Atlantean language

The Atlantean alphabet.

The Atlantean language is a constructed language created by Marc Okrand for Disney's film Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The language was intended as a possible "mother language" and was therefore invented to have Indo-European word stock with its own grammar ("Production Notes").

Sounds

Vowels

**Chart of Atlantean vowels**
IPA Symbol	Actors' Script	Transliteration
/i/	ee, ih, i	i
/e/	ay, eh, e	e
/ɑ/	ah, uh, a	a
/o/	oh, o, oa	o
/u/	oo	u

Atlantean's phonology includes a vowel system with the above five phonemes, a system common to many languages, such as Spanish. Each vowel has two prominent allophonic realizations, depending on whether it occurs in a stressed or unstressed syllable. Vowels in stressed syllables tend to be tense, and likewise unstressed ones tend to be more lax. Thus, for example, /i/ is realized as [i] or [ɪ] in stressed and unstressed syllables, respectively. Likewise, /e/ is realized as [e] or [ɛ], and so on. (/ɑ/ fits into this pattern as [ɑ] or [ʌ].)

Consonants

**IPA chart of Atlantean consonants**
	Bilabial	Alveolar	Alveolo- palatal	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar
Plosive	p b	t d			k g
Nasal	m	n
Fricative		s	ʃ		x
Approximant				j		w
Trill		r
Lateral		l

Where symbols occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.

Notes:

Transliterated as sh
Transliterated as kh
Transliterated as y

Writing Systems

An alphabet (pictured above) was designed for Atlantean to be displayed onscreen in the film. For the sake of the actors who had to speak the language, the Atlantean passages in the script were written out in a manner deliberatly easy to read for English speakers. Syllables within individual words were separated by hyphens, and stress placement was indicated by writing stressed syllables in capitals. Thus, for example, the sentence "Follow the narrow passage for another league" was translated as "LEH-weg-tem SHEE-buhn puhk BEN-tem DEE-gen-mil SAH-tib." An alternative system for transliteration, adopted in this article, simply replaces each Atlantean character with its English equivalent, rendering the previous sentence as Lewegtem shiban pak bentem digenmil satib.

Grammar

Atlantean has a Subject-Object-Verb word order. The first documentation of this discovery is recorded in a March 2002 entry into LangMaker.Com. This is a presumably a quote from Paul Sherrill. His website, Lúden Shadlag, deleted for several years now, was up at least by July 4, 2001, as Paul himself says in Message 2 of the Yahoo Tech Group The Atlantean Language Group. 68.251.31.0 first mentioned SOV order in this article and may have arrived at that conclusion independently of Paul Sherrill. Here is an example from The Official Corpus. References are "(Sequence, Part)".

"Way-DAH-go-sen NEH-bet behr-NOH-tib-mick. ... (I have brought the visitors.)" (09K1)

Or, translated literally:

"Visitor-plural these bring-past-perfect-I."

Compare this sentence to 13K2 for evidence of bernot as a verb.

Adjectives follow their nouns while the adverbs precede their verbs.

An example of adverb-verb order can be found by comparing 8.5A1 with 8.5K2 of the Official Corpus. Note: YOO-gehb goes from adverb to verb here, yet its suffixes act accordingly. This is even mirrored in the sometimes loose English translation.

Atlantean has postpositions rather than prepositions. There are three recognized tenses: Present Perfect, Present, and Future. Imperatives are formed from the verb stem alone in the singular, and with the suffix -yoakh in the plural.

Nouns

There are also four cases for nouns.

1. Nominative

2.Accusative (indicated by the suffix -tem)

3. Vocative (Indicated by the suffix -toap, as in TAH-neb-toap, "Your Highness")

4. There is evidence of a fourth case,Genitive (Indicated by the suffix -uhg, as in AHD-luhn-tih-suhg, "of Atlantis". This may be interpreted as an adjective-forming suffix. Lawrence Rogers, in 3rd person, argues that in S05M1 and in TUP04 -uhg is used to indicate possession. It also indicates origin(TUP01, TUP02,03,04, S13K2), description(S8.5K5), and compounds(DVD 50:55), all regular functions of the Genitive Case. ) In addition to this, Rogers presents the idea of Paul Sherrill and Cindy Morris that it also makes cardinal numbers into ordinal numbers(S10M1).

5. ...and possibly even a fifth case, Instrumental (indicated by the suffix -esh, as in DEE-gesh from DEEG, "language"). This is further supported by comparison done by Rogers: TUP04, S1.5S1, S05M1, S09G3, S13K3, and S1.5S1.

Nouns are marked as plural with the suffix -en. Case suffixes never precede the -en plural suffix. There is evidence that a few nouns may be invariant, like TAH-mar, "law" (S09K1), KOO-net, "surface" (S8.5K1), and SHAYOD, "hand" (DVD 50:55).

"TAHB-toap" from the Illustrated Script: Father(Noun Vocative)

Nominative *TAHB
Accusative *TAHB-tem
Vocative *"TAHB-toap"
also, from a single example: *"MAH-tihm" (mother, being called)
Genitive *TAHB-uhg
Instrumental *TAHB-esh

Plural *TAHB-en

Pronouns

Pronouns show case inflection for:

1.Nominative

2. Accusative (indicated by the suffix -it, as in TOO-git from TOOG, "he")

3. Genitive (indicated by the suffix -ihn, as in MOH-khihn from MOAKH, "you (singular)")

4. ...and possibly Dative. This Dative Suffix occurs once and is the suffix -ihb, as in KAH-gihb(S13K2) from KAHG, "I") Grammatically, the suffix in question best matches the Accusative Case, as Kida is the one being forgiven by the Spirits of Altantis.

