The Murese language, alternatively known as Murese Sith and Khutrai Tsisymas Mureiv (literally "Sith language of Mure"[1][2]), was one of the last living dialects of Old Sith to persist into the Golden Age of the Old Republic. It was a composite tongue of the Old Sith and Rakata languages that originated on the Infinite Empire's fortress world of Mure. Though its core grammar, morphology, and orthography were of Old Sith origin, the language incorporated certain aspects of the Rakata language, including a large percentage of its vocabulary, the standard 34 letter Rakatan alphabet, and a greater use of inflection than was traditionally evidenced in Old Sith. It was unique among modern languages for its use of the archaic Rakata Pre-Aurebesh script in its written form.
Morphology[]
Semivowels and glides[]
As with Old Sith, Murese Sith made use of semivowels and consonant glides to demarcate case and number endings from their root stems and make them easier to pronounce.[2] In cases where the first letter of the ending and the last letter of the compound word were both consonants or both vowels, the semivowel y was inserted between them to distinguish between endings and make them more easily spoken aloud.[3] Such divisions served as verbal cues alerting listeners as to the nature of the word and its place in the sentence.
The sole exception to this rule was the genitive case ending -iv. When appended to a head noun stem ending in any vowel other than "i," the ending was not accompanied by a semivowel. However, if the head noun stem ended with the vowel "i," a semivowel would be inserted prior to the genitive case ending as per standard convention. Examples would be Mureiv and Khutraiyiv, respectively.
Compounding[]
General rules[]
Like Old Sith,[2] Murese Sith made limited use of compounding to form single words composed of related nouns and adjectives or related verbs and adverbs. However, this technique was used more sparingly in Murese Sith than in Old Sith due to the former's more extensive use of inflection. The addition of grammatical number endings and grammatical case endings to nouns and adjectives to signify their purposes in sentences could easily result in lengthy words. To reduce the likelihood of confusion, most nouns and adjectives were written separately, with the connections between head nouns and related modifiers indicated by placement location and greater context.
Nouns and adjectives[]
Despite the predisposition in written Murese Sith towards the separation of head nouns and their modifiers, certain exceptions to this rule existed. In cases wherein ambiguity existed as to which modifiers belonged to which nouns in a complex sentence, the compound appending of all modifiers to their head nouns was sometimes used as a means by which association and context could be determined more easily. Additionally, certain older compound words originating prior to the modern evolution of the Murese Sith tongue were generally preserved in their compounded forms, with examples being the Forcesaber Spagasiqsaiv, the literary epic Karzanuowonosa, and the expansive northern hemispheric prairie Sferastotazisiv. As such examples had been written and referenced as such for millennia, they were generally treated as single words in most texts and considered exempt from the conventions governing noun compounding.
Similarly, in the translation of foreign words lacking natural equivalents in the Murese Sith tongue, the use of multiple nouns and adjectives was sometimes required to convey the meaning of the translated word to readers unfamiliar with the original language. In such cases, compounding was used to make the equivalent expression into a single word. For example, as Murese Sith had no word for the Galactic Basic word "banner," the compound word ikonadrobe was used instead, built from the nouns ikona meaning "icon" and drobe meaning "cloth."
Verbs and adverbs[]
The compounding of verbs and adverbs occurred in much the same way as for nouns and adjectives. Instead of a head noun, the verb served as the operative word in the composite compound, with any modifying adverbs attached to its end after all relevant tense endings, conjugation endings, and mood markers. Like Old Sith, Murese Sith used a relatively simple system of conjugation for its verbs, consisting of the addition of a set of endings pertaining to tense and mood that remained the same regardless of the subject associated with the verb. In all cases, pronouns used as the associated subjects of nouns were treated exactly like proper nouns used as subjects, placed apart from their verbs and never compounded with them. However, unlike Old Sith, Murese Sith attached pronouns to the end of verbs as pseudo-conjugation endings of sorts.
