The Hyvala language from my "Ragnarok Conspiracy" story.

I love fictional languages presented in some of my favorite works of fiction. So while I am no linguist, I thought it might be an interesting idea of coming up with a basic grammar for the battle language used by the sentient spaceship Sleipnir in my story Ragnarok Conspiracy. In my story, the sentient ship needs to work together with a type of navigator. The idea was the language had to be compact in order to be effective for use between the ship and the navigator. So I took some time to try and do something like that without going overboard.

The first thing I looked at was the stem of common verbs. This is the list of verb stems I came up with:

• ba : to be
• bâ : to win
• bé : to dig
• bï : to go
• bô : to mean
• bü : to speak
• da : to become
• dé : to do
• dï : to grow
• dô : to meet
• dü : to spill
• fa : to begin
• fé : to fall
• fï : to have
• fô : to put
• fû : to split
• ja : to bleed
• jé : to feed
• jï : to hide
• jô : to ride
• jü : to sting
• ka : to break
• ké : to feel
• kï : to hit
• kô : to say
• kü : to strike
• la : to bring
• lé : to fight
• lï : to hold
• lô : to see
• lü : to swear
• ma : to broadcast
• mé : to find
• mï : to hurt
• mô : to send
• mü : to sweap
• na : to build
• né : to fly
• nï : to keep
• nô : to set
• nü : to take
• pa : to catch
• pé : to forget
• pï : to know
• pô : to shake
• pü : to teach
• ra : to choose
• ré : to forgive
• rï : to lead
• rô : to shine
• rü : to tell
• sa : come
• sé : to freeze
• sï : to leave
• sô : to shoot
• sü : to think
• ta : to cut
• té : to get
• tï : to lose
• tô : to show
• tü : to throw
• wa : to deal with
• wé : to give
• wï : to make
• wô : to sleep
• wü : to understand

So far for the boring part. Now for a fun part. We are used ourselves to use intonation and tone to communicate emotion. In Hyvala, the emotion is put into the language through grammar rules. To explain this part of the grammar, we first need to look at designated. In Hyvala, four forms of designation are identified with a single vowel:

• o : one or more male subjects
• a : one or more female subjects
• u : male and female subjects
• e : something genderless

Now the emotion we just spoke about is what defines the letters that glue together the designation of the subjects and the verb stem or/and any accents used on the designating vowel.

The simplest emotional expression requires just the accenting of the designating vowel, repeating the vowel if needed. Let's look at the verb stem bü or to speak when applied to say we are speaking to one or more male figures or o. This is how it would be used conveying different emotions:

• obü : neutral
• óbü : love
• òbü : awe
• öbü : disaproval
• oóbü : remorse
• oòbü : contempt
• oôbü : agression
• oöbü : optimism

For other emotions, things get a bit more complicated. We identifie four regression tables r1 .. r4. Each regression table defines what vowel should follow any given designating vowel.

regression tabel one

• o -> i
• a -> u
• u -> e
• e -> o

There are five emotions defined for this table. We shall continue our example above, note that this is an o->i example:

• oibü : serenity
• oîbü : acceptance
• oíbü : apprehension
• oïbü : distraction
• oìbü : extacy

regression table two

• o ->a
• a -> e
• u -> o
• e -> i

There are five emotions defined for this table.

• oabü : pensiveness
• oâbü : boredom
• oábü : annoyance
• oäbü : interest
• oàbü : admiration

regression table three

• o -> u
• a -> o
• u -> i
• a -> a

Again five emotions:

• oubü : joy
• oûbü : trust
• oúbü : fear
• oübü : surprise
• oùbü : terror

regression table four

• o -> e
• a -> i
• u -> a
• e -> u

With again five emotions:

• oebü : sadness
• oêbü : disgust
• oébü : anger
• oëbü : anticipation
• oèbü : amasement

Than finaly there are three emotions that don't use regression but use an extra consonant instead:

• ónòbü : grief
• ómòbü : loathing
• óvòbü : rage
• ówòbü : vigelance

Now that we have discussed emotion, the next part, the part preceding the designated subject, defines if the comunication is formal or not. It takes a bit of time to earn the respect and trust of a sentient spaceship like Sleipnir and untill that point is reached using the formal form in combination with a humble emotion might be a good idea., for example : woàbü might be better than plain oàbü

The consonant preceding the optional formal w defines the following:

• b : I
• d : you
• j : he/she
• m : we
• n : you (plural)
• h : they

And we always start of with designating the time as pressent (i), past (u) or future (o).

So lets look at a litle text from the chapter where we first meet Sleipnir.

Ibeáné, homo ujoëfe

First we disect the first word:

• I : pressent tense
• b : I
• w: The missing w shows Sleipnir and Azraella are familliar with eachother and dont use the formal form.
• e: No gender is there or refered to
• eá : third regression table, the emotion expressed is fear
• né : to fly

And the third:

• u: past tense
• j: he/she
• o: male
• oë : 4th regression table, anticipation
• fe : to fall

Together:

• Ibeáné, homo ujoëfe : I am flying (fear), the human, he has fallen (anticipation).

Azraella responded to this saying : Ujwoópé ubwàra homo Robert odweëdo.

Now, try for yourself. What did Azraella respond?

Its a pretty simple, maybe even simplistic idea for a battle language, but as I only use it in two chapters and only a dozen or so sentences, the primary concern is that there are some rules behind the strange words that actually make sense. I don't know if making it into something following a realy yet simplistic grammar is adding any dimension to my story other than if I had just chosen random words without consideration of structure, but I really feel it makes more sense to put a bit of work into something like this, to make it feel real if only for myself.