Linguistics nerd vs. Voidtongue

[apprenticeNerd]

(Mild) Whispers in the Walls spoilers below!

I'm sure I'm not the only linguist who played Whispers in the Walls yesterday and immediately lost their S#&$ over Voidtongue, in a very good way. We really don't have much in the way of vocabulary, and absolutely zero grammar (save a few untranslated full sentences), but I really hope the grammar does exist because if so, that would make this a real, actual, a priori conlang. We've seen shades of this before - Ostron words, the Duviri opera lyrics which I gather are supposed to be partially in Orokin, whatever bits of Grineer and Corpus aren't just English with the serial numbers filed off. I'm particularly excited about this one, though. Who doesn't want to learn Wally's language??

To that end, I've started compiling a spreadsheet of information on Voidtongue. (I'd do this on the wiki instead, but I have no idea how to edit the wiki properly.) It's got some of the Voidtongue dialogue from Whispers, but not all of it - some Cavia stuff is missing, either because I didn't yet know what I was hearing or because I wasn't fast enough on the screenshot button. I also haven't found any Lab tileset secrets yet, so if there's any Voidtongue attested in those, it's not on the sheet either. If you've got any other attested examples or guesses about the language, let me know! I'll put any major progress updates in the comments.

Doc is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-CamWXzwbedVzG_Wn_VzIFjdukk0wkqAP-QL2I2Y_38/edit?usp=sharing

[Hobie-wan]

19 minutes ago, apprenticeNerd said:

I also haven't found any Lab tileset secrets yet, so if there's any Voidtongue attested in those, it's not on the sheet either.

It's all just been loot in those rooms that I've found. No lore.

[TARINunit9]

8 hours ago, apprenticeNerd said:

whatever bits of Grineer and Corpus aren't just English with the serial numbers filed off.

Ok I know Grineer is corrupted English on purpose (it's a combination of dialect and military jargon) but I have never figured out what the Corpus were going for. And the idea it's just "basically English" would be mildly disappointing but still satisfying to put to rest in my brain. Care to enlighten me?

[(PSN)robotwars7]

11 hours ago, apprenticeNerd said:

If you've got any other attested examples or guesses about the language, let me know!

I'm not a linguist by any means (hell, English is hard enough, and I'm a native speaker of it..), but I do find fictional languages pretty interesting. I have a couple theories, but nothing concrete:

the line "KU NOMU ELU RA KAH, MARA LOHK?", sounds like Fibonacci is asking "what are you doing" or "where are you going?", based on the situation at the time. this is assuming "Mara Lohk" means void-child, and is the voidtongue name for us, the Tenno. so it translates as "where are you going/what are you doing, void child?"

this also likely means "Vashtav, Mara Lohk" is indeed "good job/well done, void child"

Wally's line "VOULL NE XATA VOK, MARA LOHK?" contains "Xata", which we know means truth, and this line is posed as a question to us; I wonder if wally is saying something along the lines of "have you found the truth yet, void child?" or perhaps it goes even deeper as "have you found YOUR truth yet, void child?" I'm definitely curious about this one..

the line by Bird 3 "zek? aba! zek? zek?, I have a feeling could just be bird noises (phonetics) translated into void-tongue. Bird seems to be the "comic relief" character of the Trio, and still makes plenty of bird noises in english, so it's make sense IMO that even in Voidtongue, he still just sounds mostly like a bird lol.

this is all speculation though, dunno if it'll help in any way. I like this language though, and I hope we'll get to see more of it in future!

 

[apprenticeNerd]

3 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Ok I know Grineer is corrupted English on purpose (it's a combination of dialect and military jargon) but I have never figured out what the Corpus were going for. And the idea it's just "basically English" would be mildly disappointing but still satisfying to put to rest in my brain. Care to enlighten me?

Both Grineer and Corpus are direct derivatives of English in that the vast majority of their vocab comes from taking English words, swapping out some letters in regular patterns (for example, the “th” > “kl” shift in Grineer that gave us Clem), and trying to pronounce whatever mishmash you’re left with. Corpus generally mangles its English text more than Grineer does - nothing so obviously English-based as “Warfram spotter!” If you look up the Grineer and Corpus languages on the wiki, the letter-swapping patterns are explained in more detail there.

[apprenticeNerd]

1 hour ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

the line "KU NOMU ELU RA KAH, MARA LOHK?", sounds like Fibonacci is asking "what are you doing" or "where are you going?",

Fibonacci isn’t involved in that particular line; it’s drawn from one of the Zariman quiz tablets scattered around Duviri. No clue what Wally was trying to say there. I agree that “Mara Lohk” seems to be a name for the Tenno, despite “Void-child” as a direct translation being an educated guess. (Best one I’ve got, though.) 

1 hour ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

Wally's line "VOULL NE XATA VOK, MARA LOHK?" contains "Xata", which we know means truth, and this line is posed as a question to us; I wonder if wally is saying something along the lines of "have you found the truth yet, void child?" or perhaps it goes even deeper as "have you found YOUR truth yet, void child?"

