Mando’a mir’sheb

Most of my Mando’a linguistic nerdery you should be able to find under the hashtags #mando’a linguistics and #ranah talks mando’a. Specific topics like phonology and etymology are tagged on newer posts but not necessarily on older. I also reblog lots of other people’s fantastic #mando’a stuff, which many of these posts are replies to.

I also post about #mandalorian culture, other #meta: mandalorians and #star wars meta topics, #star wars languages, #conlangs, and #linguistics. I like to reblog well-reasoned and/or interesting takes on Star Wars and Mandalorian politics, but I am not pro or contra fictional characters or organisations, only pro good storytelling. You can use the featured tags to navigate most of these topics. Not Star Wars content tag is #not star wars, although if it’s on this blog, likely it’s at least tangentially related.

Currently working on an expanded dictionary and an analysis of canon Mando’a. Updates under #mando’a project. Here are my thoughts on using my stuff (tldr: please do). My askbox is open & I’d love to hear which words, roots or other features you want to see dissected next.

General

On Mando’a terminology: affixes and clitics

Unusual features of English compared to most***** languages: how many of those does Mando’a have?

Mando’a letter names

Fans should start making up their own roots and word families instead of compounding ad nauseam (opinion)

Phonology

IPA chart (I’m going to be reworking this, but it’ll suffice for now)

C, cy, yc—why are they pronounced like that? — Pronunciation of y — A theory of -yc, -cy-, -cya and -cye — More palatalisations — More palatalisations & how they could explain the problem of murmured sounds (my overarching theory on how to explain all the weirdness of Mando’a orthography)

Phonotactics & epenthetic sounds

Loanword phonology (discussion)

How do you pronounce ‘shya? (poll)

Concordian Mando’a

Alternative Mando’a consonant inventories

Phonotactics in Mando’a compound words

Morphology

Noun incorporation in Mando’a

Phonotactics in Mando’a compound words

Mando’a nominal affixes — their meanings — irregular adjectives — a work in progress on how they might be chosen — Ancient Mando’a cases?

*da-, ‘out’ (prefix)

-ii vs. -ad yet again

*je-, ‘false, un-’ (prefix)

*she-, ‘behind’ (prefix)

u(r)-, ‘less’ (prefix)

Re- in Mando’a? (reduplication again)

Syntax

Mando’a prepositions

How do you say “on Mandalore”? (poll)

Habitual aspect (fanon)

Articles: eyn, te, haar

Relative pronouns, relative adverbs, interrogatives (question words)

Alienable/inalienable possession in Mando’a

Noun incorporation in Mando’a

Vocabulary

Something in Mando’a

Etymology (canon words)

*ara-/*aru-, ‘away’ or ‘against’? & again here

*ak-, ‘mission’ (aka, akaan, etc.) & hokaanir, ‘to cut’ (+ related words)

*ay(l)-, ‘sweet’ & ‘sticky’

*bin-, ebin, bintar, bines

*bid-, *bi-, *bin-, *bir-

briikase, ‘happy’

dadita (the best analysis not by me, scroll to the end)

*da-, ‘out’ (dayn, davaab, dajun)

eyn & solus

*je-, ‘false, un-’ (jekai, jehaat, jahaatir, jaal, jehavey’ir)

kelita, dab’ika, keldab

morut, murcya, murcyir

*nar-, ’move, action, act’ (nari, narir, lonar, shonar, jenarar, cetar’narir, muninar, naritir, narser, nasreyc, ashnar, nar’sheb, ca’nara)

oyu’baat, oyu’la (open question)

*pa-, *ka- ? (pa’guur, or’parguur, pakod, palon, ka’gaht, kakovidir) (open question)

*ran-: haranov, ‘cache,’ haaranovor, ‘to conceal,’ ranov’la, ‘secret’

ramikad, ‘commando’ & ori’ramikad, ‘super commando’

rejorhaa’ir, ‘to tell’ (open question)

competing theory for saka- (not mine)

*she-, ‘behind’ (shebs, sheber, shekemir, shereshir, shereshoy)

sterebiise & geroya be haran, alii’jaate, naast

u(r)-, ‘-less’ (ures, umaan, urakto, urmankalar, utreeyah, utreyar, utrel’a)

vi, archaic ‘us’

-ey/-ye, -ya, -uy & -im, -om, -m (open question)

The names of the Mandalorian deities

English etymologies in Mando’a (not my post, but I’ve added several more in the replies)

Open etymology questions, also #open questions (gimme your ideas!)