An example of verb compounding would be the sentence "I gain power." In Old Sith, this would be translated as "châts nu midwan," formed of present tense verb châts meaning "gain," pronoun nu meaning "I," and midwan meaning "power."[2] In Murese Sith, due to the use of the pronoun as the subject, this would be "chatsynu midwanyn," formed from present tense verb chats, semivowel glide y, pronoun pseudo-ending nu, noun root stem midwan, semivowel glide y, and accusative ending -n.[1]
Grammar[]
Word order[]
As with its parent language Old Sith, the standard word order of a traditional Murese Sith sentence was verb / subject / indirect object / direct object, with postpositional phrases either prepended or appended to the sentence depending on the speaker's desire to emphasize their contents.[2] Occasionally, however, the Old Rakata word order of subject / object / verb manifested itself in oral Murese poetry, used to keep listeners in anticipation until the end of the sentence as to the nature and identity of the acting verb.
The ordering of nouns and their adjectival modifiers varied depending on the nature of the words included. A phrase always possessed a head noun, the operative word which served the central focus and subject. In the case of the aforementioned example, the head word would be Khutrai meaning "language." As per Old Sith grammatical conventions, adjectives modifying the head word were placed immediately after the head.[2] In the example, the adjective Tsisymas meaning "Sith" was placed immediately after the head noun Khutrai. Nouns of the genitive, possessive, and ablative cases were appended after the head and its adjectives as needed, with their own adjectives following them. This was illustrated by the genitive-of-origin Mureiv meaning "originating on Mure."
Nouns[]
Composition[]
Nouns were formed of three major parts: a root stem, a grammatical number ending, and a grammatical case ending. However, it was not necessarily true for all nouns that endings were required. In fact, in the case of many singular neuter-gendered nouns used as subjects of sentences, the root stem alone was sufficient, as neither singular-form endings nor nominative case endings existed in the neuter gender.
However, in cases requiring the appending of endings, a certain progression was followed. The root stem was first extended via the application of a singular or plural noun marker, which varied depending on the word's grammatical gender. Once its grammatical number was determined and the proper form obtained from appending the relevant number ending, the appropriate case ending was applied. Unlike other languages, case endings did not take different forms depending on the gender or number of the word to which they belonged. They were static in form, and applied to singular and plural forms of nouns of all genders alike.
Grammatical gender[]
Though Old Sith in large part lacked a grammatical gender system and instead made use of a universal "neuter" gender, the Old Rakata tongue made use of an extended three-gender system composed of the masculine, feminine, and neuter genders. As a large percentage of loanwords and cognates in Murese Sith were derived from the Rakata language, this often necessitated the use of gender-specific forms on occasion. Over time, the Rakata neuter form fell into disuse in favor of the use of the default Old Sith neuter form, which lacked a singular ending and simply formed the plural via the addition of a semivowel (if the root stem ended in a consonant) and the plural marker -kut.[2] In almost all cases, the Old Sith neuter was used for most nouns, with the masculine and feminine genders seeing consistent use only in loanwords.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | -in[1] | -is[1] |
| Feminine | -o[1] | -nas[1] |
| Neuter | – | -kut[2] |
Examples of the masculine, feminine, and neuter genders in action would be the words for "brother," "sister," and "animal," namely brolin, sessuo, and irankir. In the case of brolin, the root stem was brol, to which the masculine ending -in was added to construct the singular form and the ending -is to form the plural. For sessuo, the root stem was sessu, to which the feminine ending -o was affixed to construct the singular and -nas the plural. As for the neuter word irankir, the Old Sith neuter was used to construct its form. As the Old Sith neuter did not affix an ending in singular cases, the root stem irankir was deemed sufficient to reference a single animal. As the root stem ended with a consonant and the plural ending -kut began with a consonant, a semivowel y was added to serve as a glide in accordance with Old Sith practices.[2] This formed a neuter plural form of "animals," irankirykut.
