Thinking about how Riddlish is handled in cannon and in fics. I've seen people just put random things that happen to ryhm anytime they want someone to be speaking Riddlish and it's like, a minor pet peeve of mine? But every time we see Riddlish spoken in cannon, it kind of makes sense in a way? Like, if you think about what is said, and try to piece together any symbolism based on context, you can kind of understand what they're saying. Like Maddie said, "Riddlish is not an exact language". Putting together the metaphor and symbolism gives you the general idea of what they're getting across. And whenever a fic does this well, it's like an instant favorite.
Let's look at and dicect some cannon examples (I've always kind of found these facinating):
"Feathers and Friends, together alone!"
"Feathers" could refer to Raven, since she's named after a bird. She also has feathers fairly prominent in her character design, so it'd make sense for Giles to say this even though he doesn't know her name yet.
"and Friends" probably refers to Maddie, since she's known him for a while and is presumably his friend. It could also refer to their friendship, and maybe even be a way of including Raven in.
"together, alone" They're here with him, joining him in his solitude.
Putting it all together we get "Raven and Maddie, you're here! You came to visit me!" Which lines up pretty well with Maddie's translation of "he says it's nice to have us here!"
"Can a musical chair change its tone, when the tablet of granite is inscribed with a bone?"
"Can a musical chair change it's tone" The music in musical chairs is integral to the game, yet the song played does not come from the chair, but from the people playing. The tone of a musical chair is something fundamental about itself, and also something imposed by something outside itself. Can it change? Can something change something about itself that someone else has decided is fundamental?
"When the tablet of granite is inscribed with a bone?" A tablet of granite inscribed with something is literally that thing being written in stone, another reference to destiny and inevitability. And what's written on that stone is a bone, is death. Death is what is written in stone. Death is supposedly inevitable here.
From Raven's tone and terrified body language when asking Maddie to translate for her, it's fairly clear that the thing that wants to change is referring to Raven.
Putting it all together we get "Can Raven change from what others have said she's supposed to be, or is death the inevitable consequence of that like we've been told it is?" Which lines up pretty well with what Maddie was asked to translate: "What'll happen to me if I don't sign the book, am I really gonna disapear?"
"The king that sings with pages of sky fears too much the dawn that rises with lies"
"pages of sky" is in reference to the book, and maybe the fairytales themselves. The sky is often used to symbolically reference heaven and the divine. The book, determining people's destinies, fits fairly well into that category. It's almost like he's referring to the book as being from above.
"The king that sings with pages of sky" would then be Headmaster Grim. He's in a position of authority over the students like a king is to his subjects. He "sings with" the book/the stories with his constant insistence that people must sign the book and follow their stories, speaking in unison with them.
"fears too much" this part is fairly clear, Milton's paranoid. The consequences he thinks are inevitable aren't as inevitable as he claims.
"the dawn that rises with" would mean something like "the consequences of" or "the fallout from". Then there's one of two ways the rest could be. "lies" could refer to that which is contrary to what the stories say will happen. If you take the stories as "truth" then changing the stories would be "lies". Or, "rises with lies" could mean the consequences coming from Milton's lies being brought to light. The dawn rises as Milton's lies rise.
Yet the whole thing sounds rather foreboding, giving the impression that something is seriously wrong.
Bringing it all together, we either get "Headmaster Grim told you to follow your destiny because he's paranoid about what'll happen if you don't. But those fears are unfounded. Also something is very wrong." or "Headmaster Grim told you to follow your destiny because he's afraid of what will happen when people find out why you don't need to (and its emplied that that reason is something very bad)" This lines up fairly well with Maddie's translation of "There's something wrong with the book, and if you don't sign, your story will continue... I think". I like the touch that Maddie wasn't as confident in this translation, since the last phrase is more ambiguous. It's not really clear how the foreboding tone integrates into the message without more context than Maddie has, so Maddie doesn't really know what it means.
"The baby bird flies. The snake, it slithers. But the cage holds both, to die and to wither."
"The baby bird flies. The snake, it slithers." The baby bird and the snake are two very different creatures, they move and interact with the world in two totally different ways. Most people also would look more favorably on the baby bird than on the snake.
"but the cage holds both, to die and to wither." the cage doesn't care what is inside of it, it will indiscriminately hold them both captive. The things that make the baby bird different from the snake, and the adorable charms of the baby bird will not free the baby bird from the cage, nor will they protect the baby bird from the grisly fate that awaits it in the cage.
The context is also relevant, since she's talking to Alastair and Bunny, two of her subjects who have just been arrested, but also two of her daughter's friends.
