What they can’t save, they abandon.
One in a series of concept pieces for Old Sond, the Arkoloteri, and Tamahuaq’s company of expies. let’s see what those boys are up to.
Fallen Arkai ◆ Control Burn ◆ the Lung ◆ Incandescence ◆ Foreign Body ◆ First Light
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Writing image descriptions for unnamed characters is a special hell for me. The unnamed Trahearne expy has a title forced onto him—the Warden—so it’s not hopeless. But it’s still pretty dire.
Naming a guy is a process in Moribund. I have a ton of documents on my computer that are just lists of phonemes, random names, root words, etc. I’m stupid and particular about names on top of being stupid and particular about conlanging. Probably the right name will slap me in the face like a wet trout… In 9 years. Such is the way.
The Warden’s document so far is typical of this early ideating.
the tra and hrn are doing a lot in Trahearne I just realized that’s the whole name. nevermind
Like. Tremaine. Of course.
The perennial -sth- -tarn -sthra- Tar- -lun -hereh tal- tosa- Tel- -altha- Taltho-
-Oune -stharoune
-alraune
Roune. Roune? It is humanity’s lot to recreate roan every 8 years. Oh my god noarohe . we cant keep getting away with this
Could mirror Riven/Rive
Collecting phonemes, sound patterns, whatever. I smash these together, but these also help me search for words to find new sound patterns. some already come from existing words, and I just put them back in here. it’s a cycle.
Taliesin, Tamarack / akemantak, Thamarike, Tánaiste, trahere, Turuun, Toasun, alraune is really funny
Collecting words. pingpong brain likes etymonline and wiktionary. They help me buck my usual habits, so we don’t end up with 27372834 variations of sentin sond sund sauntiaq etc.
I like to look at languages recreationally, but I don’t like to go about browsing them like I’m opening a menu of “spicy names.” This is usually more like… sound/pattern recognition, not “yes I will name him deputy prime minister in gaeilge. this is a normal and respectful thing to do”
Sometimes I do ape words, e.g. for dumb wordplays like taosinta. I try to be intentional. I also collect them just for my own enrichment. How cool is it that tamarack and tamarisk evolved from completely different root words?
The ethics of miming noises.
Tarou, Talraune Telraune talus tallas tallone tallun tallaune taloune -tallat, tlallus, Talon, Talaune, Talun, Tallun, Talam, Telohim, Telahem, Thallun, Tanho, Tenho, Tahereh, Tanisthe Tanasthiat. well we can’t have manazthiat 2
smashing noises together. The funniest part of the process I think. I’m not precious with it. I’ll make a hundred pseudowords that are completely off-vibe until I identify a pattern that actually feels “right.”
There are other considerations that guide it, like the phonetic inventory of Sarikote. I like to construct words in the Sarikote language family that superficially look like anglicized/hispanicized/francized/etc loanwords. Colonization never happened in Moribund, but you’re interacting with the world through the lens of someone who doesn’t know any different (me, you, a secret third person, whoever.) one of my my little conlang compulsions.
What did we learn? I liked the idea of having a reduplicated “ll” so it could be read as either an “L” or “Y” sound. I like names that have multiple readings. I like cornering the nickname market. I kept returning to the sounds in talon, talus, and alraune. Too early to say if any of this actually means anything, though.
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