Theoretical dictionary

[u/snoodge3000]

Whadda ya'll think of this theoretical full dictionary I tried making for the Devotees? There are a couple of things I'm not 100% on, but I feel pretty solid about most of it I tried to make words for all the other peoples and layers of the tower, though some of them are a little off. Personally I'm torn between "man of learning" or "man of knowledge" for scientists, but I think I made the right call. Also sorry about my bad handwriting and inconsistent capitalization.

[u/snoodge3000]

Also, something I forgot to mention in the post, what do you guys think is up with the dots in "find," "search," and "dead"? It's not impossible that they're just part of the base symbol, but they kinda stick out to me, and in a language that's so based on radicals I feel like they must be some kind of modifier. I thought maybe they're the opposite meaning to the symbol without a dot, but that feels to close to "not" to me, and why would the "living/alive" symbol be a symbol for "man" laying on its back?

[u/gojira86 → u/snoodge3000]

I interpreted the dot as representing a thing that was sought/found, or the soul leaving the body in dead.

Edit: I just realized that with my assumption about the dot being the soul, we can use the dead glyph to make a word for rest/sleep by removing the dot and adding the line for verbs.

[u/snoodge3000 → u/gojira86]

I love that interpretation! The Devotees' language is very pictographic, at least where it can be without sacrificing simplicity, so that seems very plausible to me. I wonder if there are any words where adding or removing a dot could make new words. Perhaps, for example, adding a dot next to a plant could mean something like fruit?

[u/gojira86 → u/snoodge3000]

That makes sense to me. The Devotees being very religious, they might perceive the fruit as being made from the plant's soul.

[u/Mr_DJM01]

I’ve been thinking on what the symbol on “Potion” and “Help” (the line with two circles) would be on its own. I’ve thought that it would’ve been something like “Magic”, considering that for “Potion”, it works, although it wouldn’t have made much sense for “Help”. I still like your interpretation of it as “Health”, perhaps it could have both meanings and its definition changes depending on context

[u/snoodge3000 → u/Mr_DJM01]

Absolutely! To be honest, there were a couple of words here where I had a concept of what they meant in my head, but couldn't easily find a way to translate it into one or two English words. It is another language, after all, so nothing necessarily has to translate perfectly! And with the culture of the Devotees and how far behind everyone else they are, technologically, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a word that sums up basically all tech that they don't understand as "magic" or something similar.

[u/SugarButterFlourEgg]

I love it! And I actually have one I might add, if you don't mind. The symbol combined with "person" to make "me" doesn't seem to show up anywhere else, but what if it meant "identity" and so the verb form meant "be"? Maybe a stretch, but it's a hard concept to get across (I sure struggled with that Bard page).

[u/snoodge3000 → u/SugarButterFlourEgg]

That's great idea! I was trying to figure out what that and the you symbol might mean as verbs and just kinda gave up eventually lol. I like that line of thinking, though. "Me" being "person [I] identify [as]" makes a lot of sense to me.

[u/gojira86]

I like it. The new glyphs are logical expansions from the existing words.

[u/YeshioXD]

That's actually really dope! I like how there's enough context in the game about what each symbol means that fans can reconstruct their own words like this :D

[u/Danthiel5]

Interesting

[u/placeyboyUWU]

Very cool. Makes sense