Languages: Stoatjabber (Stoatjab)

Language setting elements. 

We have already covered the more obscure, dead, rare or secret languages of the human cultures of Aporue, in the Orbis Furum.

We shall now loook at the often very different-sounding languages of the various beastpeople species of Aporue and the languages and dialects of their particular cultures. Today: The languages and dialects of the stoatfolk.

It's still disputed among emerging professional linguistic scholars (one of the few people who bother with beastpeople languages or dialects at all, besides some stalwart beastpeoples themselves), whether the languages of the different species emerged entirely naturally, or were more of a byproduct of social and political pressures on beastpeople species, including pressures caused by fear or bigotry of humans towards beastpeople species.

The proponents of the "ancient natural origin hypothesis" (or "natural evolution" hypothesis) tend to reject this suggestion wholesale, or at least in most cases. In turn, the proponents of the "Archontian experimentation origin hypothesis" (or "magical evolution hypothesis") maintain that it is one of the most sensible explanations for the emergence of distinct and unique beastpeople languages. The latter argue that the very nature of these languages is a priori, that is, made from wholecloth, to prevent or at least mitigate the risk of outsiders finding out about the contents of conversations, correspondence and various writing.

Note that none of the known Aporuean beastpeople languages use tonality in their vowels, and only use short and long vowels or vowels with umlauts. This is likely due to the influence of the human languages they coexist with.

All of the pronunciations in each of the following sections are approximations of pronunciation in contemporary English.

Stoatjabber (Stoatjab)

Stoatjab is a (politer) abbreviation for the (somewhat derogatory) name "Stoatjabber". People tend to have a rather critical or stereotypes-focused view of the stoatfolk. Thus, it's not much of a surprise the intense vivaciousness of many stoatfolk members, including their style of speech and pace of speech, tend to come across as "jabber" to others, especially to human ears.

Since many stoatfolk lived or live an itinerary existence, moving from place to place and finding new jobs in different locations, a more precise history of stoatjab has been difficult to track, making things harder for emerging linguistics researchers. Of the more sporadic written records that do exist as evidence, it seems apparent that stoatjab has been around in some archaic form since at least the later post-Archontian "antiquity" of the Aporue continent.

Though it is a language only distantly related to the other mustelid beastpeople languages of Aporue, the phonetics of stoatjab reflect the mustelid-folk nature of its stoatman and stoatwoman speakers. It has an emphasis on the presence of certain consonants, such as "k", "r", "h", similar to other mustelid-folk languages, in addition to other frequent consonants such as "s" and "z". However, the famous "breeziness" of the language is emphasized by phonemes such as variations on "i", "y" (short i, short y) and "í", "ý" (long i, long y) vowels, and other vowel variations.

Glossary of some common Stoatjab terms and expressions you might hear on the street
Kiríhama sarzamarí, arhí-ha ! - pron. Kireehum-a sarzamaree, arhee-ha ! - "Well I never, a-ha-ha !" (lit. translation "Upstart boldness, a-ha-ha !")
Harčok ! Harčog ! - pron. Harchok ! Harchog ! - "Oaf !" / "Fool !" / "Moron !" / "Dumbass !" / "Poppinjay !" / "Jughead !" [2]
Harečímra... - pron. Ha-re-cheemra... - "Foolishness...", "Foolish things..."
Írsin kroh zaralá ! - pron. Ear-sin kroh zaralaa ! - "I am very swift / swift-footed !" (the word írsin is a compound verb meaning "I am")

Írs - pron. Ears - "I", "Me"
Írsin - pron. Ears-in, Ear-sin - "I am"
Hárs - pron. Haars - "Thou", singular "You"
Hársin - pron. Haars-in, Haar-sin - "Thou are", singular "You are"
Čírz - pron. Cheerz - "He", "Him" - e.g. Čírz hýsarza írs. ("He emboldens me."), Írs zača čírz. ("I heard him.")
Čírm - pron. Cheerm - "She", "Her" - e.g. Čírm hýsarza írs. ("She emboldens me."), Írs zača čírm. ("I heard her.")
Čírzin - pron. Cheerzin - "He is" - e.g. Čírzin marávok. ("He is an adventurer."), Čírzin zaralá. ("He is swift-footed.")
Čírmin - pron Cheermin - "She is" - e.g. Čírmin marávika. ("She is an adventurer."), Čírmin zaralá. ("She is swift-footed.")

