Absolute Direction and Geocentric Language

[Augest Kayd]

So, we have no words, as far as I know, in Mando'a for relative directions: ie, left, right, forward, front, etc. If there is, it's not in our dictionary, and the moderators for this forum have been dead for quite a while now so I doubt it will be added anytime soon. Back and backside are in the dictionary, but that's it.

I have come (and, really, this post could belong in the custom word topic, if you think about it) to talk about using the cardinal directions for that purpose, as many languages have in place of relative directions. This use of absolute direction is combined with using the environment in their speech. Not only does this set Mando'a further apart from English and therefore Basic, I believe that the militaristic and spacehopping culture of the Mandalorians would have led to this type of linguistics in the first place.

If someone tells you they are going left and you turn around a bit, you might forget what left or maybe have had confusion about which left they were talking about for a second. Perhaps they refer to something in front, but that covers an entire 220ish degrees of vision. Let's take this system into account.

If you are facing north, you are ghat'troan, with wasuur'taab and abesh'taab. If you turn left then, you go west. If you walk forward, you kem'troan. If you walk backward, you walk nora'troan. Then, the specificity comes in with detail. To quote a clone, clear and concise communication could mean life and death.

Add ke and you get a command. Useful for parade drills. Or just orders.

But what about referring to something generally, when cardinal directions aren't really clear, such as recounting something? In this case, we use ner to bring the direction as a possessive of the speaker. Contextually, the speaker is always facing north. Ner'ghat is forward, ner'wassur is left, etc. This would not be used interchangeably to the troan and taab system which works with movement and placement rather than recall.

Is this making sense? I don't know, my head hurts.

Side note, mhi is we and context makes things clear, as is with most things in Mando'a, but eh, mhe could be the exclusive we and mhi remains the inclusive we, eh? How about that? Adding a bit of clusivity with this small change.

And maybe suffixes for evidentiality. We could always include it as a phrase in the sentence. I know. I saw. I heard, etc. But why add entire words which may or may not be a hassle to translate based on their English counterpart tenses when we could just add an evidential suffix to the verb to solve the problem? It gives the Mandalorians culpability and a higher sense of order to show off their clear and precise militaristic nature. Or something or other.

[Tra'nau]

There are words for right and left in Mando'a- staabi and payt in canon and kad and kal in legends. Interesting idea, but I do think that there would be a lot of confusion; think about space. There are three dimensions to cover without any gravity to orient the speaker. On the other hand, if you were to speak this way on a planet, you have the problem of not being able to describe the direction of other planets at a given moment. Either way, I personally can't see it being very practical because of how constantly celestial objects are in motion.
Still an interesting concept- I can definitely see it as something that existed in Mando'a before the development of space travel. Despite the fact that we don't have any documentation of this time frame, it would be intersting think about how a system such as this might have impacted the Taung with regards to linguistic determinism.

[Augest Kayd]

Haha, fuck me then. To be fair to myself, my head was not feeling all the best, so... Yeah, I'm excused. Even though this type of word system has basically been shattered in your first sentence, I will address the rest of your comments. In space, you would use the relative system where the speaker is contextually oriented north, which in this case is the front of the person. You would still get which direction they are traveling in, just as on the ground. If you think of it as a stand-in for relative direction, it's the same. As for planets, every single planet has a north, south, east, and west, so why would it be unable to be used to describe the direction of other planets? Their individual rotations and axis angles wouldn't matter. The whole point is that motion doesn't matter since the directions are constant.

Anyway. What did you think about clusivity and evidentiality?

[Vlet Hansen]

I like using an absolute reference frame, but I don't think that reference frame should presume the speaker is facing "north" as that leads to confusion as to whether you actually mean north. For practical purposes though, using cardinal directions preferentially over left and right would likely be very useful, and I'm all for it.

ALso, payt and staabi were always left and right, kal and kad was only a colloquialism used when referring to handedness and armor parts, thanks to the death watch manifesto. It never replaced the original words.

[Vlet Hansen]

Regarding clusivity, I can see the appeal, though I always wish the words sounded more distinct for clarity's sake. Evidentiality... I might need to see some examples to understand what you're proposing here.

[Augest Kayd]

I think we can come up with a better system of using absolute reference then if you think that it works. You seem to have a better idea of what's going on with it, so I'll let you lead on this. As for reference, there would be more context clues and the words used would be different as said, but I get that it can be confusing.

I think mhi and mhe sound different enough, but maybe mha? I'm going with the mh theme because making them absolutely different disconnects them in my opinion.

As for evidentiality, you would have suffixes to represent the way you received this information. If you heard it, if you witnessed it, if it's implied or inferential, etc. I haven't come up with anything to fit Mando'a.

[Vlet Hansen]

So, something along the lines of sur'la, sush'la... I dunno, ret'la, for roots?

[Augest Kayd]

Pardon me?

[Vlet Hansen]

As in, sur'la would imply something observed, sush'la for something heard, ret'la for something you're inherently not sure about... I'm trying to figure out what form these parts of speech might take

[Augest Kayd]

Well, they would be suffixes and not words on their own.

[Vlet Hansen]

Sure, but am I on the same track you're thinking here? As in, that's the content you want to get across with the suffix?

[Augest Kayd]

Yeah, basically. A suffix to describe how the information you're passing on was collected to gauge credibility.