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New Khalani phrases page added!

I have just added a new page listing all the Khalani phrases that have been already analyzed on the site. This will be very useful for all readers to find the phrases you wanted to know the meaning in Khalani, or the ones that are curious as to the different phrases that have already been worked. Also to check for a nice new phrase to add to your game, fanfic, life (?) or to taunt enemies with!

I hope you really like it and don't forget to also check the new posts that are already on their way. If you have any comment to make, suggestions or you want to know about a phrase that's not been added please leave a comment. Also if you'd like to make comments or suggestions about the phrases and lexicon already available be free to leave them here.

List of Khalani Phrases

En taro Aiur!

Should names be canon?

As I have been ranting about in previous posts, one of the many problems with Khalani is the incoherence of the corpus. Take into account some of the words and the names of the various Protoss. For example, in-game we have words such as zerashk or naradakh, but then we have the names Artanis, Selendis and Aldaris, the three of which we can make an elvish etymology and we would get meaning (in fact Artanis is the "inner name" of Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings). However we do have names such as Raszagal and Ulrezaj which clearly don't configurate to the more Quenya-like naming conventions of the Khalai Protoss. The big problem here is to try and  harmonize these names with Khalani words, since names such as Artanis, Selendis and Aldaris would require a very Quenya-like language to develop.

I have assumed the idea that Khalani is not "elvish" in any discernible way, why should it be? But to try and adjust the language to the names seems to be a most difficult task. Should the names be made of actual Khalani words? Should they be the remnants of yet another kind of language? Should they be a mixture? Should they be obscure and unfathomable? All this questions spring to mind, but one has to decide to favor one over the others. The language as I envision it is still pretty young and has only a few words, some elements of names could very much be made to fit Khalani patterns, others... well... couldn't if we are to have one straight and coherent language.

So I've decided to go in an unorthodox way. Some names will clearly be composed of Khalani words, some others will have obscure derivations maybe stemming from lost dialects or lost forms, and some may even have some deformation or uncommon sound evolution (this may happen where not available consonant clusters occur). For the time being I will leave the matter here to give more thought on names and their creation. My wish is to create a list of new Khalani names, their meanings and be able to create new names or translate Earth names into Khalani. In future posts we may well see a list of Khalani names ready to be used by players, created in the same fashion of characters we already know, and wouldn't that be sweet? Translating common names into Khalani is certainly another very enticing possibility.

So I leave the question for the comments; should names be completely canonical? Would it be a good idea to create new Khalani names or translate Earth names into Khalani? Your opinions on the comments!

Alysum ankh gulidas!

Making it fit

One of the many complexities that the Khalani language presents us is that, although we have a good number of attested words, we do not have the meaning of most of them or any indication as to what the phrase as a whole means. Not only that, but most of the phrases have been tentatively written and in fact we have some divergencies as to how to write some of them, the most famous being "Khassar De'Templari" which is actually spelt in two different ways:

• Khassar'Detemplari..., in StarCraft by the High Templar
• Khassar de Templari!, in StarCraft II by the High Templar
• Khasar De'Templari!, in StarCraft II by the Zealot

So as you can see not even the same game gives the same sentence. Are there 2 words? 3 words? 2 words and a preposition/particle? One particular objection to this phrase is that it includes the word "templari" which is tempting to translate "Templar", but is this even the case? How could the native term for the templar caste be in Khalani the same as the "translation" into Human and even mean more or less the same? The Protoss have been given names and terms reminiscent of religious fanatics (zealot, templar) and others taken from latin terms (judicator, executor) to make it sound more "religious" or "inquisitional". So is this even a valid word?

As we can see the transcriptions are merely attempts at transcribing the sentences used in the game, we do not know the actual official wording. It has been said that Blizzard keeps a dictionary with the Khalani words and terms, if this is so shouldn't there be a more coherent rendering of the words? I think the "dictionary" is mostly used for one or two words and mostly for names, as it has been said in an interview that Blizzard puts great detail into the naming of the Protoss.

About the translated words

Of all the sentences and phrases we have only 18 are "translated". Why do I say "translated"? Because these have only been translated in novels and authors could have been making attempts at translations as any of us might with the same restrictions. I always toyed with the idea that being an official Blizzard novel may be they have been giving information from the legendary dictionary, but this doesn't seem to really be the case. We have words such as "Adun Toridas" translated in the novels which might be such a case, but then we have a word like "Alys'aril" which doesn't fit the pattern of words used in the games or "zagatir" which is a very uncommon word for the rest of the corpus. Yet I have been assuming they might have more information than us and therefore their translations have been my guide most of the time.

How to continue?