Putting this all together we get "Yes, you enjoy privileges that others do not have, but my affection for you will not compromise my judgement. You are not above the law. I am not above punishing you like I would anynother citizen." While we don't have a cannon translation to compare this to, it seems to make sense. Its immediately followed up with her letting them off with a warning, and despite this interaction, Bunny later tells Lizzie that her mom really is a good queen, but that the curse has stressed her out. I think the Queen of Hearts probably made exploring illegal to protect people from the curse. If she really is a good queen, then this type of objectivity ("I don't care if you're my daughter's friends, crime is crime") would make total sense.
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thinking about maddie's riddle in the debate scene with apple 'if a squirrel eats acorns but never a stake, how much water fills up the lake' somehow came up with the answer as nothing, and interpreted this as 'if we don't get a taste of change, we get no change' and i think how i got that is because she's saying the if the squirrel tries something new, there's a change in the water, or environment, because of a difference in diet and if nothing changes, well, nothing changes.
someone commented on my fic about my old riddlish dialects/languages, and i realised i don't think i ever presented them in the public forum!! so here we go! all are pure headcanon and linguistic patchwork. i wrote these in 2020 i think ? and it may show. still, i would love to expand on them further someday soon :}
The only reason I can think of for there being more than one native language of Wonderland is if there were separate languages evolved from different ancient clans that then merged over the proceeding centuries. So here we are.
Sisash probably evolved from the centre of Wonderland, surrounded by wilderness and beasts that could sense your every sound, so relied more on silent hand signs and phonemes like shh and sss that couldn’t be distinguished from the rustling of trees. While more audible today, those phonemes and hand signals still make up the bulk of the language.
Torrol is mostly spoken at the coasts, and was likely formed there, too. While it still rhymes, like Riddlish, it makes use of melody and words with long, clear vowels that can be heard far out to sea. This language seems to have been purpose-built for two things: shanties, and communicating over long distances, mostly in warnings. There is just one word for love in Torrol - “besh” - but over fifty for danger, varying from danger posed by angered tides, to many fish, to one big fish, to fire.
Riddlish itself seems to be an amalgam of many now-extinct languages, but most prominently the academic language of Leverse, created as a way for scholars to communicate magical concepts effectively. Leverse was the main language used to communicate with what few outsiders came to Wonderland, in hopes that if nothing else, they would find common ground through magic and spells. Leverse was also adopted by the royal family and courts and thus became widely spoken, meshing over time with less distinguishable and unique languages to create Modern Riddlish.
Today there are still many dialects of Riddlish, such as: High Riddlish - a needlessly complicated version only spoken by the royal family and their courts (Lizzie can speak this one, though she doesn’t like to), Common Riddlish - the simplest and most widespread form of Riddlish that basically every Wonderlandian knows, Burrows Riddlish - spoken by most Wonderlandian inhabitants that live underground or in the dark, meaning different communication methods are needed (spoken by Kitty and Bunny), and Dinnerplate Riddlish - an almost unintelligible form of the language that is mostly spoken for entertainment at tea parties, but is a local dialect of the inhabitants of the Hatter’s Table (spoken by Maddie).
Grimmlic has been integrated, willingly or not, into almost every language in Wonderland, meaning that many original words are no longer in use, or have been completely lost to time.
Riddlish can be written in Grimmlic or Wonderlandian script, as can Torrol (though it is more complicated), but Sisash cannot be written in Grimmlic, only the logographic Wonderlandian script.
(and just for fun, i'll include my logographic script for Riddlish. done in 2021)
i have never studied linguistics at length but i do like the subject!!!!! this was my general fiddlings with logograms and connecting them through different space 2 convey different meanings.. like if the temporal attachment indicating past is written aside the next logogram rather than beneath it, it indicates a different tense, or even a different mood, which i feel like is so intrinsic to riddlish -- the feeling conveyed through the words rather than the meaning. i do love written languages so may pick this up again soon now that i have more time !!!! <3
Sherwoods's secrets? To know is to be, I know and I am. You, young bird-ling, a ferret or not?
My tree's leaves are not like a lucky clover but like the lucky charm, my name is in essence "endearing" after "sweetheart".
From chapter 10 of my fic, but you can still try to solve it without reading the fic :)
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We are all a little mad here! #halloween #frostedkitty #wonderland #alice #madhatter #riddlish #costumes #models #selfies #cosplay #downtherabbithole #hatter #aliceinwonderland
Day 19 - Character you relate to the most: Maddie Hatter
[Because I feel like I have a good understanding of things, but sometimes it's like I am speaking a foreign language to some people. But my friends always understand me <3]