Grammatical case[]
As with Old Sith, Murese Sith had noun case markers, making use of seven distinct cases. These were nominative, dative, genitive, possessive, accusative, instrumental, and ablative. These case markers were appended as suffixes to the end of preformed singular or plural nouns and did not differ depending on the gender of the nouns. They were static constructs applied to all singular and plural forms of nouns of all three major grammatical genders.
| Cases | Common endings |
|---|---|
| Nominative | - |
| Dative | -ottoi[2] |
| Genitive | -iv[1] |
| Possessive | -ak[2] |
| Accusative | -n[2] |
| Instrumental | -jontu[2] |
| Ablative | -anjat[2] |
Nominative case[]
The nominative case was used to denote the subject of a sentence. This case was the only major case that did not make use of an ending of any sort, a holdover from Old Sith.[2] While Old Rakata made use of such an ending, namely -us, to denote subjects of sentences or dependent clauses, Murese Sith did not continue the use of the ending into the Murese Premodernity, even in the case of Rakata loanwords and derivative cognates evidenced in its vocabulary. The root stem with its associated grammatical number markers was deemed sufficient to denote the subject in a well-formed sentence.
Dative case[]
The dative case was most frequently used to denote the indirect objects of sentences, those to whom or for whom an action was done or an item or service given. Relatedly, it saw use as the case used to denote the objects of postpositional phrases containing the indirect object of the sentence or phrase (as seen even in Galactic Basic; "She gave him the water" and "She gave the water to him"). However, Murese Sith did not possess an exclusive postpositional case ending. Dative, accusative, and ablative were all applied to noun objects of a postpositional phrase as needed in the context of their sentences.
Genitive case[]
The genitive case was used to describe the relationship between a "head noun" and an associated noun that provided additional detail about the head noun's origins, nature, or composition. Though the genitive case could be used to indicate a relationship of ownership or possession as seen in old words from the early Murese Postantiquity period, Murese Sith made use of a dedicated possessive case that applied an exclusive ending to nouns that possessed a relationship of ownership with the head noun.
An example of the genitive case in action would be the name of the famous Forcesaber of Predor Bala'zar, the Spagasiqsaiv. Though often translated into Galactic Basic as "Demon's Sword," this was not technically the noun's meaning, despite the occasional archaic use of the genitive to show possession. Rather, the use of the genitive ending was used to denote the sword's origins, namely that the sword originated with its use by the Demon, a Murese name for Bala'zar. Thus a more correct translation into Basic would be "Sword originating with the Demon." The distinction was subtle and even occasionally strayed into territory held by the ablative case, at least when applied to cases of locational origin for which the locative ablative was used.
Possessive case[]
Though often considered a subset of the genitive case in other languages, Murese Sith possessed a separate case for matters of ownership and possession referred to as the possessive case. This case was used to show that a head noun belonged to or was possessed by the noun bearing the possessive case ending of -ak.
An example illustrating the differences between genitive and possessive cases would be the word gauja metyekutiv meaning "pack of Metyes" or "Metye pack." In this example, the genitive form is used, as the relationship between the head noun gauja and the modifying noun metyekutiv is one of type clarification rather than possession; the pack is a group of animals that the modifying noun indicates is of the type Metye. However, in the case of the word gauja metyekutak meaning "Metyes' pack," the relationship is one of possession, wherein the animal pack is owned, ruled, or dominated by multiple Metye creatures.
Accusative case[]
The accusative case was used solely to denote the direct object of a sentence or the object of a postpositional phrase. It was applied to nouns to which some action was being directed or outright undertaken. The accusative was used as the ending for nouns in postpositional phrases when no motion was indicated therein. If motion was indicated, the ablative was used instead. An example of an accusative ending applied to a noun in a postpositional phrase would be the postpositional phrase dvarasyn is meaning "in the palace." In such a case, no motion is evidenced in the phrase, thus requiring the accusative ending and semivowel y.
Instrumental case[]
The instrumental case, applied to a noun to indicate that it was the means by which an action was undertaken, was the least commonly used case in Murese Sith. In modern Murese Sith, the case was little more than a holdover from Old Sith,[2] with most of its responsibilities handled by the more common instrumental ablative case. However, in older works and in official or religious documents, it saw some use. An example would be the phrase ashajontu meaning "through victory," an extract from the Code of the Sith.[2]
Ablative case[]
The ablative case had a multiplicity of uses in Murese Sith, most commonly subdivided into the locative ablative, instrumental ablative, and postpositional ablative among other minor divisions. Locative ablative, which occasionally was viewed as similar to the aforementioned genitive-of-origin, was used to denote the physical location-based origins of a head noun, and saw frequent usage in Murese individuals' vadinti miestasymas "place of origin" names. Instrumental ablative was frequently used as a direct substitute for the Old Sith instrumental case, and differed little from that case's intended usage. The ablative case was used as the case ending of postpositional objects in cases involving motion or movement on the part of the noun. Continuing the example mentioned above, the ablative case would be used in the example phrase dvarasanjat jeas meaning "into the palace," as movement to the palace precinct is implied by the postposition.
