlissian and Titanian fairies so fairy common clearly is widely used by ALL fey be they avlissian, Titanian, seelie or unseelie. That last sentence of Orleron quotes just defined what avlissian sylvan MUST be. Although its kind of illogical since O'Ma sylvan = Centaur which has been stated by Orleron elsewhere. I'm assuming this is a desire to blend a language into existence of avlissian elements and titanian elements and we can basically do that by using what we already have and letting the archivists unravel the path on their own. Avlissian Sylvan is hence dissimilar from nanshilae because it is derived from Nanshilae and Titanian Sylvan. This language of "O'Ma sylvan" in all likelihood seems like the exact same thing as "Avlissian Centaur" and "Avlissian Sylvan"

So there definitely is a fairy common, a titanian sylvan and an avlissian sylvan.

I think the way forward is clear. 1.)Make Avlissian sylvan based off the grammar of nanshilae but with words drawn from Titanian sylvan and nanshilae, only combine those words to make them more unweildy and ancient feeling. 2.)Make Titanian Sylvan based off whatever analogs for "sylvan" we can freely use with whatever grammar it comes with and fill in the blanks however we can devise a way to do this be it by using Tolkein elven or whatever. It won't be important since it will be largely unused. 3.) Don't develop or use fey subrace languages yet, having the foundation of them in place is good enough because we need those foundations to develop the ONE useful fey language: fairy common. This should bear resemblance to the words from the pixie toolset voice and titanian sylvan in vocabulary as well as avlissian sylvan, blending vocabulary rules from each. ALWAYS using the easier rule.

So I'll be pulling nymph off the wiki and probably using it for fairy common. Then its just a matter of implementing grammar and the community can build the vocabularies for the three languages.

This language I'm hoping will act as the Titanian variant of the sylvan language. After a fair bit of discussion and forum searching I've got a road map to go by. The language on this page will be largely unused IG outside perhaps of events involving the Titanian nobility and court yet will be a crucial basis of other fey languages on avlis. The other languages I am making are: Avlissian Sylvan (The language of centaurs, druids and all sentient forest beings if they have the leftover INT to learn it) and Fairy Common (the language all fey speak after their racial language).

Titanian sylvan will probably only be used in game as the language of the Titanian nobility and the titanian court so I won't be messing too much with its vocabulary or grammar and it may never be comprehensive. From a game mechanics perspective it will be the language the titanian subrace languages will be derived from. Any other likely speakers of this will probably be selecting one of the other languages instead. Opinions welcome in the discussion area. I just put all this out here so it wouldn't be missed. (xiaou)

The vocabulary list is not the primary source for this article. For now these are the LEAST desirable vocabulary words in the article. Those in the main body of the article should take priority. It is important to note that most of this work is copied from the vast amount of work done here: http://www.elftown.com/_Sylvan Everything else is place holders yanked from Tolkein elven until I can get a consistent sense of the style the people at elftown have undertaken so that I can then modify it with some consistency to reflect the influence nanshilae would have had on this language in our setting.

Some Seemingly Inconsistent Examples From The Source Page

Sylvan English

Faele Searal ... Good morning

Veli'ir po o siluelves usilu ... It's sunny outside and the rain's stopped

Gav ma siluir? ... Where are you going?

Mirali be elas i me miralkut ba! ... Give me the food or I'll kill you!

Me sileir! ... I'm having fun!

Me u mirili sielvor'var'Vekut. ... I don't have a computer.

Fena miralo be minseis! ... He gave me the finger!

Mel yal feli Kiira ... My name is Kiira

Me mirili NoMimo leleb ... I'm sixteen years old

Ma miralkuto bena ma silumni! ... You killed him you bastard!

Jemirili re mel volieb ... Give me back my undies

Ge milyro ba? ... Who invited you?

Giril ma no sileel? ... Do you have any more wine?

Ysili Uvonkel! Re feli Feler! ... Step aside! I’m Queen!

Galni ma Sylvani? ... Do you speak Sylvan?

Ho, me usieli. ... No, I don’t.

SONGS

And here we have some songs which are often sung by the fey, complete with translations. Enjoy.

Salifes var Fae==== Misc Notes ====
Silyri y rea, silyri y rea,
y silur, sile o selui.
Silyri silui neal rea, silyri silui neal rea,
mea silu y kutae var silualbe.

The song of Life
Come to us, come to us,
to dancing, fun and song.
Come dance with us, come dance with us,
to dance to end of time.

Salif var Marivuki'ir
Ysili uvonkel! Ysili uvonkel!
Jesilyr y vo o voel, volo silumni!
Ma usilui neal rea! Ma usali neal rea!
Mea marivuki ma saliysuli!

Song of rejection
Go away! Go away!
Return to earth and mud, low animal!
You do not (cannot) dance with us! You do not dance with us!
We reject you forever!

Team Question and Answer Section

Lots of notes in this article. I guess I should make more differences to this material versus its source. A lot of changes had to be made because that language turned out to be a lot more arbitrary and incomplete than I first thought. I think it's appropriate for this language to most closely emulate a "standard" like you would find a very similar product in its place on Toril or Greyhawk but I don't think one exists. Making my own arbitrary changes to this article to distinguish it from its source is fine and all but I'd rather save that effort for it being useful and comprehensive. Since this language is going to be mostly unused as far as I can tell I'd rather let someone better at inventing a grammatical style than me take a crack at it. Thoughts?

Done for now

I'm done with this one for now. I may make a few small bridges to nanshilae like grammar and alter the vocabulary a bit and this is as useful as we are likely to ever need on any scale. I know I want to be sure the voiceset samples from the core game that I put in Fairy Common need to be in here too and this article could stand to have some formatting but this is probably more than adequate for our purposes for now. Cheers.

Chime In

I would like to encourage anyone to make suggestions, point out mistakes and so on in the article by using this discussion page. This article in particular could really use some advice and suggestions on grammar and any pan-setting resources on "sylvan" to help with consistency.