Atlantean language
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The Atlantean language is a constructed language created by Marc Okrand for Disney's film Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The language was intended as a possible "mother language" and was therefore invented to have Indo-European word stock with its own grammar ("Production Notes").
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[edit] Grammar
Atlantean has a Subject-Object-Verb word order. The first documentation of this discovery is recorded in a March 2002 entry into LangMaker.Com. This is a presumably a quote from Paul Sherrill. His website, Lúden Shadlag, deleted for several years now, was up at least by July 4, 2001, as Paul himself says in Message 2 of the Yahoo Tech Group The Atlantean Language Group. 68.251.31.0 first mentioned SOV order in this article and may have arrived at that conclusion independently of Paul Sherrill. Here is an example from The Official Corpus. References are "(Sequence, Part)".
"Way-DAH-go-sen NEH-bet behr-NOH-tib-mick. ... (I have brought the visitors.)" (09K1)
Or, translated literally:
"Visitor-plural these bring-past-perfect-I."
Compare this sentence to 13K2 for evidence of bernot as a verb.
Adjectives follow their nouns while the adverbs precede their verbs.
An example of adverb-verb order can be found by comparing 8.5A1 with 8.5K2 of the Official Corpus. Note: YOO-gehb goes from adverb to verb here, yet its suffixes act accordingly. This is even mirrored in the sometimes loose English translation.
Atlantean has postpositions rather than prepositions. There are three recognized tenses: Present Perfect, Present, and Future. Imperatives are formed from the verb stem alone in the singular, and with the suffix -yoakh in the plural.
Nouns
There are also four cases for nouns.
1. Nominative
2.Accusative (indicated by the suffix -tem)
3. Vocative (Indicated by the suffix -toap, as in TAH-neb-toap, "Your Highness")
4. There is evidence of a fourth case,Genitive (Indicated by the suffix -uhg, as in AHD-luhn-tih-suhg, "of Atlantis". This may be interpreted as an adjective-forming suffix. Lawrence Rogers, in 3rd person, argues that in S05M1 and in TUP04 -uhg is used to indicate possession. It also indicates origin(TUP01, TUP02,03,04, S13K2), description(S8.5K5), and compounds(DVD 50:55), all regular functions of the Genitive Case. ) In addition to this, Rogers presents the idea of Paul Sherrill and Cindy Morris that it also makes cardinal numbers into ordinal numbers(S10M1).
5. ...and possibly even a fifth case, Instrumental (indicated by the suffix -esh, as in DEE-gesh from DEEG, "language"). This is further supported by comparison done by Rogers: TUP04, S1.5S1, S05M1, S09G3, S13K3, and S1.5S1.
Nouns are marked as plural with the suffix -en. Case suffixes never precede the -en plural suffix. There is evidence that a few nouns may be invariant, like TAH-mar, "law" (S09K1), KOO-net, "surface" (S8.5K1), and SHAYOD, "hand" (DVD 50:55).
"TAHB-toap" from the Illustrated Script: Father(Noun Vocative)
Nominative *TAHB
Accusative *TAHB-tem
Vocative *"TAHB-toap"
also, from a single example: *"MAH-tihm" (mother, being called)
Genitive *TAHB-uhg
Instrumental *TAHB-esh
Plural *TAHB-en
Pronouns
Pronouns show case inflection for:
1.Nominative
2. Accusative (indicated by the suffix -it, as in TOO-git from TOOG, "he")
3. Genitive (indicated by the suffix -ihn, as in MOH-khihn from MOAKH, "you (singular)")
4. ...and possibly Dative. This Dative Suffix occurs once and is the suffix -ihb, as in KAH-gihb(S13K2) from KAHG, "I") Grammatically, the suffix in question best matches the Accusative Case, as Kida is the one being forgiven by the Spirits of Altantis.
Nominative GWEES (S09G2)
Accusative GWEE-sit (S1.511)
Genitive GWEE-sin (S09G1)
Dative *GWEE-sihb
Sample quotation: TAHB-toap LOO-den NEH-bet kwahm GEH-soo BOH-geh-kem deg YAH-seh-ken GEH-soo-goan-tokh. "Father, these people may be able to help us." (The simple notation was designed to make it easy for actors to read their lines.)
Atlantean is written in boustrophedon style (in horizontal running alternately from right to left and left to right).
[edit] Paul Sherill's Lost Tense Markers
Paul Sherill, Atlantean language lore master, is quoted on a conlang website called langmaker.com as saying, "So far I have examples of three 'tenses': the present perfect, present, and future. Most of the time, the two suffixes are easily identifiable, but in a few combinations the tense marker drops or changes a letter or two(Info & Tidbits 1996-2005)."
