#pashlang

Yongasabi, Slugcat language of the Rain World Undergrowth AU

Yongasabi originally started as an attempt to turn Rain World's glyphs into a functioning writing system for the slugcats, and that eventually inspired me to make a language for the writing system to support. As it grew, it became increasingly intertwined with my own ideas for Rain World worldbuilding, and my own project, the Undergrowth AU.

Now I'm publicly opening my language to the Rain World fandom! Seven months of work from start to the official release, with fully functioning grammar and over 1500 documented words just at the time of writing this post, I'm excited to finally release this language for other people to view, and potentially even use.

Note that Yongasabi is made with the Undergrowth AU (which is an anthro AU) in mind. It presupposes that the slugcats are humanoid, and their technological development is further along than in the game. Despite that, the language should be otherwise applicable to regular slugcats.

While Yongasabi has been developed through the lens of my own projects (Rain World Undergrowth AU and its worldbuilding) and understanding of Rain World's themes and lore, it's something I want to be accessible to the entire community. Consider it something of a gift. Anyone has permission to use Yongasabi in their projects—credit would be appreciated, and I would actually be so excited if you messaged me to let me know what you were doing. If I'm available, I can translate things too, if you need, or explain concepts from the document. Just send it to me and I'll see what I can do! Good luck!

Documentation for the writing system is here:

I am so flattered that people are really going out of their way to learn my silly little scuglang... In any case, I would honestly floored, astounded, and honored if people wanted to work within the world I've made with Undergrowth. I would encourage it even! I hope to get some more definitive stuff out on it soon, though the actual askblog isn't going to start until I get my MAP parts done.

I suppose some helpful things to know and context that might not be mentioned in or clear from the language doc:

Yeah, while there are some thing I did to try and form a useful throughline in learning the language, the whole document is definitely more of a grammar than a learning guide. I would say that for the sake of practically forming sentences and understanding its tendencies of the language, I would say to try tackling it in this order first and foremost:

Case Marking and Basic Sentence Formation This is a must! All the basics and case marking functions are at the start for a reason!

Word Order and Dropping Subjects and Objects The word order section isn't strictly necessary but I find it help to know this sort of thing because it helps your brain sort information and makes learning easier. Dropping subjects and objects however is important to know because it's a huge part of how sentences are formed. If you don't understand it, you'll feel like sentences have words missing.

-ida / -da [ Past Tense ] and -igo / -go [ Future Tense ] You can return to the other verb tenses later but this will give you a little more flexibility and exposure to the way the verbs work. If you want, you can also read on to the next section about habitual actions, but I don't recommend any further than that.

Position Words This will let you talk about locations and prepositions like above, below, before, after, etc

-ani / -ni [ Adverb Marker ] and Adverbs This section will net you an understanding of adverbs, as well as some useful time words like now, soon, later, today, etc.

I feel like those are the most necessary if you just want to get a grasp of the language and its tendencies. If you've read through those and want to continue, then I don't have much more advice than to continue on and read through the document in order. Message me if you have questions or need help or further examples. I am glad to help!

As a bonus, here's a drawing I made for the document, for sections that are under construction. I made it with a mouse on my work computer.

I totally forgot to respond to this before, I have a small post about the font on the reddit thread, you can find it here, the font itself and some brief instructions on how to use it. At some point, I'll be making another font that reads better at small sizes, but the current available font looks like this.

PGW)(YHx askiyo! maya chaw'ho, kamasda maeni makida ma? [naw'ag hanil cho'wa nakil] angsil. >..................< sanba'ga nakinakwa taw hoy'ag hamigo sapinae'la kip'o haga.;............

I appreciate the love! I'm so excited to have people take interest. So I actually just spent a bunch of time developing way the seasons worked before the Endless Winter, and calendar that was based on that. For these purposes, I'll be speaking as if the Endless Winter hasn't come yet so I don't have to keep saying "before the Endless Winter".

For starters, there is a distinction made between yuni, days, and masida, cycles. yuni refers to the time from one sunrise to the next and is based on the actual solar passage of a day. masida refers to the time from one iterator rain to the next. Outside the retaining walls, there are seasons (Rainy season, monsoon, dry season, and drought). Depending on the season, rain outside the retaining walls is much gentler and starts and stops sometimes independent of nearby iterator activity. Outside of monsoon, the rain isn't typically strong enough to force slugcats to end the day. It's much like rain in real life, starting and stopping whenever the weather demands.

Meanwhile, within retaining walls, the influences of the iterators disrupt the seasonal cycles. Plants tend to just grow and animals habits are significantly less regularized. Rains can be harsh and potentially deadly, and less predictable than a day/night cycle, the rains effectively dictate what constitutes a meaningful day within retaining walls. I imagine that at least in Undergrowth, rains within retaining walls can last up to but not more than a full 24 hour day, but that tends to be rare unless the iterator is dabbling in irregular, intensive processes (so make sure you've packed enough supplies to spend the day in the shelter). Otherwise though, the rains tend to come closer to night and end at some point after the next day comes, as that's when the air is cooler and more conducive to rain.

Because of this, slugcats outside retaining walls tend to refer to days as yuni while those inside the retaining walls tend to refer to days as masida, because that's what's more useful to them. Slugcats otherwise don't hibernate in Undegrowth, they maintain rather human-like sleep requirements.

Below are the months of the Yongasabi calendar and how the seasons map to them. Note that as mentioned, these seasons only apply outside of retaining walls.

Once the Endless Winter comes, I imagine the day/night cycle largely dictates how most creatures behave both inside and outside retaining walls; the air is warmer and more hospitable in the day, but as night progresses, it becomes colder, the winds become harsher, etc. Travel by day and shelter at night. Many of the old natural annual events that inspired that months of the calendar are at this point defunct. However, those who historically lived inside retaining walls still refer to days as masida.

Slugcats and Scavengers who live underground are less beholden to the day/night cycle because they can work free of the cold. However, they still keep track of the day for the purposes of scheduling, and they track the dates for the sake of crops, animal rearing, and tracking important events. Some businesses still work by a daytime schedule in order to maintain common business times and accommodate those who have to travel by day, outside in the cold.