Spheria

by Cody Leet

  Our goal was to keep things very simple but expressive, and at the same time allow their speech to be human readable. So we crafted a basic structured grammar using a vocabulary based on a reduced set of English words. The results came out sounding like ‘caveman’, which was not an entirely unbelievable outcome.

  In transcripts, you will always see their language expressed in Pascal case, where every word is capitalized, but without spaces. Distinct thoughts, or sentences, appear on separate lines. The structure of each sentence follows the pattern:

 

  Some examples would be:

  GrogJumpRock

  ZuggClimbTree

  A name followed by a colon at the beginning of a sentence will indicate the Polyan who is speaking. An example would be:

  Grog: MeGoHunt

  For those speaking to others, the recipient is named after the speaker, separated by an angle bracket, followed by a colon and the sentence.

  Grog > Zugg : ThongGoNorth

  If the recipient is the actor, as in the case of commands, the actor need not be mentioned again:

  Zugg > Grog: GoNorth

  Compare this to the following, which is a description of where Grog went:

  Zugg: GrogGoNorth

  One thing to note above is that tense is implied. The language is always in the “present” tense. If something happened in the past or future, a modifier is used to express the time frame:

  (past)

  Zugg: GrogGoWhereBefore

  Grog: MeGoNorthYesterday

  (present)

  Zugg > Grog: GoNorth

  Grog: MeGoNorth

  (future)

  Zugg > Grog: GoNorthLater

  Grog: MeGoSouthTomorrow

  Any statement can be converted to a question by either replacing the target with a question word or appending one after the target. The question words are: where, when, how, why, what, and ask. “Ask” is a special case that makes a sentence that looks like a statement into a question, analogous to a question mark.

  Grog: ThongGoWhere

  Zugg: GrogWantThongWhy

  Grog: ZuggShareMeatAsk

  Lastly, modifiers can be used after the sentence to behave essentially as adjectives, to provide emphasis on the target, or otherwise affect the meaning. Some Examples:

  Zugg: GrogThrowRockFar

  Grog: ZuggEatMeatCold

  Instead of having variations of modifiers to show degrees, such as “cool”, “cold”, or “freezing”, we borrowed a concept from George Orwell’s Newspeak and added the “Plus” and “Minus” modifiers to express more or less of something:

  (cold) Zugg: WaterIsCold

  (cool) Zugg: WaterIsColdMinus

  (very cold) Grog: WaterIsColdPlus

  (freezing) Grog: WaterIsColdPlusPlus

  The last modifier “not” is used to reverse the meaning of the sentence. Used as so:

  Zugg > Grog: NotGoNorth

  Grog: NotGoNorthWhy

  Zugg: NorthIsColdPlusPlus

  Putting it all together we can get rather complex conversations, like so:

  Zugg: MeHuntBearLater

  Grog > Zugg: NotGoNorth

  Zugg: NotMeGoNorthWhy

  Grog: NorthIsColdPlusPlus

  Zugg > Grog: GoSouth

  Zugg: BearIsSouth

  Grog: MeKillBear

  Grog: MeCookBear

  Zugg > Grog: ShareMeatAsk

  Grog > Zugg: MeGiveMeat