Does vowel length matter?

Non-canon vocabulary

Also in the reblogs of the above etymology posts!

alii’gai, alii’gaise, alii’gaila; extended definitions

akaan

dar’ta, ‘emperor’

doyust, ‘bridge’

gi’gaide, ‘fish scales’ (here’s another idea for the same pattern, not mine)

mana, ‘origin, source; mine’

*ram-, ram’ika, ramikad, ramikaar

shiik, ‘noodle’

taylaar, ‘book’

Te Yaim’ol & Naak’tsad

utra, ‘emptiness, void’ (probably not mine, might have adopted it from someone else’s dictionary)

“Bless you” or “gesundheit” in Mando’a

For fucks sake! in Mando’a

Loanwords in Mando’a (headcanon)

How do you feel about loanwords from irl languages in Mando’a? (poll)

Food ingredients ask

Mando’a for ‘wilderness’? — morut, murcyur, mureyca

Trick or treat 2025

#History, #culture, #religion, #philosophy, #headcanons, &c.

History of the Mandalorian peace movement (conjecture & headcanons)

The Mandalorian Proletarian Uprising (complete and unabashed headcanons)

New Mandalorians and armour (headcanons)

Kad Ha’rangir & slash and burn agriculture

Do Mandalorians proselytise?

Repeating mando patterns (newest additions by others)

Mandalorian opera headcanons (this one’s a group effort but I want to find it again!)

Stuff I’m working on

Mando’a Derivational Dictionary — current priority

Canon Mando’a analysis: project outline — sometime this century

@mandoxember — coming, hopefully maybe next year probably not this year either, I’m too busy

#mando’a translations — random snippets translated into Mando’a. I also sometimes do random translations in the tags, but those aren’t indexed anywhere. #idioms would get you any non-indexed translated idioms though.

@translatingpoststomandoa — translating shitposts into (very colloquial) Mando’a (beware of loanwords and other nonsense). Or, where I try out some ideas in an informal manner & clean out the tumblr post translations from my main account drafts folder.

FAQ

Blog runs mostly on queue and I’m currently pretty busy at work (and not spending a lot of time hanging out here). Tag me or dm me if you want me to respond.

If I liked it, likely I also queued it. Or put it in the drafts because I had something to say that I had to mull over a bit. Or reblogged it on a side blog.

Why haven’t you answered my comment/ask/question? It’s either in my queue, lost in my drafts, eaten by my inbox, or I forgot. Feel free to resend/ask again/send me a dm.

Do you do translations? Feel free to send me asks if you have something fun but don’t expect a speedy reply.

You seem very confident in your analyses, what’s your source? Just canon, some interviews by Traviss and Harlin, and Traviss’s blog and comments in some forum threads. No special word of god here! Just a lot of extrapolation and some previous linguistics and conlanging knowledge. I have made a (atm incomplete) systematic analysis of Mando’a, but I’m just a human and I might have drawn incorrect conclusions—you’re very welcome to debate me and add your contradictory opinions. Most of the stuff I post are my own interpretations which you’re welcome to adopt, but I can’t claim to hold the one and only truth. And yes, the title of this blog is picked because I know I can be an annoying little mir’shebs when I think I’m right. But I do genuinely enjoy hearing other opinions and getting my own ones challenged, even if the tone does not always come across in text. If I haven’t reblogged your contrary opinion, it’s because the reply got long and it’s in my drafts somewhere, or else I’m still mulling it over.

