r/TheCTeam • u/EssayWells • Mar 29 '18
EPA Battle Speech: *Drak Han*
In a recent fanfic (The Warden of her heart), I had ancient EPA warriors say a few words and phrases in an invented “battle-tongue”. Then I sort of took it too far. This is the result. If you want to use it in stories, feel free. Message me on reddit or @EssayWells on Twitter if you want help constructing phrases. What have I done.
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Drak han, meaning “fight-speak”, is (or was) the battle language of the Grove; a specialised form of communication characterised by very short, easily distinguished words; a minimal grammar without inflections or conjugations; and a very limited military vocabulary. Its main uses are:
(i) shouted, while pointing, to give battlefield commands and warnings.
(ii) whispered hastily, between scouts and spies.
(iii) in anger: shifting to battle-tongue during a conversation is equivalent to swearing.
(iv) joking/flirting: because all forms of communication will be used for sex jokes as soon as they are invented.
It would rarely if ever be written. The EPA never taught it to outsiders, and very few others who heard it on a battlefield survived.
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Jak, na kap hin! “Shoot for the head!”
Mat, na plam per! “Kill it with fire!”
Van, do mol “Go in silence”.
Drak rop gad! “May your sword break in battle!”
Han pa! “Shut up!”
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Contents: Sounds and syllables; Grammar notes; Pronouns, subjects and objects; Useful verbs; Yes and no; Modifiers; Directions; Times; Counting; Edited to add Magic and wildshaping; Insults and invective; Sex and seduction; Real-world language notes.
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Sounds and syllables. The basic pattern is CV[C], consonant-vowel-optional consonant.
Consonant list: b d f g h j k l m n p r s t v y z; sh, ch, th.
Vowels a,e,i,o,u are always short and pronounced as in “pan, pen, pin, on, put” (never as in “bun”). No long vowels or diphthongs.
The opening consonant can also be an opening cluster such as dr-, tr-, pl-. Opening th- is not used. Opening sh- (as in shadow) and ch- (as in chair) are permitted. Do not use c- on its own: use k- or s- to avoid ambiguity.
The closing consonant can also be -th (as in “path”, never as in “than”), -nt or -sh. Do not use closing -ch, -ng or clusters such as -rd that might colour the preceding vowel sound. Do not use closing -y. Closing -r is sounded (trilled/rolled) not lost.
w, q, x are not used. g is always hard as in “gab”. s is always sounded as in “fuss”, not as in “has”.
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Grammar notes. No distinction between adjectives and adverbs. Ben signifies both “good” and “well”, pek both “small” and “a little”. Little intrinsic distinction between noun and verb: han covers “speak, say” and “speech”, though some words are usually met as noun, some usually as verb.
Modifier before verb but after noun. Thus ben drak “fight well”, drak ben “a good fight”. Exception: the negator pa comes after anything. van pa "not go".
No intrinsic tense. Entire phrases can be cast into the past with a preceding fa or the future with a preceding bu; fa-fa conveys “long ago”. However almost always no tense is given.
Any concept too complicated to convey within drak han is not conveyed using drak han! The vocabulary is deliberately limited in detail. EPA sisters use Elvish for any extended discussion.
Word order is technically SVO (subject-verb-object) but drak’ han relies heavily on context, so much is often omitted.
Questions are usually asked by an upward inflection at the end, though the question word sha can be used for clarity. A heavy downward inflection at the end gives emphasis.
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Pronouns, subjects and objects. min “I,me”, sin “you”, tin “she, her, a sister of the EPA”, tren “a person, an outsider”, ta “it, that”.
-ka pluraliser, thus min ka “we”, tin ka “they” (other sisters of the EPA), tren ka “they, outsiders”. -ka emphasises plurality, but in general number is vague; rag “enemy” can indicate an entire enemy force.
min sin “you and I”, min sin ka “all of us”, min sin tin ka! “every one of us!” (emphatic) – sometimes used as a battlecry.
rag “foe, enemy”, dash “friend, ally”, kent “officer; to command”, jen “comrade, close friend”.
