two questions, one specific and one horrendously vague: 1) what would the word for Grandmother/Grandfather be? 2) do you have any tips for people coming up with their own Kardasi words? most of my conlang exp is with Mando'a, and you can basically just string existing words/roots together for your new concept and call it a day. this blog has been great for my return to DS9/Cardassian fandom, tyvm
1) As is usually the case with the Cardassians, ask a simple question, get a complicated answer. There are multiple words for “grandfather” and “grandmother,” and they all depend on upon age and status. @tinsnip and I went into the answer in more detail here.
2) Okay, well, the way I make up Kardasi words is very time-consuming, so I’m not sure how useful it would be, but here we are:
My first step is to actually hit Dictionary.com. I look up the English word and check its etymology. Is it from Old English? Is it a loan word? If so, what root does it come from in its original language?
Two examples:
a) When I was looking to make colour words, I looked up “white” to see its origins and discovered that it’s related to “wheat.” Which is interesting to me, because I assumed that when people were looking for a word to describe something white, they’d compare it to clouds first. What are the Cardassians most likely to think of as white? Do I want to go with a similarity to wheat, or pick something else? (Snow is probably out.)
b) If I were to come up with a word for “fantastic,” there are two things worth considering. One, its original usage has shifted in relatively recent times, from something bizarre and out of a fantasy to something really great. Second is the fact that “fantastic” came to the English language via Latin, and that via Greek.
Again, via Dictionary.com:
1350-1400; Middle English fantastik pertaining to the imaginative faculty
So, in this case, I ask myself: Is the word I’m trying to translate likely to be native to Kardasi, or more likely to be a loan word from, say, Vulcan or the Federation? And am I translating the word with its current sense or its original sense?
(As a minor point, when I was asked to translate “kismesissitude,” first I looked up several definitions of what the concept actually was [not being a Homestuck]. Then I thought about what the word broke down into [kismet + nemesis] and how its components related to the definition. And THEN I started thinking about how the Cardassians would think of the concept–would it be identical? Similar?)
My next step is to start looking over Cardassian words that are similar in meaning to the word I’m creating, if there are any. (I’ve started to make a list of these to simplify the process.) Learning one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elven languages, Sindarin, gave me this idea, as Tolkien created a bunch of root sounds for concepts (fire, light, growth, etc.) and built his languages out of those. (Here is where they’re listed, for the curious.)
If I have a sound that seems to turn up in numerous words (ex. “ot” turns up in both alcohol-related words [delot, alcohol] and words having to do with creating/drinking alcohol [ot'ta, bottle]), I’ll find a way to incorporate it or something similar into the word I’m creating. If not, I’ll think about how common the word is. For example, words that are very common or basic (cat, bed, tree, house) tend to have fewer syllables. Words that express more complex or nuanced concepts (feline, repose, arboreal, condominium) tend to have more. At the same time, words that are very basic in the English language (”snow,” again) might require a more complex word, or even a loanword in Kardasi.
Finally, I take into account the language as a whole. Which sounds turn up next to each other more often? Which sound combinations are rarer? If I’ve never seen the combination “zxq” in Kardasi before now, I’m not very likely to include it in a new word.
…And yes, I more or less follow all of these steps every time I make a new word in the language. I’m not sure how helpful this is for anyone else, but I feel as though this is at least useful to keep in mind while conlanging.
Disclaimer: While I’m a big ol’ languages nerd, I’ve never formally studied language formation or anything like that. I’ve been doing more reading about it lately, but I have a degree in music education, not linguistics. So please keep that in mind.
Thanks for your question! It was fun to write down the steps I’ve been keeping in my head.
I KNEW I WAS GOING TO FORGET SOMETHING
After taking into account the language as a whole in terms of which sounds are more or less “Cardassian” than others, there’s also thinking about how the language functions. Kardasi makes use of prefixes and suffixes to clarify meaning to a greater degree than, say, English does.
While English does have its fair share of these, they tend to be a bit more straightforward. (Ex. submarine = sub + marine, below + ocean, more or less). In Kardasi, you can get quite a bit more complex. (’pe, a suffix meaning “to be deliberately concealed.”)
Finally, if I’m asked to translate a set phrase in English, I dig into the origins of the phrase and then think of how that would be expressed by a Cardassian. The phrase “You’re welcome” as a response to “thank you” is a good example. Via Grammarphobia:
The earliest reference in the OED is from a 1960 newspaper article, though the dictionary has one from a 1907 short story that’s quite close: “Thank you,” said the girl, with a pleasant smile. “You’re quite welcome,” said the skipper.
[Update, Oct. 4, 2016: A reader found an earlier citation in The House by the Churchyard, an 1863 novel by the Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu: “ ‘I thank ye again, sir.’ ‘You’re welcome, my honey,’ rejoined Toole, affectionately.”]
Why “you’re welcome”? I can’t give you a definitive answer. But I suspect that it’s simply another way of saying “it’s a pleasure” or “the pleasure is mine.” Remember, one of the early uses of “welcome” was to describe something pleasurable.
However, Cardassian culture as a whole tends to be much less on the pleasure side of things. And so I wound up translating the equivalent phrase as “It is my duty.”
...Probably at least one more addition to come as I think of it.