What’s your gender? This post answers that pretty succinctly.

Please don’t send me asks for money. I don’t currently have any to spare, nor do I have time to vet gofundmes. I do what I can, and donate what I can, when I can, to effective humanitarian organisations. Sorry I can’t help more.

Phonology

Mando’a sound changes

What’s up with stress in Mando’a anyway? (I don’t know either)

Morphology

Ne or nu, and is there a pattern?

Irregular adjectives in Mando’a

Zero derivation adjectives again

Derivational uses of the plural suffix -(s)e

Rethinking reduplication in Mando’a — full reduplication?

-al, ‘ized’

Irregular plurals (that aren’t so irregular) (Fando’a)

N’ short for ni

Syntax

TAM in Mando’a, Pirahã, creole languages again (whoops, didn’t make this a reply to the latest post in the chain so now it’s branched)

Reflexive sentences in Mando’a (or at least one way to construct them)

Mando’a is a null-subject language — Mando’a is a pro-drop language

Mando’a and dummy subjects

Zero copula in Mando’a

Mando’a word order part 1

Etymology

buir (fanon theory)

chayakir

haast

*pirim- ‘use’

simir, siver

Basiliskan, bas, uliik, bes’uliik (headcanon)

oshokita & osi’yaim

Vocabulary

gebbar, gebi, pirebu

Non-canon words

enthusiastic

hairpin

y’all in Mando’a

More diminutives

Squeeze, extort, stress, angst, etc.

#Mandoxember words

Miscellaneous word ideas

Word ideas notebook #11 (google docs) & the post about it

You can also find some afterthought translations of irl idioms and proverbs from various languages in the tags of posts tagged with #idioms and #proverbs

Headcanons & worldbuilding

I probably should try to index at least some of these as well.

#Mandalorian mythology

Mandalorian law

Another one is the verb "perceive" i.e. "don't perceive me" "I am perceiving" "I am being percieved." That's something that feels very specific to tumblr parlance.

There's the thing where people on tumblr have an emotional reaction to something and instead of, or in addition to telling you how they feel about it using emotion words, they will narrate a fictional action in the present progressive tense. "I am gnawing at the bars of my enclosure "I am kissing you on the mouth" "you are going into the soup" "you are getting all of the awards"

I once saw someone use that response format in ... I think it was a restaurant review, or a doordash review, or something like that. It was very unexpected seeing it outside of a tumblr post.

sadly my project is lost due to the website being wiped from the university database after graduation and my then laptop having a major hardware failure. backup your backups people! but the crux of the entire module was that the internet is full of communities using language not only as jargon for specific purpose but also to signal membership in said community. I even wrote a bit about non capitalisation and punctuation useage as a visual cue on tumblr and how including information in the reblog body or the tags indicated different levels of importance or intimacy of thought

literally: to carry evil on the shield

to be up to no good; to have bad intentions

QInwIj Qav DaqawlaHchugh... = If you can remember my last email...

Example: QInwIj Qav DaqawlaHchugh, «yIHoH!» vIjatlh (If you can remember my last email, I said "Kill him!")

Or just

QInwIj Qav yIqaw! = Remember my last email!

Compounding the same small pool of roots over and over again sucks and fandos should just start making up their own roots and word families.

I mean, I’m definitely guilty. I’ve personally taken the compound word approach as far as it can go and then some. And that’s exactly why I’m saying this, because what happened is that the language started feeling less and less like Mando’a and more and more like very Latinate English.

See, it’s not that Mando’a doesn’t have compound words. It does. They’re very characteristic, even. But the kinds of compounds you will eventually start making in order to come up with the umpteenth verb from the same root don’t feel like the kinds of words and derivations and compounds that already exist. And the sentences that are one complicated compound word after another feel even less like it. Although the roots and the sounds are the same, the feel of the language changes.

And I don’t like it.

