Specific Symbols

Diane please comment on this.

I always thought that the speech was not the same for everyone. Like if you know the speach you could understand other forms of the speach. Its kind of like the oath, it is different for everyone and yet every wizard has taken the oath however different and fights for the same purpose as any other wizard. After a creature or object learn the speach they speak it for the same reason and therefore can understand another form of the speach. Well this is just a theory i thought it was cool.

[Rad]

that is a good point, book of mooon. and your point got me thinking about how if dd tried to make a verbal uh, thing for it, it wouldn't be at all good. but like she said, an alphabet would be good.

~Rad

i think that the thing with "making" the speech is that its all about describing the world/s in perfect detail and if we tried to do that we really couldn't because we'd be stuck with our impression of languages and with our rather pitiful adjectives that have a tendincy to describe everything and nothing.

You're only young once but you can stay immature indefintly.

My givin name (from friends) is Psychotic Susan Hardhead. Psyco Susie for short

I was just in a hotel this weekend, and I picked up the Bible (thanks, Gideons!) to read a little. In the front, they have all these suggested passages, plus John 3:16 ("For G-d so loved the world," etc.) translated into every language I'd ever heard of, and more I hadn't. There was one language called Sinhalese, and it looked remarkably like I imagine the Speech would. I found a similar page (scanned) on the Internet . . . take a look if you want to.

Small disclaimer: I don't agree with the nature or purpose of this site (which is attempting to spread Christianity to Sri Lankans). I just want people to see the script of this language.

Oh! rowan tree.
How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.

[Birdhead]

*thinks* Well, that's flowing, so the general shape I like, but I would mae it less like ns and more lie us or rs, with upwards tails as well as rounded down...
T

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[Ali]

That language makes a lot of sense as the speech. Except it in a wizard abroad it said that each word is a word. It is like pictographs. They don't have an Alphabet like we do. it comes into play differently. Check out traditional chinese to see what I mean.

Just a thought though. Some things described are words, or phrases...and even actions. In fact, it's been noted in almost every book that at the end of a spell, Kit or Nita use a verbal expression of the Wizard's Knot. So that must mean that things like a greeting (dai... can't spell the rest... no book in front of me) and other words would be almost endless. In a certain book (for those who haven't read it) someone has a vocab review, and only knows 668 or some words out of a possible REALLY bigger number of words. Once again, I have no book in front of me.
So if someone was actually given the language, how would you remember it? I can't imagaine that Kit and Nita know all of those words, and even worse for those wizards in Ireland, since they have no manual. I myself would be looking up every other word in The Speech for every conversation. Actually... I'm loosing my train of thought because my cousin is nagging me.... so I shall now commence speaking.... not yet..... ok... now.

[Kathy Li]

Try Chinese. You gotta learn 3,000 different characters (although there's something like 10,000 characters out there) to have a working vocabulary, and each of those characters can change meaning from context (i.e., the characters next to it also play a part in determining its meaning). And it seems perfectly natural to those who grew up reading Chinese.

The Speech may be harder for English-readers to learn, but the number of characters is still low compared to Chinese.

And personally, for some weird reason, I've always assumed the Speech looked something like Linear B.

[Vohgas Silas Snider]

Sorry if this is a little late, but I just read TVTQ, and ancient egyptian demotic(I think) was supposed to be so close to the characters of The Speech that archaeologists could not tell the difference.

I will not hate. Hate is the destroyer. Hate is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my hate. I will permit it to pass over and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the hate has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain

[Rad]

I was looking at a Gideon Bible today, and at the beginning they have John 3:16 in different languages. I looked for some of the more graceful curvy ones to try to see what the Speech resembles. In my opinion, it would more resemble Sinhalese than Arabic. Greek and Tamil also kind of looked like it.
Here's a link to a page with some Sinhalese at the bottom: http://www.speaksinhala.com/
Here's some Arabic:http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ishaq/arabic/asm/asm.html AND http://www.ukindia.com/zar1.htm
Here's some Tamil:http://www.ukindia.com/zip/ztm1.htm
Gujarati: http://www.ukindia.com/zguj1.htm
Bengali: http://www.ukindia.com/zip/zben01.htm

~Rad
I love Superchic[k]!
The Moosetrix Alaska
*Dai'Stiho*

[This message was edited by Rad on 05 February 2004 at 18:31.]

[Rad]

Here's more:
Kannada: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~kulki/kannada/kanindex.html
Malayala: http://www.manoramaonline.com/

~Rad
I love Superchic[k]!
The Moosetrix Alaska
*Dai'Stiho*