Interesting theory! If you’re correct, that makes me wonder which of the other words is “found,” possibly also “you” and/or “your.” And what exactly the syntax is doing?? English can get this point across in four morphemes (“Found the/your truth yet?”), but English is a fusional language. Stuff like the genitive case on pronouns (“your”) and past tense on verbs (“found” as opposed to “find”) is marked by altering the base form of the word, not tacking on an affix or particle, like I’d expect out of a language like Voidtongue with a logographic writing system. 
…Now I’m wondering about stuff like word order (VSO???), question particles, the possibility that the “v-“ in “voull” is an inflection on “oull”, all sorts of stuff. Food for thought, I guess?

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Do we know Void words translate directly to English? Might be French because of all those Canadians.

[apprenticeNerd]

Good question - no, we don’t! In fact, I really doubt they do, given the writing system that works so poorly with English-esque grammar. (Imagine trying to write English using Chinese characters. Similar level of disconnect here.) I also doubt these words match 1:1 with French…or Chinese, or anything else, for that matter. That’s what I meant by a priori in the first post: not based on any one real-life language, in vocabulary or in grammar.

[apprenticeNerd]

Random update: I was searching around for other people who might be trying to reverse-engineer Voidtongue and came across this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/18dl5zg/voidtongue_linguistics_and_the_lore/

It doesn't look like anyone's replied to it since the update actually came out, but at least it exists. I don't have a Reddit account (and don't particularly want to make one) so I can't do anything with the post myself, but if anybody would rather do their sleuthing work over there, that's also an option

 

[AVeryRealRubberBand]

On 2023-12-15 at 2:14 PM, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

Wally's line "VOULL NE XATA VOK, MARA LOHK?" contains "Xata", which we know means truth, and this line is posed as a question to us; I wonder if wally is saying something along the lines of "have you found the truth yet, void child?" or perhaps it goes even deeper as "have you found YOUR truth yet, void child?" I'm definitely curious about this one..

This is very interesting. I haven't seen anyone come up with a possible translation. Mara Lohk really does look like it means void child or maybe it could be interpreted as Child of Void; which is basically the same but just for easy distiquishing the words better. 

For the other quote: "The Wall of Bone in whiKU NOMA ELU RA KAH, MARA LOHK?" we can also see the "Child of the Void?" line, so wally keeps asking us something. We can also se KU being the end of the word for WHICH. However the structure of the sentence doesn't make sense. Wally is here beginning to explain "The Wall of Bone in which...", then something in between, and then ending in a question? asking Void child? So my guess is that these words have a lot of context and have more meaning in them to create a full sentence. The sentence could be going with 'The wall of bone in which i reside.." and then something in the lines of: "is what you want to know, Void child?". I am just straight up guessing but I am just saying that these voidtongue words mean more than just one word. it's like the word siblings in English and in Dutch it means "Brothers and Sisters". 

But we can already have a small dictionary with a few words. Words from the requiem mods and then two new ones:

Fass: Chaos
Jahu: Form
Khra: Time
Lohk: Void
Mara: Child?
Netra: Decay
Ouill: ?
Ris: Light
Vome: Order
Xata: Truth
...ku: which

 

I also saw some other people a while ago connecting the poem lines form the requiem mods with the syllabels from the voidtongue words but i don't think we need to go that direction anymore.

[AVeryRealRubberBand]

On 2023-12-15 at 2:54 AM, apprenticeNerd said:

Doc is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-CamWXzwbedVzG_Wn_VzIFjdukk0wkqAP-QL2I2Y_38/edit?usp=sharing

I forgot that you made a google doc with all the words while typing my thoughts. Very interesting. 
One thing you can change is we don't know the full word "...ku" which i think is gonna mean "which"

[Corvid]

Something to note: "Mara" is the name used for the player character in the dialogue scripts of quests, and this has been the case since at least The War Within. In other words, it's the closest thing we have to a "canon name" for the Chosen Operator.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Corvid

[(PSN)robotwars7]

@apprenticeNerd

hi again, after listening to the OST for this update (absolutely amazing BTW) a few times, I think I've discovered another Voidtongue word you could investigate: "SHATTARAH"

it crops up in several tracks, mainly the Whisper Boss Fight music, and the Necralisk Combat music. I have absolutely NO idea what it could mean and I'm purely speculating here, but since it only appears in combat music (when fighting takes place), I'm thinking could it potentially be a Voidtongue word meaning "to kill/destroy/annihilate?" I know we have Netra (Decay), but that obviously implies a slower, more gradual removal of something, whereas there must be a word for if something is quickly destroyed/killed. it does also have the word "shatter" in it, but that's probably just coincidental lol.

 

[Hazuruk]

How much you want to bet that Mara Lohk (Void Child?) is Wally saying kiddo?