I think a better way to preserve the original feel of the language would be to create new roots and word families in the style of the existing corpus, rather than use the canonical roots ad nauseam. Keep to the phonology and phonotactics, think what mandos would associate with the concept and how they would view it, and you’re good.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Join The Ranks” 

Barrie quaisten!

SCOTS

Scots is another Anglic language closely related to English. There is heated debate (often, unfortunately, along political party lines) over whether it should be considered a language or a dialect. However, the linguistic consensus is that Scots is indeed its own distinct language, complete with its own vocabulary, grammar rules, and historical character. It's akin to the relationship between Danish and Norwegian - while they share a relatively recent common ancestor and have influenced each other over the course of history (however lop-sided that influence may be), they are indeed separate languages.

Around the 600s CE, a new language appeared in the southeast corner of Scotland, back when this area was under the control of certain new-ish arrivals to the island who spoke a Germanic tongue. At this point, Middle Irish (modern Gaelic's immediate ancestor) was the court language of Scotland, and would remain so until the reign of David I, crowned in 1124. Scots is said to have begun diverging from the Northumbrian Old English dialect in earnest by the 1100s, although records of the language are sparse before about 1375 (the beginning of the Early Scots literary period) owing to Viking and English "meddling" (some light raiding here, some plundering there, general theft, and so on). Owing to its Northumbrian origin and heavier Scandinavian influence (stemming from close ties with the Danelaw), Scots has more of an Anglian and Norse character to it as opposed to its relatively more Saxon-y, Norman-y cousin to the south (i.e., English). Scots has also had much closer contact with languages like Scottish Gaelic and even Pictish and Cumbric (which I'll be sure to cover in a future post), and as a result has been influenced in its vocabulary and phonology.

It has several dialects of its own, broadly categorized by location, ranging from Borders Scots to Orcadian Scots and everything in between. (And we can't forget Ulster Scots, a dialect brought to Ulster during the 1600s by Lowlander planters.) Due to this variation, modern Scots has no clear standardized form, though linguists have made several halfway-serious attempts over the past century or so to standardize orthography.

But what's been going on with Scots between David I and the present day? Let's dig in.

David I (in Gaelic, Daibhidh I mac Mhaoil Chaluim), who reigned from 1124 to 1153, initiated the proliferation of proto-urban societies across his kingdom. These societies were called "burghs", or "touns" in Scots, and they'll come in handy later. At about this same time, Norman French began to infiltrate the Scottish nobility, and Gaelic began to decline as a language of prestige among higher levels of society.

Once the 1200s started to creep around, the northern dialect of Early Middle English that would become Scots began expanding ever northward towards the Forth-Clyde line. This dialect was called "Inglis" by its speakers, and over the next century, it began to supplant Norman French and Gaelic as a common language within the burghs. The 1300s saw this "Inglis" tongue grow in prestige and it began to eclipse Norman French at even the higher levels of society, particularly within the courts. As the 1400s approached, it even began to replace Latin as the language of ecclesiastical and royal court proceedings.

The 1400s saw a relatively rapid geographic spread of Scots at the expense of Gaelic, which was cornered into the Highlands, Western Isles, and small pockets in the Lowlands (viz. Galloway, where Gaelic survived at least up to 1760). By the early 1500s, Scots began to be known as "Scottis", and Gaelic, which had previously been referred to thus, was now being dubbed "Erse" ("Irish") in attempts to otherize Gaelic. The 1500s saw the advent of Middle Scots, which was, in my amateur opinion, the golden era of the language, owing to its undisputed support at all levels of society across most of the kingdom. Around this time, a loose written standard did exist, but the language was still written how it sounded and regional variation was commonplace.

1567, however, saw the coronation of James VI of Scotland (note: James I of England and Ireland as well from 1603 on). His famous Bible translation (KJV) helped to set in motion the gradual Anglicization of Scottish society as it was dispersed among the population. In 1603, the Union of the Crowns brought Scots-speaking and English-speaking nobles into closer contact, and English gradually began to dominate the speech of the Scottish nobility (this exchange would produce what is now Scottish English, a distinct standardized dialect of English that some argue is one end of a linguistic spectrum, at the other end being "braid Scots").

