Hinanesti: What Vaarsuvius Said
So, another bit of random translation. Today, on a whim, I decided to come up with the Esti for the "I prepared explosive runes this morning" meme, which was born in the Order of the Stick webcomic and has since become something of a running gag in some quarters of D&D fandom. I've used it myself.
For the uninitiated, explosive runes is a classic D&D spell. Cast on any piece of writing, it causes an explosion when someone else subsequently reads the magicked words. It's meant to booby-trap stuff the wizard doesn't want other people messing with-although it's a bit of an all-or-nothing defense unless the stuff in question is fireproof.
This seemed like a simple enough project; I did not expect it to turn into an all-day affair and a really long post.
Other than "I", I have no existing Esti vocabulary to work with, and there's nothing in (1) or (2) for any of these words. But since most of these terms dealt with magic, I have another source: Draconic. Prehistoric elves learned arcane magic from the dragons, and picked up a lot of magic-related vocabulary in the process.
(7) had a Draconic word from scroll, sjir, from which I derived syir for the Esti word for magical writing. I think it's plausible that the meaning could have shifted from "scroll" to "writing on a scroll" over the millennia. That's the root adjective; the modern common form is syira, the plural of which would be cesyira.
In a similar vein, I was initially going to use the Draconic for fire, ixen, as the root for explosive. But I've decided I want to use that for magical or elemental fire instead. Some editions of D&D draw a clear distinction between normal and magical fire.
So I'm starting from scratch. Elves being elves, I thought about the experience of an explosion. It's not just fire, it's force, an expanding shockwave. I already have words for fire and wind, so perhaps the word could be based on them? A fiery wind? Except "wind" is kinda mild, so I derived a new word for gale from the Draconic word for air. Then mashed it up with fire and one of the common verb endings to come up with athril, "to explode".
I've filled in a lot of the derivational affixes I listed way back when, bit by bit, but I hadn't gotten to most of the verb ones so far. Including the one for the quality or process of a verb. I decided it would be a prefix, since most of the verb affixes have been so far, and came up with ul(i)-. And ar(a)- for the result of a verb, while I was at it. That gave me ulathril for "explosive" and arathril for "explosion".
When I was creating IPA notations for the existing words from (1) and (2), I found myself coming up with a number of new words that didn't have any assigned meanings yet. I took one of them to make the verb "to prepare": levéd. And I decided it would specifically refer to the preparing or memorizing of spells that D&D wizards have to do, rather than simply being a carbon copy of the English word. I came up with another word, esríad, to represent the more general version of "to prepare". (As usual, the verbs are accented on the second syllable. The acute accents are optional).
I don't have any existing word for "morning", but I do have words for "dawn" derived from (2), including a tense adverb form, niën. Putting it all together:
cesyira ulathril, nïli levéd niën
/ˈkɛsjɪrə ˈuːlɑːθrɪl, ˈniːliː lɛˈvɛd ˈniːeɪn/
(runes explosive, I prepare {adv(t)-dawn})
I prepared explosive runes this morning
Vocabulary:
TL;DR: cesyira ulathril, nïli levéd niën
For the uninitiated, explosive runes is a classic D&D spell. Cast on any piece of writing, it causes an explosion when someone else subsequently reads the magicked words. It's meant to booby-trap stuff the wizard doesn't want other people messing with-although it's a bit of an all-or-nothing defense unless the stuff in question is fireproof.
This seemed like a simple enough project; I did not expect it to turn into an all-day affair and a really long post.
Other than "I", I have no existing Esti vocabulary to work with, and there's nothing in (1) or (2) for any of these words. But since most of these terms dealt with magic, I have another source: Draconic. Prehistoric elves learned arcane magic from the dragons, and picked up a lot of magic-related vocabulary in the process.
(7) had a Draconic word from scroll, sjir, from which I derived syir for the Esti word for magical writing. I think it's plausible that the meaning could have shifted from "scroll" to "writing on a scroll" over the millennia. That's the root adjective; the modern common form is syira, the plural of which would be cesyira.
In a similar vein, I was initially going to use the Draconic for fire, ixen, as the root for explosive. But I've decided I want to use that for magical or elemental fire instead. Some editions of D&D draw a clear distinction between normal and magical fire.
So I'm starting from scratch. Elves being elves, I thought about the experience of an explosion. It's not just fire, it's force, an expanding shockwave. I already have words for fire and wind, so perhaps the word could be based on them? A fiery wind? Except "wind" is kinda mild, so I derived a new word for gale from the Draconic word for air. Then mashed it up with fire and one of the common verb endings to come up with athril, "to explode".
I've filled in a lot of the derivational affixes I listed way back when, bit by bit, but I hadn't gotten to most of the verb ones so far. Including the one for the quality or process of a verb. I decided it would be a prefix, since most of the verb affixes have been so far, and came up with ul(i)-. And ar(a)- for the result of a verb, while I was at it. That gave me ulathril for "explosive" and arathril for "explosion".
When I was creating IPA notations for the existing words from (1) and (2), I found myself coming up with a number of new words that didn't have any assigned meanings yet. I took one of them to make the verb "to prepare": levéd. And I decided it would specifically refer to the preparing or memorizing of spells that D&D wizards have to do, rather than simply being a carbon copy of the English word. I came up with another word, esríad, to represent the more general version of "to prepare". (As usual, the verbs are accented on the second syllable. The acute accents are optional).
I don't have any existing word for "morning", but I do have words for "dawn" derived from (2), including a tense adverb form, niën. Putting it all together:
cesyira ulathril, nïli levéd niën
/ˈkɛsjɪrə ˈuːlɑːθrɪl, ˈniːliː lɛˈvɛd ˈniːeɪn/
(runes explosive, I prepare {adv(t)-dawn})
I prepared explosive runes this morning
Vocabulary:
- arathril (/ˈɑrəˌθrɪl/): n. explosion
- arésriad (/ɑˈrɛsriːæd/): n. preparation
- athril (/ˈɑːθrɪl/): v. to explode
- esríad (/ɛsˈriːæd/): v. to prepare, to get ready
- ishen (/ˈɪʃɛn/): adj(r). magical fire
- isha (/ˈɪʃə/): n. magical fire
- levéd (/lɛˈvɛd/): v. to prepare or memorize arcane spells
- niën (/ˈniːeɪn/): adv(t). dawn
- niës (/niːˈeɪs/): adj(r). dawn
- niësa (/niːˈeɪsə/): n. dawn
- syir (/sjɪr/): adj(r): rune, magical writing
- syira (/ˈsjɪrə/): n: rune, magical writing
- syiren (/ˈsjɪrɛn/): adj: runic
- thraena (/ˈθreɪɨnə/) n. gale, strong wind
- thraenen (/ˈθreɪɨnɛn/) adj. gale, strong wind
- ulathril (/ˈuːlɑːθrɪl/): adj. explosive
TL;DR: cesyira ulathril, nïli levéd niën