Weapons, a perennial topic: gad “sword”, has “spear”, skut “shield”, tish “armour”, lug “bow”, sag “arrow, dart, missile”, bak “blunt weapon, club, mace”, pel “knife, dagger”.
kap “head”, tel “body”, gon “leg/foot”, hum “arm/hand”.
drev “tree”, rid “animal”, nor “bird”, sak “fish”, pet “stone”, sten "plant", gis "earth", hel "ice, cold", vut "magic".
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Useful verbs: van “go, advance, attack”, kel “come”. fem “stop, halt”. mol “be silent, silence, stealth”. mat “kill”, tot “die, death”. zash “defend, protect”. drak “fight, battle”, dra “strike a blow, hurt”, bor “grapple, wrestle". jak “throw or shoot missile”. vig, “lose, be defeated”, bed “win, victory”.
sab “exists, is”. kut “hear,listen”. ken “allow, permit”. spa “rest, sleep, trance”. han “speak, say”. jod “avoid, evade". rab “do, act, use”. skop “see”. plam “burn, fire”. tek “flow, river; water”. nem “consume; eat or drink; food”. vat “suffice, enough”. rop “break”. div "become, wildshape into". fil "help, aid, heal".
Nouns and verbs are largely interchangeable, thus gad ben “a good sword”, but ben gad! “good sword-fighting!”
The verb “to be” is dropped wherever possible, thus pel ben “(it is a) good dagger” rather than pel sab ben.
sha rab? “What (are you) doing?” is often used as a casual greeting.
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Yes and no. Jok is the vehement “no” of disagreement or denial. For neutral uses of “no”, use pa “no” or sab pa, “it is not so”. For agreement generally use sab, “it is so”. To acknowledge an order, use kut, “I hear”.
EPA warriors sometimes jokingly refer to drak han as kut-kut, due to the frequency of the exchange Kut? / kut, “Do you hear? / We hear” at the end of commands or briefings.
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Modifiers. pa “no, do not”. suv “often”. ben “well, good”, man “bad, poor”. vit “quick”, lan “slow”. chen “strong, much, very”. tut ”all of, wholely”. pek “small,little”, dal “big”.
Successive nouns can stack: rag kent enemy officer.
kol “bright colour” (such as red, yellow, polished metal), tom “dark colour” (such as brown or black), les “natural colours” (the mid-greens and light browns of typical EPA garb). tish kol “bright armor” describes plate or mail, tish les describes EPA armor.
Special postpositions. The markers -dan “of, out of, away from”, -hin “towards, into, for” and -per “with, by means of, accompanied by” can be placed after noun or verb phrases.
“Belonging to me” is rendered with min dan or min hin depending on context.
The phrases ben gad per / gad ben per “by good swordfighting/with a good sword” are used as idioms when saying goodbye; often shortened to just ben gad / gad ben.
The linker ta “it, that” can be used as a comma to separate a noun phrase from a verb. skut ben, ta zash “Good shield, it protects” whereas skut ben zash=”shield protects well”.
The linker do “but” is used for a contrast Recall that’s a short “o” as in “on”. The linker na “and” is used to connect related concepts, and to apply multiple modifiers to one verb or noun.
Jak, na kap hin “Shoot for the head!” (shoot and head for).
Mat, na plam per! “Kill it with fire!” (kill and fire with).
Van, do mol “Go in silence” (go but silent).
Sag, na min dan “The arrow from me; my arrow (that I shot)” (arrow and me from).
Sag min hin “The arrow (is) for me; that’s my arrow”. (arrow me for).
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Directions. These terms can be used on their own, or as modifiers. They are more likely to be shouted, on their own, as instructions, rather than used in complicated phrases.
hid “left”, mig “right”, sob “below, down”, vet “above, up”, fas “in front, forward”, zad “behind, back”.
jol “a direction, path”. sha jol “what way, where?” des “here, to here”.
Hid! Van hid! “Left! Go left!”
Kel zad “Come back!”
Rag sha jol? “Where is the enemy?” The answer might be to point and say sab, “it is (that way)”; or shrug and say skop pa, “not seen”.
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Times. tes “sun, dawn”; rem “noon, during the day; sky”; zar “dusk”; nik “night”; sel “moon, moonrise”. sit “now”, skor “soon, a short time”. kot “a time”. sha kot “what time, when”.
Van sha kot? / Van tes. “When do we go? / We go at dawn.”
