Understanding the Ysanna language

[Niil Spaar]

Niil spent almost an hour stretching his muscles and shadow-sparring in case part of their trial would involve combat, then finished off with a final set of stretches so his muscles wouldn't cramp up.  At least a few of the Ysanna had wished them well in their trial; Sibarra had told them "May the Force be with you" in her native tongue.  If it hadn't been for Sláine interpreting for them, the language barrier would be . . .

Niil stopped, and mentally put Sibarra's words along side Sláine's translation.  Hey, now . . . yeah, one big click!  Niil shelved that, and tried his best to recall everything that the Ysanna had said to the two of them.  Yeah . . . okay, now I see how some other words are translated.  AT least I think I have some of it pegged down.  Collan should hear this; he seems to have a better handle on it than I do.

He looked over at Collan, and saw his friend meditating on something.  In a voice slightly louder than a whisper, he said, "Collan?  I think I've translated some of their language.  I'm going to start copying some of the words down in the dirt of the floor when you have time to look."

Niil picked a spot away from Collan, hunkered down, and collected his thoughts for a few moments.  Then, he started to write . . .

vae - have
mece - came
wo - how
a - I
nik - think
seeth - this
ot - to
ae - are
Deju - Jedi
am - may
eh - the
Cero - Force
eb - be
tew - with
ut - you
nolest - stolen
yet - they
i - is
gedu - judge
lil - will
yem - them
din-bind
gejutem - judgment
taw - what or why?  Prob. why
de - do
kees - speak
si - this
e - a
licar - relic
fe - of
o - to
te - it
loy - holy
y - a ?

[GM Craig]

[OOC: Pretty good work. How did you piece that together? Just from context?]

[Niil Spaar]

OOC:  Pretty well.    I went with the sample I had from Sláine, and went back to the earlier conversations.  I noticed that for a greater part, most of the words were backwards, although that's greatly generalizing.  I went through them and started trying to pronounce them with that method, trying out different inflections of the vowels and rearranging some of the letters in mid-word.  And, of course, some letters were completely missing when they were translated into modern Basic.   

I'm taking a shot here, but I'm guessing that the language the Ysanna speak is Basic . . . although a Basic that was used 4,000+years ago.  I had the impression that their culture hasn't changed much in all that time, and as such their language probably wouldn't.  Usually a language changes with technological advancement and increasing contact with outsiders, but it doesn't appear that the Ysanna have had this.