Learn Mando'a

Did anybody ever wonder about punctuation in Mando?

Even if it is mostly a spoken language, we have no choice but to write it.
How do we use punctuation? The Englosh way (does anybody get the rules for that, eh?) or do we simply rely on the full stop and question mark to solve all problems?

I want commas, truth be told.
And subsequnetly, I'd like guidelines for their use.

Not sure if it is a bit early for this, seeing how even grammar is still up for discussion.

From what I can gather of KT's rules, Mando'a is written with an essentially phonetic alphabet. In English, a lot of letters make vastly different sounds depending on how they are used, but I think that most of Mando'a's letters are direct representations of the exact phonetic sounds.

But the dictionary KT provides certainly does have pronunciation for every word provided. Is it some kind of English/German loss of translation for you? We could put all of those pronunciations into IPA for you, if you understand that form of pronunciation better. It wouldn't be too hard.

I expect that we would use normal English punctuation, but the problems with English punctuation are really only a big deal with complicated sentence structures. The idea of all Mando'a is to use simple structures wherever possible.

Not sure how pronuncaiation came up, but I'll try to answer the questions.

Yes, there is a loss - or rather a difference - depending on whether I translate into Englich or German from Mando. I can use the current file just fine ebcause I am well-acquainted with English pronunciation. For German you wouldn't need much of a pronunciation guide becasue you mostly pronounce the words as if it was German.
(One of the advantages of speaking German seems to be that any author trying to make a created language sound 'exoctic' to English people will fall into German pronunciation. German 'Haus' is pronounced just the same as Englush 'house' is... go figure.)

Where things get difficult is fixed expressions. I would say 'der tickt nicht richtig' (he doesn't tick correctly) in German but that is 'he is off his rocker' in English. The words invovled to creat the same meaning are completely different. Also 'narir' which can be simply 'put' in English can pose a problem because English put is easy meaning 'setzen, stellen, legen' in German. On the other hand 'sitzen' can bei either 'to seat' or 'to sit' in English...


Easy sentences are easy.
I want difficult.
Probably not real mando-material there...

Okay, the pronunciation thing was totally my fault. I saw "punctuation" and read "pronunciation." Not sure how those two words got so crosswired, but I guess they do look similar.

I'm sure there's a place for complex sentence structures in Mando'a. It just would probably be for more formal language use and more archaic Mandalorian eras. Common usage would tend to avoid it, as we all know.

Since Mando'a follows English grammar aside from particular exceptions, I would presume it follows English punctuation likewise.

This doesn't mean that we can't come up with some new exceptions of our own, but creating our own grammar should follow the same process as creating our own words.

For example, if you wanted to use some grammar that was more related to German than English (though I think their grammar structures tend to be quite similar already), then there might need to be a little bit of justification as to why the Mando's would deviate from English grammar in favor of German grammar, but if we can all agree that it would make more sense for the Mandalorians to do so, then I think it's fair enough to do something like that. Otherwise, I would assume normal English rules for lack of better option.

MsLanna wrote:Where things get difficult is fixed expressions. I would say 'der tickt nicht richtig' (he doesn't tick correctly) in German but that is 'he is off his rocker' in English. The words invovled to creat the same meaning are completely different. Also 'narir' which can be simply 'put' in English can pose a problem because English put is easy meaning 'setzen, stellen, legen' in German. On the other hand 'sitzen' can bei either 'to seat' or 'to sit' in English...

Actually, this "problem" is also the solution to many translating problems. Each culture absolutely WILL have expressions like this which don't translate well into other languages (usually because they are strongly metaphorical and represent a cultural view of things). Of course, this makes translating our own expressions into their language difficult and a little silly because saying someone is, "off their rocker" in mando'a would have little meaning to them. A Mando would ask, "What's so special about that rocking chair?" Similarly with "he doesn't tick correctly." A Mando might be confused that you would expect a person to tick. However, if you said kaysh ba'slana can'gal nu'ti kute, they might appreciate the metaphor a bit better. What I'm saying is that while it can represent a difficulty to us trying to find different ways of saying things we're used to using metaphorical expressions for, it actually also gives us the advantage that we can make up metaphorical statements for the Mandos using the words we already have. So long as you can figure out what the real meaning of the metaphor is ("off his rocker" = "doesn't tick right" = "crazy, doesn't think clearly") you can always make a new picture which might give people the right impression ("he leaves the starship without a flightsuit/underwear").

This is the reason I like to tackle translation through semantics in that other thread. The more you understand about what you really mean to say, the better equipped you are to find a good way to say it.

Lyat'aag wrote:Actually, this "problem" is also the solution to many translating problems.

Actually, it is not.
Yes, the idioms are different, and it's about translating the emaning but not the words. Maybe they are a bad example. Looking up 'fixed expressions' shows me they're the wrong label too. Gah, wished my linguistic vocab was better.

I mean verbs with prepositions: look, look after, look into look for
One consturction that exists in Englsich and German is 'look after' / 'sehen nach'.
Both times the verb means the same, so does the preposition. But in combintaion one means babysit, take care of while the other means to check on somebody.

Why should I agree to follow the English interpretation of the cosntruction? If Mando is its own language, the construct - okay, let's forget about that. No word for 'after/behind' in Mando.

MsLanna wrote:Did anybody ever wonder about punctuation in Mando?

Yes. Yes I have.

All I can really add here is that imo the question mark is really useless, as we have "Tion". If a interrogative sentence is implied by use of the prefix, is there really any need for a question mark?
(The only reason I use it for translated mando'a is to not confuse people.)

I think Mando'a written in English at least should use mostly english punctuation, as that's what KT used (although I can't think of any time she used the "?")

-Shi ner'mirde

I think in written language questions marks make sense regardless of markers like 'tion'. It's an opric device showing there's a question ahead.
But that could be only me. I like punctuation. I made a point of learning the correct use of a semicolon; it was not easy.

MsLanna wrote:I made a point of learning the correct use of a semicolon; it was not easy.

Sorry, couldnt help it... this one's funny too.

On the subject of punctuations, I've been doing some English-Mando'a translation recently, and I've found it really convenient to stick with standard punctuation and the rules that apply to it. Quotation marks, semicolons, commas, full-stops. Everything. Even question marks. It's just neater that way. I had tried using < and > to indicate speech, but that became messy pretty quick.