 

Example of a popular and mischievous folk song/ditty in Stoatjab

Ga Dlíkasah, ga Dlíkasah,
Forga hárs zača kikiríherk grahi
Óia, ga lýsah oru-Dlíkasah
Hárs kala sýlik aro marávir

Kuv írs ímava da kírs alíksama mavenk
Írs mava ogýldim, írs mava ogýldim,
Rýv aro arsaz, fodik, gíka, saleng
Írs dalsara čha kírs ozalenk ahin

Óia, óia, óia, írsin čý dázarma uk sýlzarma
Selgin kírs ladah uk gérgludah halmirá
Óia, óia, óia, kírs krukabak hadin načíma
Selgin kírs alare uk svík-ród zará

Írs ímav, írs ímav, írs ímav, írs mav, írs mav, írs mav, mav, mav, mav, mav...


In Bloomen, in Bloomen,
When you hear the cocks crowing,
Oh, in that month of Bloomen
You get a thirst for adventure

So I set off on my springtime travels,
I wander 'round, I wander 'round
Searching for thrills, work, pay, loot
I wonder what my fortunes will be

Oh, oh, oh, I am so eager and excited
Let my pouch and knapsack be filled
Oh, oh, oh, may my lockpick be trusty
Let my feet and blade-hand be swift

Off I go, off I go, off I go, I go, I go, I go, go, go, go, go...

(The song should be sung based on the melody of the real world 16th century song Im Maien, a rather bawdy/naughty song by Ludwig Senfl.

Here is an adaptation by Swedish early music ensemble Joculatores Upsalienses, and here an instrumental version by the ensemble Piffaro.)

 

Some Stoatjab grammar

Verbs ending in -a denote the singular number (e.g. kikiríhok graha, "the cock is crowing"), verbs ending in -i denote the plural number (e.g. kikiríherk grahi, "the cocks are crowing"). A grammar tradition states that the ending suffixes of verbs in both singular and plural should not contain long vowels. To create an infinitive of the verb, one needs to only remove the -a and -i from the end of a verb.

Stoatjab distinguishes nouns used for professions, social roles, public positions and offices, and the different sexes and genders of living creatures, with masculine and feminine and neuter suffixes. However, the verbs and adjectives used in Stoatjab do not undergo any changes based on the gender of the subject or the object of a sentence. The verbs and adjectives are, effectivelly, "unisex", or perhaps gender-neutral.

In contrast, the Stoatjab language distinguishes adjectives based on whether they pertain to physical characteristics or mental/spiritual/abstract characteristics, using the suffix -la or -lá for the former, and using the suffix -ma (or sometimes -má) for the latter. Thus, zaralá ("swift-footed"), but kiríhama ("upstart", "haughty").

Stoatjab does use gendered pronouns for the masculine, feminine and neuter gender, as well as possessive pronouns, but it doesn't directly distinguish between the pronoun variations "I" and "Me", or "We" and "Us", and similar. Verbal expressions such as "I am" or "We are" are not written as two separate words, but created by merging a pronoun with an -in suffix.

Concerning time-related grammar, Stoatjab does distinguish the past, present and future tense. The only complication is that each tense has three variations, so there is a total of nine verbal variations in the language. These can be broadly described as "active" (what the person was/is/will be actively doing), "tendential" (what the person tended/tends/will tend to do), and "passive" (what was/is/will be done to a person). For example, a stoatman could declare about the past "I was swordfighting", "I used to swordfight" and "I was fought with a sword", or about the present "I am swordfighting", "I tend to swordfight" and "I am being fought with a sword", or about the future "I will be swordfighting", "I will (keep) tend(ing) to swordfight" and "I will be fought with a sword".

Forming diminutives in Stoatjab is fairly easy, but there are some suffix variations. A typical example would be, e.g. dlík ("flower"), dlíkrič ("little flower").

Masculine and feminine personal names don't have a universal rule for what vowels they end in. A masculine or feminine name might share the same ending vowel. However, such names are often (but not always) perceived as "unisex" (or relatively gender-neutral) stoatfolk names. Though there is no hard rule, stoatfolk names ending in consonants tend to be mostly masculine, while stoatfolk names ending in the vowel -o (and sometimes other vowels) tend to be mostly feminine. (Hence, a stoatfolk member named Rhíko is most likely a stoatwoman.)

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