Atlantean language

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The Atlantean alphabet.
The Atlantean alphabet.

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").

Contents

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Vowels

Chart of Atlantean vowels
IPA Symbol Actors' Script Transliteration
/i/ ee, ih, i i
/e/ ay, eh, e e
/ɑ/ ah, uh, a a
/o/ oh, o, oa o
/u/ oo u

Atlantean's phonology includes a vowel system with the above five phonemes, a system common to many languages, such as Spanish. Each vowel has two prominent allophonic realizations, depending on whether it occurs in a stressed or unstressed syllable. Vowels in stressed syllables tend to be tense, and likewise unstressed ones tend to be more lax. Thus, for example, /i/ is realized as [i] or [ɪ] in stressed and unstressed syllables, respectively. Likewise, /e/ is realized as [e] or [ɛ], and so on. (/ɑ/ fits into this pattern as [ɑ] or [ʌ].)

[edit] Consonants

IPA chart of Atlantean consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Alveolo-
palatal		 Palatal Velar Labiovelar
Plosive p   b t   d k   g
Nasal m n
Fricative s ʃ 1 x 2
Approximant j 3 w
Trill r
Lateral l

Where symbols occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.

Notes:

  1. Transliterated as sh
  2. Transliterated as kh
  3. Transliterated as y

[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] Writing Systems

An alphabet (pictured above) was designed for Atlantean to be displayed onscreen in the film. For the sake of the actors who had to speak the language, the Atlantean passages in the script were written out in a manner deliberately easy to read for English speakers. Syllables within individual words were separated by hyphens, and stress placement was indicated by writing stressed syllables in capitals. Thus, for example, the sentence "Follow the narrow passage for another league" was translated as "LEH-weg-tem SHEE-buhn puhk BEN-tem DEE-gen-mil SAH-tib." An alternative system for transliteration, adopted in this article, simply replaces each Atlantean character with its phonetic Roman alphabet equivalent, rendering the previous sentence as Lewegtem shiban pak bentem digenmil satib.

[edit] Paul Sherrill's Lost Tense Markers

Paul Sherrill, 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 brought" (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 Sherrill 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 suffixes.

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 Sherrill 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)

There are 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] History of Decipherment Efforts

From Internet documentation, about 150 amateur linguists working since 2001 have contributed thus far to the on-going dicipherment and codification of the Atlantean Language. Earliest records show the efforts of Paul Sherrill in reaching out to the international linguistic community for help in about March of 2001. He later founded a site with his dicipherments on it, "Luden Shadlag", meant to mean "The Fifth City"; along with a Yahoo Tech Group, The Atlantean Language Group. All of this was in June of the same year. About then The Atlantean Linguists Guild was founded as a message board of unknown location. In September of 2001, Jefferey Henning posted a series of webpages devoted to the Atlantean language on his then-young LangMaker.Com. In February of 2004, this article was begun, becoming the original point of publication of several major breakthroughs.

Luden Shadlag was later deleted by its hosting site, as was The Atlantean Linguists Guild. However, The Atlantean Language Group remains online and is regularly cleaned of spam and quasi-regularly posted to by someone other than its enthusiastic moderator.

Sometime in 2004, an "Aaron" began a second website devoted to the language, The Mother Tongue. This website is still up, though hard-to-find, perhaps due to a lack of internet search keywords. In late 2006, Cindy Morris chose the Atlantean Language as the subject of a school project and made significant, published contributions. A little later in the year, Lawrence Rogers joined the dicipherment effort, working from December through January on the language. He eventually produced a 100-page book in rough draft, "Atlantean Grammar", available for free in The Atlantean Language Group Library. The following spring he began free lessons on the language at The Group and the message board Kidagakash Fans Unite. To date, he has personally taught the language to about 12 people internationally. On March 9, 2007 he started "The Atlantean Language Institute" as a Facebook group. Paul Sherrill returned to the Atlantean language on June 21, 2007, to work briefly on this article and correspond with Lawrence Rogers. Paul Sherrill made him moderator of The Atlantean Language Group on June 22nd. On July 22, 2007 Rogers started the website for The Atlantean Language Institute, http://www.atlanteanlanguageinstitute.info/ . He has contacted Disney twice for permission to use their property with no response.

Currently there is a rough estimate of 200 people worldwide vaguely interested in the Atlantean language.

[edit] Written works on Atlantean

Marc Okrand's 800-1,000 entry word list is unavailable to the public, as is the final script of Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Paul Sherrill's website is lost, as are his notes. It included a grammar, dictionary, and corpus. Atlantima wrote a dictionary which survives at The Group. Delayra wrote a short grammar and dictionary, which she still owns and has distributed. Cindy Morris likewise wrote a grammar and dictionary, as did Lawrence Rogers. His work encompases the non-fictional history of the language and its dicipherment, among other things. It includeds as appendices the works of Delayra, Cindy Morris, and Atlantima, with scraps that remain from Luden Shadlag. "Atlantean Grammar" also contains an unabridged Atlantean-English dictionary with dicipherment notes, a simplified Atlantean-English dictionary, a likewise short English-Atlantean dictionary, and an oriental English-Atlantean dictionary, being arranged topologically according to philosophical reflections on peace and civic harmony. He has also written and put online abbreviated grammars, a Reader to "How to Speak Atlantean" the Marc Okrand short film, made contributions to all Atlantean language articles, and put online a list of all 680 words in New Atlantean, including 500 that he made up. He is currently making up more words in the New Atlantean development and pondering the creation of a Historical Atlantean development, using PIE roots. Most of his work is currently available for free at The Atlantean Language Group.

[edit] The Atlantean Language Group

During its history, The Atlantean Language Group has recorded a number of breakthroughs in dicipherment, including the grammatical case system, its suffixes, the verb tense suffixes, the verb subject suffixes, phonetics, and miscellaneous word translations. It has also been a source of contribution to the naming of sources containing either the real Okrand language or imitations of it. It is considered the hub and nexis of the Atlantean dicipherment effort. Membership is free to the public.

Major contributors include Paul Sherrill, Shahnahkehm, Rebmakash, Atlantima, Gaerielleenay, Dennis Falk, and Lawrence Rogers.

[edit] References

  • Henning, Jeffrey. Atlantean, (1996-2005), AtlanteanLanguage of the Lost Empire, LangMaker.Com, Accessed December 20 2006

Paul Sherrill's Quote

Marc Okrand's Quote

  • Walt Disney Pictures. Production Notes., Production Notes, The Unofficial Disney Animation Archive, Accessed 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.

[edit] External links