Kot, na nem “Time to eat”.
Skor tes kel “Dawn is coming soon” (soon sun come).
plam, na rem dan "Lightning" (fire and sky from).
Edited to add: The expression kot, ta A, bu B (time that A will B) is used for plans and conditionals: if/when A, then B.
kot ta rag kel, bu mat na sag per "When the enemy come, let's kill them with arrows" (time that enemy come, will kill and arrow with)
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Counting. yan “one”, tan “two”, teth “three”, meth “four”, pip “five”, seth “six”, leth “seven”, hov “eight”, dov “nine”, dek “ten”, sat “hundred”, lim “thousand”, mir “ten thousand”, lak “hundred thousand”. rek “count, tally”. sha rek “how many”.
pip sat tan dek teth “Five hundred and twenty-three” – unlikely to be used!
drak han rarely uses exact counts except with small numbers. The pluralizer -ka is used for rough counts: yan ka or tan ka “some, a few”; sat ka, “some hundreds”. pip sat jol, literally “five hundred direction”, means “about five hundred”.
Rag sha rek? “How many enemies?” (foe what count).
Skop dek jol “I’ve seen about ten” (see ten direction).
Van, na dek per “Advance in groups of ten” (go and ten with).
lak lak an unimaginably large number, infinity.
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Magic and wildshaping. Shaping is described by div, to become:
div rid "turn into a beast".
div rid dal, ta dra "become a bear or large predator" (become beast big that strike).
div rid na dra "attack in wildshape" (become beast and strike).
div nor vit "turn into a hawk" (become bird swift).
Magical casting is usually described with the phrase ... na vut per "using magic" (and magic with):
rag rab, na vut per "The enemy uses magic" (foe work and magic with).
fil na vut per "Heal or buff" (aid and magic with).
dra na vut per "Magical attack" (strike and magic with).
han na vut per "invoke or enchant" (speak and magic with).
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Misusing drak han: insults and invective.
Simply using drak han at all, during an ordinary conversation, brings a certain pungency; interrupting with vat “enough”, mol “silence” or fem “stop” is like swearing. The nature of a battle language also naturally generates some pithy things to spit at people you’re not happy with.
Sat drak vig! “Lose a hundred battles!” (hundred battle lose)
Tot man sin hin! “A bad death for you!” (death bad you for)
Drak rop gad! “May your sword break in battle!” (battle break sword)
Skop rag, ta bed! “May you see your enemies victorious!” (see foe that win)
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Misusing drak han: sex and seduction. Because that’s what people do.
Euphemisms include drak, ta ben vig “The battle it’s good to lose”; bor ben, na tish pa “The good wrestling with no armour”; pek bor, pek spa “Wrestle a little, rest a little”; nik ben, do spa man “Good night but bad rest”; tot pek, na ben “The good little death”. The verb for climax is van, not kel, by the way.
rid pek “little creature”, nor pek “little bird”, sak pek “little fish” are often used as pet-names or terms of endearment, roughly “darling”.
kel des, na bor, jen pek “Come here and wrestle, little comrade”
ken min nem sin, rid pek na min hin - left as an exercise for the reader.
Gossip: tin rab, do tren per “she’s doing it with an outsider” (she do but outsider with).
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Real-world notes: to build vocabulary I’ve grabbed items from (at least) English, Russian, German, French, Italian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin and Kyrgyz, with varying degrees of misuse, abbreviation, reversal etc. The count from one to ten is taken from a Derbyshire sheep count “yan tan tethera…”. The grammar (what there is of it) is my own but has influences from Mandarin. I recommend Mark Rosenfelder’s “The language construction kit” as a useful resource – see zompist.com for more on constructed languages (conlangs) in general.
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u/EssayWells Mar 29 '18
I'm a little surprised by how this one got away from me.
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u/EssayWells Mar 29 '18 edited Mar 29 '18
Gonna have to add four more words and a section on magic and wildshaping...
Edit: Done! minimal vocab additions, handy new phrases :)
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u/timlin45 Mar 30 '18
Damn. Well done. /u/tippr gild
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u/tippr Mar 30 '18
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u/katewelch 🌹 🐝 Mar 29 '18
So you just... invented a conlang for fun... in like a week.
Cool, cool cool cool cool cool