Like, there was that zariman tablet that asked what is "The Wall?", with the answer being Ku Noma Elu Ra Kah, Mara Lohk.

Considering that wally likes to end things he says to us with kiddo, i have a decent feeling that could be what mara lohk represents

[apprenticeNerd]

@(PSN)robotwars7 Good point, the song lyrics are a thing! I saw the video StallordD posted on YT and his attempted transcription in the comments; while I'm still holding out for official lyrics from DE, that word in particular seems clear enough to try and add to the sheet. I'm not sure I'd speculate that much on what it means yet, though.

[MechNexus]

Borrowed observation from the Warframe subreddit: "Mara" is also (to over-simplify) the rough equivalent of Demon in Buddhism, so "Mara Lohk" probably translates to void-demon or something.

[KosmicKnight]

On 2023-12-18 at 7:09 AM, MechNexus said:

Borrowed observation from the Warframe subreddit: "Mara" is also (to over-simplify) the rough equivalent of Demon in Buddhism, so "Mara Lohk" probably translates to void-demon or something.

Helminth uses the word "demon,"  so you might be on to something there.

[apprenticeNerd]

OKAY SO! Massive update time! Matt tweets and login music and Dante Unbound, oh my

To start with, we've got a whole bunch of new vocabulary:

• vak - tweet by Matt Chalmers (https://twitter.com/mattchalmusic/status/1737225781229896102), song lyrics
• uu - Matt's tweet, song lyrics
• ivbok - Matt's tweet, song lyrics
• shotarat - Matt's tweet, song lyrics
  • theorized same word as unconfirmed shattarah by several people on the wiki
  • possibly also same word as unconfirmed shotala from WitW login music?
• murum - song title
• vull - song title
• jeliira - song title

There have also been several additional attestations of yara in unrelated places that appear at the start of a sentence 3 times out of 4. (The fourth is when it appears twice in the same sentence!) That could mean about a zillion different things, but "word order matters" seems to be a fair conclusion in general, given both this and the logographic-writing-system theory, which would make analytical structure more likely (cf. Chinese).

Taking a hard left into phonology, I'd also tentatively theorize lexical vowel length based on the double vowels in iire, uu, and jeliira. Very tentatively. There's no minimal pair here yet as far as I know (the only minimal pair I can find is mara and yara), and even if there were, we have too few confirmed translations to prove different meanings. And I have no idea how phonetically consistent the Voidtongue romanization is or isn't, especially given the presence of 〈ou〉 pronounced /u/ or /uː/ in at least one place. (My native-English-speaker ass is not very good at parsing vowel length distinctions in speech lmao)

More updates to come once I manage to get Dante and some Gruzzling quotes go up on the wiki! Or when DE actually pUTS THEIR LYRICS IN A VIDEO DESCRIPTION LIKE THEY DID FOR THE DUVIRI OPERA, PLS DE

[ominumi]

That's so weird. The words translate directly to english but sentence structure is different.

[apprenticeNerd]

You're right, that is a little strange - semantic categories tend to be different across different languages (leading to stuff not translating perfectly), although not always. It's possible that the English translations are inexact or incomplete, or that these specific words translate pretty well but a lot of other ones don't?? No idea lol

[Hazuruk]

I've noticed Fibonacci saying "Vashtav, Mara Lohk" At the end of Assassination missions. How much you wanna bet Vashtov means Thank/Thank You, or something of that like?

Edited March 28 by Hazuruk

[ominumi]

It looks almost like Yoda talk.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

21 hours ago, apprenticeNerd said:

OKAY SO! Massive update time!

I'm not usually one for Necro'd threads, but this is a welcome one to be sure! I thought you'd given up on translating Voidtongue, but clearly that's not the case! 

I haven't really noticed any other words since WitW, but then I haven't really been able to listen to the newer tracks, though I imagine many of the same words/lyrics are used. now that you're back, I think i'll keep an ear out on the soundtrack to see what else pops up!

 

[apprenticeNerd]

On 2024-03-28 at 8:16 PM, ominumi said:

It looks almost like Yoda talk.

You could be right, although we don't have enough grammatical info to say for sure yet! "Yoda talk" is basically English but shifted into OSV instead of SVO word order (sort of; it's a little more complicated than that, due to auxiliary verb shenanigans lmao). Voidtongue could very well be OSV too, who knows??

[ominumi]

8 hours ago, apprenticeNerd said:

You could be right, although we don't have enough grammatical info to say for sure yet! "Yoda talk" is basically English but shifted into OSV instead of SVO word order (sort of; it's a little more complicated than that, due to auxiliary verb shenanigans lmao). Voidtongue could very well be OSV too, who knows??

So we are basically translating sentence structure? That's totally unfair. Finding intent behind random jumbo of words is near impossible. And I know DE likes to read these kind of threads. Said person making the Voidtongue is already coming up with new ways to throw off the trail. Want to keep it as a riddle.