HRSpence, with my blessings, has done a lot of work on Ragi.
So if you’d like to play Bren, and learn the language—here’s the link.
Spence has his Ragi site up, and has an e-book of his work on Ragi
by CJ | Dec 17, 2011 | Journal | 19 comments
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Here’s the link!
http://strengthofthehills.tripod.com/hanilanguageandculturepage/id13.html
I wrote the Ragi text like a doctoral dissertation, and of course I wrote a dedication to those Cherryh fans
“Dedicated to the following people:
First and foremost, CJ Cherryh, who wrote the Foreigner series and created the Ragi speaking Atevi.
Without her, I would not have been inspired to retrofit a conlang for her aliens and the reader would
have needed to choose an alternate form of entertainment.
And I would like to thank those who have posted at the Shejidan site for helping me immensely:
Nepenti and Asicho, for all the work especially with the graphic forms; Rodlox, Shlinas and Sekishi for
their tireless lexicography; Sabina, Leelah, Zen, Chomiji, and Chia, for unwavering, and sometimes
heated, grammatical discussions and especially to Sk8er and the Mule for helping calm hurt feelings
when I inadvertently stepped on a few toes.”
and the text itself is written in the following style:
“In the attempt to explain the famous story of the Goose with the Golden Egg to the atevi to not to
mistake short term greed (killing all humans) for long term prosperity (using human technology), a
minor error in translation had the human negotiators bludgeoned nearly to death. In creating the new
word goseniin, the senior negotiator actually mispronounced it as the native Ragi root word gos-. This
was misunderstood for gosniin, which of course means many wild parties or celebrations. The junior
adjunct to the negotiator added the extra syllable, -e-, the word was acceptable, and the negotiators
were given access to human medical attention.”
Amazing work Spence, well done !!!
I’ve been looking forward to this!
Wow, I had no idea that the second line (1t, 2t, 3t) etc., was a total parsing of each word, not only by translation, but also by its part of speech, gender/number/case, or person/number/tense/mood/voice. I wasn’t sure of some of the abbreviations, but will be looking at the book when I pay for it.
I am amazed at the amount of work that was put into the books, and can only shake my head in wonder at the patience and dedication that Spence has shown.
Congratulations on a fine piece of work, Spence.
(I do have a question about the website, though. When I click on any of the links, such as “Hani Language” or “Kiffish Language”, there is no way to get back to the “home” page, that I saw. I did notice that the eStore seems to be the home page, though, yes?
Whoa! I am admittedly a sucker for languages. I will definitely be checking this out!
I haven’t put a link back from the Hani, Ragi, and kiffish language pages to the ebook page, yet. But that will come.
On the (1t, 2t, 3t) stuff, it’s a morpheme by morpheme translation, not a word for word translation. So, you can understand the internal workings of each word as well as for each sentence.
Last night I dreamed our daughter went to Spence’s Ragi site — then posted on Facebook how thrilled she was about winning a very nice prize from Spence for doing so.
“With that now complete, it is for sell under license.”
That’s of course the sort of mistake a foreigner 😉 new to English would make. Might one suppose na Spence’s native language was hani?
OSG, that is a rather astonishing dream. She can still buy the very nice prize though. And yes, Paul, I am a native speaker of Hani. Thanks for noticing.
Spence, I am in awe! Thank you for fulfilling this wish of mine. I promise one of this days to get the message cylinders out and stuffed and mailed to the few people who actually asked…. Heavy work schedule and the surgery this year has slowed me down but I haven’t forgotten your courtesy.
Yay, I’ll get to read the tomes of not-forgotten lore! Thanks, na Spence!
I have many fond memories of reading through the books taking notes. Fun stuff. I’ll have to buy a copy after Christmas.
Hey, CJ. Has anyone tried to make a roleplaying game based on any of your worlds? I’ve toyed with making an informal setting for Compact Space, but, sadly, no one I game with has expressed much interest in such a setting.
I always thought the Aslan in the Traveller setting seemed a lot like the Hani and it made me wonder if the authors of that game borrowed a bit too much from your stories.
There is/was a game called the Company Wars. A friend back in college had shown me the wonderful essay by CJ. I haven’t been much of a gamer, but it could be fun. I know that same friend liked a couple of other strategy RPG’s, science fiction based.
Ker CJ and na Spence, have you ever considered a full book on the hani language, or on all the Compact languages? I know ker Vetch and another one or two have done some on mahendo’sat chiso. — I have some notes on vocabulary, and some conjecture on hani and mahen phonology, but not really anything on grammar or a full glossary of the words / passages in the books. I’d be interested in helping, though.
…Heh, and the stsho’s psychological and linguistic expression of however their gender system really works (and transforms) is probably really fascinating from bio., psych., anthro., and lang. viewpoints. 🙂
All lot fine, number one good books, you-all buy!
Heh, I seem to recall Py claimed to develop a sudden interest in one of the mahen philosophers, and asked for a book from the Meetpoint bazaars! 😀
Page 7 of (pb) “The Chanur Saga”.
That was when she sent Haral after the mahen symbol translator to get a handle on Tully’s language. But she said “or another of his ilk, I’m completely indifferent.”
I just looked up in my notes: Kohboranua is the philosopher.
That reminds me of a question. My notes have:
[quote]Tginiso
(noun) A station guard on Kshshti, probably paid off by the kif. She is Tasunno, an ethnic group rare off Iji, identifiable by their short, small physique, curly brown hair, and brown skin, apparently lighter of skin and hair than most mahe. Pyanfar recognizes her as one of the guards for Tully, Hilfy, and Chur; notices her hair is not singed, and points her out to Jik.
[/quote]
I’ve always wondered how they got the “tg-” consonant cluster, and if there were other pairs like it, and if that was only Tasunno, or the main mahen chiso. In my head, I hear it with a very slight schwa, e-muet, in between the t and g, as little as possible. Old English (Anglo-Saxon) used C and CC for modern “ch, tch” before or after front vowels in certain contexts, and we have TCH; while Old English also had CG (ecge) for “j, dj, dg” as in edge. So it occurs to me the mahen might use TG as something like TC or DG in Latinate languages. But they have CH and J already in the system you, CJ, use, so I’ve kept thinking it’s “t@gini:so:” (trying for IPA, there). — How should it be pronounced, and what’s up with the consonant cluster? I’m going with, “it’s attested in the text, it’s in the gloss, deal with it, they’re mahe.” 🙂
Um, yes, now back to Ragi, before someone notices I sidestepped into the alternate universe. (I don’t even have a goatee for the occasion!) (Or a good pair of hani breeches!)
@ready4more, without being outrageously personal, I’m not sure I was aware you were undergoing surgery. Due to the disparity of names between here and Shejidan, I’m not always sure to whom I’m replying. One is hopeful that the surgery went well, that it was successful, and that your recovery is going well, too.
@Spence, I studied Latin and Greek in high school and college, but never got into the linguistics as deeply as you did with these examples. Thanks for the explanation.
@BSC I have a working copy of Hani nearly ready, and a partial on Kiffish. I also have a beginning on Stsho, but none of the sketch done.
and you’re welcome joe!