Pronouns[]
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First person | Nu[2] | Nukut[2] |
| Second person | Jus[1] | Jusykut[1] |
| Third person masculine | Tym[1] | Tymis[1] |
| Third person feminine | Tye[1] | Tyenas[1] |
| Third person neuter | Zhol[1] | Zholykut[1] |
Pronouns were treated as specialized nouns and inflected for number and case just like standard nouns. Plural forms of subject, object, and possessive pronouns were formed from the addition of the appropriate grammatical gender-specific number ending. Subject pronouns, as per the nominative case convention, were simply formed of the pronoun root stems on their own without any inflection apart from grammatical number. Object pronouns like "me" or "her" were formed by the addition of the accusative -m ending to the end of the root stem with or without a semivowel y, and possessive pronouns like "mine" or "his" were formed by the addition of the possessive case ending -ak with or without the use of the glide y.
An example would be the first person pronoun "I." The subject pronoun of "I" was nu, the object pronoun "me" was num, and the possessive pronoun "mine" was nuyak.[2] For plural forms, the neuter grammatical number ending -kut was applied to form the plural variations.[2] The plural subject pronoun "we" was nukut, the plural object pronoun "us" was nukutyn, and the plural possessive pronoun "ours" was nukutak.[1]
In most cases, pronouns were not compounded with any other words due to their primary use as a substitute or stand-in for a proper noun. The only pronouns compounded with their associated verbs-of-action were subject pronouns, used to substitute for the subject of the sentence. In such cases, the subject pronoun in its singular or plural form was simply appended to the end of the verb as a pseudo-ending inflection of sorts in accordance with standard Sith compounding conventions.
Adjectives[]
Adjectives were in large part viewed simply as "modified nouns" to the speakers of Murese Sith. Their status as adjectives was determined by their placement in the sentence's word order and the use of the standard adjectival case ending -mas. All adjectives directly followed the word they modified in a sentence, situated prior to any other nouns modifying the head noun. In written Murese Sith, they were contained as part of the compound word, attached immediately after the head noun and before any nouns possessing genitive, possessive, or ablative case endings.
Unusually for most conventional inflected languages, Murese Sith adjectives did not have to agree with their associated nouns in case or number. Though occasionally this was done if there was any ambiguity as to which adjectives were attached to which nouns, the addition of the adjectival ending and the placement of the adjective in relation to the head noun was generally sufficient in most cases to indicate the words' relationship.
Postpositions[]
In contrast to later languages like Galactic Basic and Huttese, Murese Sith made use of postpositions rather than prepositions, in accordance with the general rules regarding following the operative words of phrases with their helper utility modifiers. Unlike case and number endings, postpositions were not appended to their related nouns as endings but were separate words included after the nouns and adjectives to which they were attached.
Behind the scenes[]
Murese Sith was created by Sebolto as a working language for the Murese people. In keeping with canon EU lore, the core Old Sith elements as created by Ben Grossblatt were maintained in Murese Sith, with the various holes filled in by linguistic elements taken from Latin, West Frisian, and Norwegian bokmål. The vocabulary was in large part modified and derived from a fan-made Old Sith dictionary created by User:Listarchos and User:Shaddos on the defunct Starsider Wiki.
Sources[]
- Ben Grossblatt email on Wookieepedia
- Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side
- Sith (language) on Starsider wiki (Unavailable as of 7/5/18)
- Sith (language) on Wookieepedia
- Speak Like a Sith
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 Sith (language) on Starsider wiki (Unavailable as of 7/5/18)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 Sith (language) on Wookieepedia
- ↑ Ben Grossblatt email on Wookieepedia
