copyright © 2005-2010 Dennis Paul Himes

The contents of this page are preliminary. They won't become canonical until the first version of the Tale of Tifa Walbatnuwa Siina is up. - DPH


Notes on Translations of Seezzitonian and other Umutonian terms into English and Other Human Languages

There were three linguists in the Haddad expedition, myself, Susana Schaeffer, and Jerry Montilla, the section head (i.e. Susana's and my boss). We had somewhat spirited discussions sometimes over how to translate terminology from asiit languages into human ones.


Borrowing Umutonian Terminology

There was some debate among the members of the Haddad Expedition on what terms should be used in human languages for concepts (such as animal and plant species) which are specific to the asiit and Umuto. There was also debate as to how to pluralize the nouns. It was decided to borrow terms from Seezzitonian as much as possible, since that is still the language of scholarship on Umuto, and allow the speaker to Anglicize (or Hispanicize or whatever) the pronunciation and spelling as much as seemed natural. When a de facto standard emerged, we would make it official. For the most part, and somewhat to my surprise, Seezzitonian plurals became standard in most cases.

Only the nominative case is used in English borrowings. The pluralization of a Seezzitonian nominative is regular, which is probably one reason it caught on easily even among humans who didn't learn Seezzitonian. More details can be found the noun section of the language pages, but here is a summary of Seezzitonian singular/plural ending pairs.

singularplural
-u-us
-au-aus
-eu-eus
-a-aa
-it-iit
-ait-iit
-oit-oit
-o-op

Mass and abstract nouns end in -ee and have no plurals.


Kinship Terms

Since almost all asit cultures, and certainly the major ones of the SSildifian Empire, were strongly matrilineal, most kinship terms refered only to matrilineal descent. That convention is adapted here. Unless noted otherwise, the terms "sibling", "brother", "sister", "ancestor", "descendent", "(great)grandparent", "(great)grandchild/son/daughter", "(great)uncle", "(great)aunt", "(great)nephew", "(great)niece", and "cousin" refer only to matrilineal relatives.


su, awoman, man

The terms asu and asa are generally used only when the speaker specifically wants to distinguish between an asit and another type of sapient. The general terms for "female sapient" and "male sapient" are su and a, which are what are used to refer to an asu or asa in normal conversation. These terms are usually translated as "woman" and "man".


domubez, domubmate (verb)
domubezalu/amate (noun)

Domubez does not mean mate simply in the sense of having sexual intercourse, but rather to be a sexual partner (domubezalu (F) or domubezala (M)) throughout an asu's heat.


izzvemube nubile

This term is usually applied to asus, but it can also be applied to asaa. It means old enough (and young enough) to be sexually active. An asu becomes nubile when she first goes into heat, usually at about the age of 16 (about 22 Terrestrial years), and remains so until she stops, usually at about the age of 40 (about 54 Terrestrial years). An asa is generally nubile from about 16 until death.


mubezbe in heat

Susana didn't want to translate mubez as be in heat, because she thought it sounded like it was equivalencing the asiit to beasts. But she conceded that be sexually receptive, her suggestion, was too awkward a phrase for something as fundamental to asiit society, so she relented.


dazbaamonks

Dazbaa were asaa whose job it was to perform certain rituals or to maintain temples or sacred areas. These were distinct from priests (ttapxaa), in that they were not expected to preach or minister to the people. We've decided to translate dazba as "monk", even thought they weren't expected to live under the strict discipline or under the vows of poverty and chastity which we associate with that word.


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