Beginning in 1610 and continuing through to the 1690s, Scottish planters from across the western Lowlands and the Borders began to settle in Ulster, the northeastern region of Ireland. Over time, this group of people would come to develop their own regional identity, the Ulster Scots (or, often in a New World context, Scots-Irish). Their local dialect of Scots, while maintaining a Lowland character, picked up various influences from Hiberno-English (particularly in phonology) and from the Irish language (various contributions of vocabulary).

By about 1700, written Scots, at least in an official capacity, had become almost completely Anglicized. An example of an Anglicized convention introduced to Scots writing is the "apologetic apostrophe", an apostrophe that was inserted into a Scots word where an English-speaking person might expect a letter to be (for example, the Scots word "wi" (in English, "with") would have been written wi'). In 1707, the Acts of Union (Note: Panama played a role) seemed to solidify a shift in the upper-class opinion of the Scots language - what scarcely 150 years before was seen as the national language was now looked down upon by the nobility as "uneducated speech" or "bad English".

However, things looked different from a lower- and middle-class perspective. Contrary to high society, the common people began to take a renewed interest in the Scots language, and a literary revival began. This mid-1700s revival gave us such world-famous names as Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and Thomas Campbell. It was at this time that Scots transitioned from Middle to Modern Scots. However, features such as the apologetic apostrophe were retained during this period to gain wider readership among an English-speaking audience, a market that now effectively spanned the globe. (Meanwhile, the Highlands and Lowlands each experienced their own set of Clearances, and Scotland's diaspora began their journey to the edges of the empire.)

By the early 1800s, this "Scots fever" (NOTE: not a technical term) had reached the upper classes of society as they increasingly turned a Romanticist eye to the literature of their homeland, while simultaneously keeping Gaelic at arm's length. Since this point, there hasn't been any sort of top-level, government-sanctioned, institutional spelling reform or rulebook published on Scots orthography, although this hasn't stopped a wealth of Scots poetry and prose from being published through the years.

Since this era, there has been a relatively steady stream of interest in the language, though recent government initiatives have been taken to attempt to ensure the survival of, and increase interest in, Scots. This 2010 study by the Scottish Government sheds some light on modern public perception of the language within Scotland itself.

Over in Northern Ireland, the Ulster-Scots Agency was established as part of the wider Belfast Agreement of 1998 in efforts to promote the language and wider culture.

It's not all roses these days, however. A couple of years ago, it came to light that a North Carolina teenager had been, for over seven years, writing entries on the Scots Wikipedia, without any knowledge of the language. One Reddit user remarked that this teenager had caused "more damage to the Scots language than anyone else in history." (Perhaps take this with a grain of salt.)

Would you like to help protect the language?

The best way to protect a language is to learn it! If you click that link, there are several resources for adult learners of Scots to start their journey. My perennial advice, though: once you've got the basics down, use it! Find a Scots speaker and stumble your way through a conversation. Don't be afraid of making mistakes! (Note: everyone makes them.) One resource I've used in the past to learn some basics is the Open University's (entirely free!) Scots language and culture online course. All you need to do is sign up and work through the modules!

Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back

- There are no roses for pigs

- One potato at a time

- Put ice in their hats

- The horses are escaping

- She's no spring onion

The way the captain is faceless, looking out to sea, and the way that echoes how queer men in the time period in question would have to hide their identity to avoid charges for "buggery," "sodomy," and possible execution. The way the style is fairly appropriate to 19th-century pastoral romanticism, but the captain's coat is patterned in rainbow colors, solemn and strikingly defiant at once, and it is both noticeably anachronistic and entirely plausible. The way the British Royal Navy was simultaneously known as a haven for gay/queer men seeking to avoid family pressures to marry, but was still technically bound to severely punish anyone who was actually caught having same-sex relations. The way the strength of the Navy was also the chief driver of British colonialism, imperialism, and expansion (because think about it, how did a relatively small island in the North Sea exert so much force on global geopolitics?) The way that the captain's race is ambiguous; we aren't sure if he's a white man making a calculated and cynical political statement about "tolerance," like modern-day rainbow capitalism. Or perhaps he is a mixed-race captain like John Perkins, who rose in the ranks despite prejudice, and is silently displaying the intersectionality of his own identity (queer AND a person of color working within a system that generally hates him and wants to erase him, even as it makes ruthless use of his talents). Not to mention, is that possibly an Irish flag on his right shoulder?? Because that offers a whole NEW level of commentary and anti-colonial symbolism.

I am taken aback by this really cool and heartfelt art analysis, thank you so much for writing it!

As an "AI Artist" (quote marks entirely intentional), I've been grappling with the idea of artist intentionality when it comes to neural network generated images. My boyfriend often brings up the fact that I act as both director and curator, working with the AI to provide the text prompt and deciding which images to display publically, but I find it hard to describe either myself or the AI as the artist (some related thoughts here).

But because of the historical institutional homophobia and bigotry of that time, I found humour and fascination in these series of pictures. Not to get too personal, but I'm a semi-closeted trans man who patterns my expression of gender off the aesthetic of this staggeringly homophobic and horrible historical military institution, and the fact of that was very much in my mind when I was playing with these prompts.

I shouldn't add any more, but on the subject of AI art, the human being curator and artist: yes. In that it's somewhat akin to photography, which is in many ways the art of selection.

I had a head start on this back in the 80s with a BASIC program named Basho that wrote haiku. It wasn't AI; it just contained very long lists of adjectives, nouns, and verbs. broken into sub lists with syllable counts, and then I had a couple different templates using random number generators to string words together at random.

Originally, all the words were from English translations of Basho (a real Japanese poet). Later, I added my own. I sometimes had to delete words that tended to come out wrong, which was step one of selection.

I got annoyed with a high school English teacher doing literary criticism: I was convinced she was reading into things meanings that poets didn't intend. (Which is a whole other discussion, but I was a kid.) So I generated about 10 pages of Basho poems, then copied out the best of the lot onto one page in my own handwriting and submitted to her. Sure enough, she analyzed what they meant. I felt vindicated that she was talking bullshit.

But I was wrong. By that time, about half the words on the word lists were ones that I had picked because they sounded nice. And, crucially, I had selected only the poems I thought sounded good. I later realized that I had written those poems in partnership with the computer, and with Basho.

Admiral Lord Nelson has never been more parade ready

(image source)

(image source)

Lemme explain:

I we look at the True Mandalorians and Death Watch, we can see that they are two specific groups, with a specific leader and also a chain of command, who have a specific objective and code etc.

They were an important part of the war, but they were still two distinct groups.

But then we look at the New Mandalorians, and we are told that they are the vast majority of the mandalorians, but how is that possible for one single group of people to all agree on what is supposed to be planetarian level? It just does not feel possible to me.

So, what if there were actually multiple mandalorian groups, who shared a lot of common points and even philosophies and ideals, but still diverged in others? And so they all got grouped into the name "New Mandalorians" because of it?

Something like this ya know?

…but between Old Mandalorians (descriptive term; Mandalorians who kept to the old ways) and New Mandalorians (also a descriptive term; Mandalorians who adopted new ways). The Old Mandalorians then had a major schism that resulted them splitting in Death Watch and True Mandalorians. It’s probably a very simplified account that omits smaller groups, groups that haven’t declared for one or another of the major factions, groups living outside of the Mandalorian space, etc.

I think it would be more like this?

They talk about New Mando internal conflict a little bit in the reference books. This post has a lot of the lore for the New Mandos and how they came to power if you’re interested, op.