Furthermore, Marc Okrand stated in comments for a Disney press release that, "But grammatically, it is very different from English. It does things that English doesn’t do. Partly, the word order is different; partly the way the suffixes work are different. The verbs are highly inflected."
It is proposed for scholarly consideration that these inflected tense markers are: 1.)-lih- for the present perfect suffix, 2.)nothing for the present tense, 3.)and -loh- for the future tense.
Here is the procedure which led to these hypotheses:
1.) IF KAH-roak-lih-mihk is assumed to mean "defiling"(Script's wording) or "I have defiled"(one understanding) (Lexicon, Sequence 13, Kida, line 2), and behr-NOAT-lih-mihk is assumed to mean "bringing" or "I have brung" (Lexicon, Sequence 13, Kida, line 2), and MEH-gid-lih-men is assumed to mean "have...destroyed" or "you have destroyed" (Lexicon, Sequence 1.5, Atlantean Pilot line 1), and MOO-tih-lihm-kem is assumed to mean "is lost" or "all has been lost" (Lexicon, Sequence 1.5, Additional Pilots' line), but "YOH-deh-neh-toat" is assumed to mean "too late" or "It is too late already" (Lexicon, Sequence 1.5, Atlantean Pilot #2)
THEN -lih- is an Atlantean suffix marking a verb as in the past perfect tense in most and certain instances. and Paul Sherill was correct in his assertion.
2.) Most of the 51 present tense words which are assumed to be verbs from the Official Lexicon are without a common suffix which can be identified, by elimination of other known suffixs.
3.) IF KOAM-tib-loh-nen is assumed to mean "you will find" (Lexicon, Sequence 10, Milo's line), and GWEH-noag-loh-nick is assumed to mean "I will kill" (Lexicon, Sequence 13, Kida line 2), but "YOO-teh-poan-kem" is assumed to mean "will discuss" or "we will discuss" (Lexicon, Sequence 9, King line 3)
THEN -loh- is an Atlantean suffix marking a verb as in the future tense in most and certain instances. and Paul Sherill was correct in his assertion.
[edit] Other Tenses
There are two suffixes in each non-imperative, final verb or adverb in every Atlantean sentence (in the Script). The first is verb tense, the second is verb subject. The second suffixes are something like:
[edit] The Pronouns of Atlantean
I = KAHG ... -ik
(Which makes sense because ik is Gothic for I [ego, ich, etc.])
you = MOAKH ... -en
he/she/it TOOG/TOO-KH/TOH-k ... -toat
we = GWEES ... -kem
you-all familiar GAHB-r ... -ekh
you-all unfamiliar Gehb-R ... -ekh
they = SOH-b ... -tokh
Other pronouns in Atlantean include "leb", who, "mehk", what, and "DOH-t", this.
and the first suffixes are all listed, in their verb, below.
Both -tib- and -pih- appear to correspond to separate tenses from their "families" (the -OH- family, the -IH- family, the -EH- family)
Thereare also variations of the -OH- family. Since these variation correspond to no tense change in English, they may be:
1) All the same just for the -OH- family or
2) Represent separate tenses which do not correspond to any tense in English, except maybe the simple future tense.
And because all the tenses seem to break along family lines, it may be assumed that they are all future tenses.
[edit] A List of All Examples of Non-Eh- Verbs from the Official Corpus
All translated as simple future.
GEH-soo-goan-tokh. YAHD-lu-goh-nikh
YOO-teh-poan-kem
KOAM-tib-loh-nen GWEH-noag-loh-nick
MAH-toh-noat
All translated as one of the past tenses.
KAH-roak-lih-mihk behr-NOAT-lih-mihk
MEH-gid-lih-men MOO-tih-lihm-kem
Translated as one of the present tenses of English.
kweh-TEE-pih-moat
Translated as one of the present tenses of English.
behr-NOH-tib-mick
And the most common suffix is -eh-, which has no variations and is always translated into the simple present tense.
[edit] References
- Henning, Jeffrey. Atlantean, (1996-2005), AtlanteanLanguage of the Lost Empire, LangMaker.Com, Accessed December 20 2006
Paul Sherill's Quote
- Walt Disney Pictures Info & Tidbits on Atlantis, the Lost Empire, Info & Tidbits on Atlantis, the Lost Empire, RottenTomatoes.com, Accessed December 20 2006 : 4th paragraph from the bottom
Marc Okrand's Quote
- Walt Disney Pictures. Production Notes., Production Notes, The Unofficial Disney Animation Archive, Acessed December 20 2006 : under the 8th section from the top, "Creating the Atlantean Language"
A second, more complete source for the press release from Disney on Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