Maybe Blizzard is more interested in the names of the Protoss than the words themselves and that'd be why we find such a divergence. In any case if we are to follow the translations we have approximately a corpus of 28 - 30 words and that's it, everything else has to be assumed. I've been careful enough not to rush anything because I want the language resulting to be as good as it can get, and also I've been carefully using the translated words to attempt the translation of the others. We might not know what "Oranj Istal!" means, but phrases like "Khas arashad" and "Khas naradakh" seem to incorporate "Khas" he name of that great Protoss who created the Khala. Then again, this might be a slip or mistake on the part of them, and maybe has nothing to do with Khas but rather has a relation to the "Khassar" which I previously mentioned. The first theory allows us to advance further on, the second one... well... we'd be back to square one.

As the project goes on many more choices will arise and will have to be decided for the sake of coherence and formalization of the language. I hope you are all looking forward to this and endorse the decisions that will have to be made.

Adun Toridas!

More activity on its way

I would like to assure all followers and readers that the blog is still active as ever. True, it's been a little slow due to personal activities and duties, but that will not tamper the project which will continue until it is complete.

I thank all who sent me e-mails with support and asking if the blog is still active. Let me reassure you that it is and will be active and I hope to read more of your comments and mails, which I am very much looking forward to. Thanks also for all the kind words of encouragement and to all readers.

I'm cooking up the verbal system, had to revise sketches and that prompted some new ideas. I was careful enough not to post anything that would disrupt what's already posted or would contradict material from dialogues, for this I must be totally wary. Also pronouns had to be re-examined and some nouns, but the verbal system will soon be finished as long with some fresh translations.

I hope you all keep an eye on the blog for what's about to come, and thank you all again for your support.

Und Khas nas ruulidas!

At peace...

In my last post I promised to look into the phrase 'Und lara khar', translated in a Starcraft book-series as "Be at peace!". So as I promised, this is it. First of all the phrase is a wish, used as a farewell greeting between two individuals, but it can be also used with a group.

The first "und" part is a Khalani particle for making a wish, kind of an optative mood or a kind of auxiliary morpheme. Here it is stating "I hope that...", it is followed by "lara khar", this means quite literally "with peace" (Notice that "khar" has already been stated as meaning "peace"). The thing is that the whole phrase literally means "May (you) be with peace", the pronoun is obviated here as the meaning is pretty straightforward from context.

This conjunction, lara, means "with, alongside, next to" and is very similar to other conjunctions in other languages such as Latin "apud". In this case the peace is wished to be "with" or to accompany the person to whom it is wished, and this is how Protoss normally say this expression "with peace", not using "at" as in English but rather "to be with a state of mind", to be "accompanied by peace".

In any case, the full sentence would be;

Und nas lara khar

May you be with peace, i.e. 'Be at peace'

But you could also say, more grammatically;

Und laranas khar

May peace be with you

Notice the subtle difference in meaning and the -nas ending which is the second person singular. All pronouns are appended this way to this particular conjunction. If we were to substitute it for the first person singular (I, me);

Und laranakh khar

May peace be with me

Here the pronoun changes when it is attached to the conjunction, as the other sentence would have been;

Und ankh lara khar

May I be with peace

Of course the verb "to be" is obviated, since there is no such verb in Khalani, so it is understood from the particle "und". This is also applicable as a normal "with" conjunction, thus;

Ankh laranas, Nas laranakh

Me with you, you with me

Or in a sentence;

Und taro laranakh var!

May you honor his name with me!

This is all for today, next time we'll see some more pronouns!

Adun toridas!

New ways of greeting

Lately I've been thinking we don't have that many ways of greeting each other in the Protoss' language, or even also how to say 'farewell'. I would like to propose now some for the followers of the blog according to the growing lexicon we have now.

We are all very well acquainted with such greetings as the famous en taro Adun! or Adun toridas (this specially for Dark Templars), or even also with some also mentioned and re-interpreted in this coherent attempt of the language as taro Adun ruulas. We can now use some of the new following ones:

• En Aiur. This is the classical "For Aiur", not a lot of mystery there.
• En var. This is also used in the games "for honor".
• Var en nas. I'm now coining this one with the meaning "honor for you", it could be used as a farewell also.

Myself I started to use some of the following as well:

• Taran/Tarum arashad. Which I've translated as "your name be praised!" (with the variation for singular or plural). This I particularly use as a farewell.
• Terr en nas. Meaning "respect to you".
• Taran/Tarum varad. "Your name be honored".

So, I hope you enjoy these new greetings and farewells and use them in your games or role-plays. More is about to come soon enough, stay tuned!

 Adun toridas!