Andrew Hussie, when making the Trolls of Alternia, simply made their language Weird English:tm:. As an aspiring conlanger, I've decided to take it upon myself to make an Actual Alternian language.
To establish, this will be the Empire's Alternian. For the most part I will not be touching on any fan concepts like Cuspbloods, and I will not bring mention to mutants. My hope is that you all will develop your own words in your own social groups, just like real languages.
Outside of this, I will try to use whatever clues I can gleam from the source material, such as "thinkpan," to create what I think is the closest to what the language would actually be.
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Here is the Actual Alternian Project:tm:'s mascot, Tokuil Lingua [to-kuɪl liŋ-gwɐ] (tried my hand at IPA here)
It's made in Xamag Fantroll Creator. There is a slight edit in that teal should have loafer slippers--- although I can't do that in Xamag Fantroll Creator.
Tokuil's pronouns are teal/teal's, as a reference to this conlang. Teal's typing quirk will be made later (I'm not that great at that---)
Here's a piece of art I did, kinda lost steam after the head---
As the title suggests, this post will go into the basic features of Actual Alternian:tm:, the types of things that aren't likely to change among dialects or throughout the progression of this project.
1. Blood = Gender
Various languages have grammatical genders, notably Spanish, and Alternian is no different. However, their grammatical gender is based on blood color. Pronouns are based on blood color, and every noun also has grammatical blood color. The blood color of nouns are mostly based on their associated users, such as trash being rust and mansions being violet.
There is no "neutral" blood color term, so you need to assume if you don't know. If you're unsure, just guess. Keep in mind, it's likely that more progressive dialects might have a "neutral" blood color term, but it wouldn't be supported by the empire.
2. Heavy usage of compound words
In Alternian, the easiest way to make more words is by combining two others. If you encounter an area the language hasn't covered, simply combine words to fit this new thing. Do not be afraid of combining compound words, should the situation call for it. Collective unconscious? more like, thinkpanpan.
3. boring writing stuff
Right to left, with a phonetic alphabet. Unfortunately, the source material's written language already works like this. But, I'm not likely to use the source material's usage of the written language unless I'm stuck, since in the source, it's just the latin alphabet with a cipher. (as in, words won't be spelt the same, and the letters might not make the same sounds)
4. Boring Grammar Stuff
As this is my first conlang, I'm gonna keep the grammar fairly standard--- It'd be fun to possibly play with the grammar later, but I wanna get the language functional first.
next:
I'll be working on the phonology (starting with phonetic inventory) for the next few weeks of this language, perhaps sprinkling in a few individual words as we get through it. Remember, feel free to ask questions, perhaps ask for specific words, or anything else.
You might also notice a new #actualalternian tag under this post. Imma be doin that now. Please use the tag when making posts about the Actual Alternian Project, to help myself and others find them! :D
The Basic Rules of the Actual Alternian:tm: Project
This post will set the rules (subject to change) for the blog, with an unspoken rule 0 that I will add creative flourishes occasionally.
1. Any time Trolls speak in homestuck, it's an english translation of alternian.
I'll assume that the translator is trying their best to translate the root words. Like if you translated Khülshrank (fridge in german) to cooling cupboard. Any time when translations conflict, I'll do whatever I think is most interesting.
I'll also assume we can tell things about the culture from the words. For example, thinkpan implies that trolls see minds as open containers of thought--- which is congruent with how prevalent mind control is among trolls.
2. Again, this is the Empire's Alternian.
There's probably other dialects of Alternian, such as Royal Alternian that has a distinct lack of compound words, but they won't be touched on here for at least a long time. I want to first establish Empire's Alternian first, as a baseline, then build on top of that.
3. Dialects
I know I just said I won't bring them up, but it's important to note that there are a few easily confirmable dialects of Alternian in homestuck. As such, I will be cutting them out where possible. If Karkat says nutrition plateau, Eridan says table, and HIC says a fish pun or whatever, it's gonna be nutrition plateau.
4. Use the ask thingy
I am not perfect. There are things I haven't thought of, and things I haven't explained thoroughly enough. I encourage you all to ask about anything and everything--- so long as it hasn't already been explained. It helps me build the language and refine it. This is also my first conlang project, so expect it to not go the best.
A quick addendum:
I might be adding a little fantroll for future diagrams, and the pfp of this blog. It'll probably be helpful to have a little guy to show the language in action, and gives me an excuse to work on my lacking artistry. Don't get your hopes up--- at least wait for the weekend.
Lastly, the next post will be on setting the basic rules for the language--- important guiding factors I feel should be said quickly.
