Learn Mando'a

Hello all, I've recently started diving into Mando'a. Learning languages have always been a challenge for me. So I'd like some feedback/lessons on this inscription I put together. It contains parts from the song Gra'tua Cuun, some lines are my own and others are from Ryan Kaufman. I created this as a vague story that would be inscribed on a weapon or amrour. It goes like this:


Lost in the sands
Back stabbed by brothers
From black fire family strength was forged
Into war goes son after his father
Carry the blade of Dynkara
Every last traitorous soul shall fall
They prostrate in our shadows
Brothers all


Echoy'la o'r te vhekade
Norac bikadinir de vode
Teh net’ra tracinya kot ru’gotal’u
Lo akaan ad shekemi buir
Jorir te kal be Dynkara
Anay kyr'yc aruetyc runi kelir trattok'or
Val cetar o'r cuun prudiise
Vode an


Some words don't exist in Mando'a, so I substituted a few words that get the line across.

I'm wondering about kelir in there, not sure how that fits in.

Jorir might be better as Ke'jori, since the imperative form seems to fit your intent better than the infinitive.

I feel like norac bikadinir might not read as nicely as it could, perhaps Aruetyc nyn, for "traitorous strike" instead?

Overall I really like this, it reads pretty well and I love the care you put in to fixing the honestly pretty janky words from the song.

Vlet Hansen wrote: ↑

29 Dec 2021 03:56

I'm wondering about kelir in there, not sure how that fits in.

Jorir might be better as Ke'jori, since the imperative form seems to fit your intent better than the infinitive.

I feel like norac bikadinir might not read as nicely as it could, perhaps Aruetyc nyn, for "traitorous strike" instead?

Overall I really like this, it reads pretty well and I love the care you put in to fixing the honestly pretty janky words from the song.

Thanks for the input! Some words I couldn't find threw the Mandoa dictionary search bar so I also used this translator for a few words https://lingojam.com/Mandoa-EnglishTranslator

Not sure how accurate it is. When adding a suffix and the like, what rules apply to removing certain letters? When adding "Ke", why is it "Ke'jori", and not "Ke'Jorir"? Same question for "nyn" instead of "nynir".

Aruetyc nyn sounds a lot better. Thanks!

That translator isn't the best, it's got some words from an unknown source that replace perfectly serviceable Mando'a words for no real reason.

The lack of the -ir endings on things is because that final r denotes the infinitive. "Jorir" is "to bear" instead of "bear" or "bears." You drop either the r or the r and its preceding vowel to get the active form. That's another thing translators don't catch.

Now, I don't think there's a hard and fast rule for this, but the way I use it (simply because it sounds better to me) is I use the vowel ending every time if I'm using a gerund, like jori for bearing, but I'll go with jor alone if I'm using it in a more noun-ish way, since it's kind of the root word. For this, I was meaning nyn as in the noun of a blow, the event itself, not as a verb in the same way, if that makes sense.

I've tried to use the Lingojam v1 and v2 translators and they are... more convenient than accurate. There is also a Coruscant Translator that was quite popular with role-players but also tended to swerve rather dramatically away from what rules we do know about Mando'a vocabulary. It's always possible that a highly motivated scholar may build a better app one day, but the amount of work required is significant. It's not a recreational project that you could casually accomplish over a weekend.