Friday, July 27, 2012

What is this circuitry I wrote in?! And since when did Aliens adopt Earth-speak? (Learn Meikar: Lesson 0)

Hello all! It's been too long since my last post, and I really need to get back on track! I guess I got a little more laid back than usual, eh? I'll try an article every two weeks if possible this semester! ^.^

...On topic, now!

Perhaps you might be wondering what that nice circuitry at the top is? Well to those who haven't met me, and to those who are looking at the circuitry in some weird fashion, that is my language, Meikar!

... You may or may not be asking me, depending who you are: Why in Hashem's holy Name would I even want to create something as complex, awkward and outright nonsensical as an invented tongue?"

There's two reasons I would, personally.

For one, It just seemed like a fun project. It's something my semi-logical mind would have fun experimenting with! That's a big no-brainer there. And who knows, something cool could come of it!

For the other, I like to write stories, especially comedy, classic-era and SCIFI! What's it gotta do with Meikar? Well, one of my life's goals is to write a hefty, scifi-fantasy, five-novel series, "A Reigner Of Terror." And basically put, the first of the books involves the main heroes gathering together and (for reasons kept a dark secret) head off to an Interstellar, Theocratic Utopia known as Meimaka Anopasufem (Triune Empire. Exactly what the circuitry says! ^_^), where three species live as a single civilization (hence "Meimaka," Three-One) under the Presidency of a "Gandalyin" and under the rule of their national Deity. This place is where Meikar happens to be spoken and written, and by billions of people. What all the plot is there, I'll explain part of it in some other post.

Basically, I put the language into the story because... let's create a scenario:

As the United States President, you've just made first contact. You sit back excited and wondering about the aliens' culture. "How do they keep time? How do they celebrate, offend, greet and bid farewell? Are they mysticists, maybe religious? How do they communicate, and can we mimic it?" Well, that last question is probably the most important one. Unless they've studied you long enough, and unless they speak and/or write, you're screwed in knowing them.

They arrive, and you're worried how you can greet them inoffensively. The mothership's doors open, and a 9-foot blue giant appears with a keratin skull. FREAKY! Well good news, we see a mouth and vocal cords behind its smile! It can speak! It extends its arm and shakes your hand. It motions for you to enter its ship, and afterwards flies you to its homeworld. You exit to see the planet's urban area, only to find a holographic sign reads, "Bienvenue a le planet Emprukizork!" ...As if it wasn't weird enough, all the city's signs are written in French.

...Wait, WHAT?! Translator, s'il vous plait!

Hilariously enough, the scenario's been a cliche on Television since the space race, perhaps even before then (Albeit it's usually "Aliens speaking English" rather than "Mother Planet using English") Besides Star Trek being the best-known, few TV series' alien cultures make an exception to the common hilarity of this magical adoption of a TV station's language as their mother tongue.


Anyways, the point of my little scenario is to give my reason for inventing Meikar. Having billions of semi-anthropomorphic reptilians living far from any earthly influence to suddenly speak English would not only take away from the mystery I intend to put into alien dialogue, but it'd be highly unrealistic. Lo tov, lo tov meod! :(


Now, to answer another question. WHAT is Meikar?

Besides being my personally invented language, it's also an attempt to mix together Japanese and Hebrew grammar, keep a Hebrew-style word-system, and make it look cool!

Basically, your consonants are here. Add that small bend to the bottom of a consonant and you can change the pronunciation to the parenthesized letter. Add the Z turned 90-degrees and you can make 5 certain consonants stand as... just consonants.



EDIT: KH is a soft of H as of a decision.

EDIT 2: The "Soft"  marker is now like the rest of the extensions! YAY for uniformity! :D

Unless you're Ancient Egyptian, normally 100% of your words will have some trace of a vowel sound. So in Meikar, for simplicity's sake there are 5 vowels, Ah Eh Ee Oh Oo (A E I O U), which are extra lines attached to the letters by those dots at the end.

Now here's the cool part! Wonder why all these consonants look like fractions? Well, it's not that they are fraction-like like they'd be in Devangari , that'd be too easy! Instead, those divider-looking things are all part of one line that connects the letters to represent a word or a phrase! Everything has a beginning and an end, and so do these phrases; take a look at my banner:

-The beginning dot marks the start, of anything. Words, phrases, etc. Is the concept confusing? Think like Spanish, where Questions start with an upside down question mark. Except this applies to almost anything you write.

-The little 90-degree forks at the end of the first word (and start of the second) basically mean "to be continued elsewhere." Notice how a second fork keeps the same line going? Think how some novels add a dash to part of a word that overlap the margins.
-The weird 45-degree fork at the very end, that means "end." It's your period, but if written differently can be your question or exclamation.

The Grammar, I can teach later on if anybody wants me to host an in-blog book on how to write and speak Meikar! :) Let me know, anyone!

Meikar ya keranmin yebo! :) (Meikar is my language!)