Nominative GWEES (S09G2)
Accusative GWEE-sit (S1.511)
Genitive GWEE-sin (S09G1)
Dative *GWEE-sihb

Sample quotation: TAHB-toap LOO-den NEH-bet kwahm GEH-soo BOH-geh-kem deg YAH-seh-ken GEH-soo-goan-tokh. "Father, these people may be able to help us." (The simple notation was designed to make it easy for actors to read their lines.)

Atlantean is written in boustrophedon style (in horizontal running alternately from right to left and left to right).

Paul Sherrill's Lost Tense Markers

Paul Sherrill, Atlantean language lore master, is quoted on a conlang website called langmaker.com as saying, "So far I have examples of three 'tenses': the present perfect, present, and future. Most of the time, the two suffixes are easily identifiable, but in a few combinations the tense marker drops or changes a letter or two(Info & Tidbits 1996-2005)."

Furthermore, Marc Okrand stated in comments for a Disney press release that, "But grammatically, it is very different from English. It does things that English doesn’t do. Partly, the word order is different; partly the way the suffixes work are different. The verbs are highly inflected."

It is proposed for scholarly consideration that these inflected tense markers are: 1.)-lih- for the present perfect suffix, 2.)nothing for the present tense, 3.)and -loh- for the future tense.

Here is the procedure which led to these hypotheses:

1.) IF KAH-roak-lih-mihk is assumed to mean "defiling"(Script's wording) or "I have defiled"(one understanding) (Lexicon, Sequence 13, Kida, line 2), and behr-NOAT-lih-mihk is assumed to mean "bringing" or "I have brought" (Lexicon, Sequence 13, Kida, line 2), and MEH-gid-lih-men is assumed to mean "have...destroyed" or "you have destroyed" (Lexicon, Sequence 1.5, Atlantean Pilot line 1), and MOO-tih-lihm-kem is assumed to mean "is lost" or "all has been lost" (Lexicon, Sequence 1.5, Additional Pilots' line), but "YOH-deh-neh-toat" is assumed to mean "too late" or "It is too late already" (Lexicon, Sequence 1.5, Atlantean Pilot #2)

THEN -lih- is an Atlantean suffix marking a verb as in the past perfect tense in most and certain instances. and Paul Sherrill was correct in his assertion.

2.) Most of the 51 present tense words which are assumed to be verbs from the Official Lexicon are without a common suffix which can be identified, by elimination of other known suffixes.

3.) IF KOAM-tib-loh-nen is assumed to mean "you will find" (Lexicon, Sequence 10, Milo's line), and GWEH-noag-loh-nick is assumed to mean "I will kill" (Lexicon, Sequence 13, Kida line 2), but "YOO-teh-poan-kem" is assumed to mean "will discuss" or "we will discuss" (Lexicon, Sequence 9, King line 3)

THEN -loh- is an Atlantean suffix marking a verb as in the future tense in most and certain instances. and Paul Sherrill was correct in his assertion.

Other Tenses

There are two suffixes in each non-imperative, final verb or adverb in every Atlantean sentence (in the Script). The first is verb tense, the second is verb subject. The second suffixes are something like:

The Pronouns of Atlantean

I = KAHG ... -ik
(Which makes sense because ik is Gothic for I [ego, ich, etc.])
you = MOAKH ... -en
he/she/it TOOG/TOO-KH/TOH-k ... -toat
we = GWEES ... -kem
you-all familiar GAHB-r ... -ekh
you-all unfamiliar Gehb-R ... -ekh
they = SOH-b ... -tokh

Other pronouns in Atlantean include "leb", who, "mehk", what, and "DOH-t", this.

and the first suffixes are all listed, in their verb, below.

Both -tib- and -pih- appear to correspond to separate tenses from their "families" (the -OH- family, the -IH- family, the -EH- family)

There are also variations of the -OH- family. Since these variation correspond to no tense change in English, they may be:

1) All the same just for the -OH- family or

2) Represent separate tenses which do not correspond to any tense in English, except maybe the simple future tense.

And because all the tenses seem to break along family lines, it may be assumed that they are all future tenses.

A List of All Examples of Non-Eh- Verbs from the Official Corpus

All translated as simple future.

GEH-soo-goan-tokh. YAHD-lu-goh-nikh

YOO-teh-poan-kem

KOAM-tib-loh-nen GWEH-noag-loh-nick

MAH-toh-noat

All translated as one of the past tenses.

KAH-roak-lih-mihk behr-NOAT-lih-mihk

MEH-gid-lih-men MOO-tih-lihm-kem

Translated as one of the present tenses of English.

kweh-TEE-pih-moat

Translated as one of the present tenses of English.

behr-NOH-tib-mick

And the most common suffix is -eh-, which has no variations and is always translated into the simple present tense.

References

Henning, Jeffrey. Atlantean, (1996-2005), AtlanteanLanguage of the Lost Empire, LangMaker.Com, Accessed December 20 2006

Paul Sherrill's Quote

Walt Disney Pictures Info & Tidbits on Atlantis, the Lost Empire, Info & Tidbits on Atlantis, the Lost Empire, RottenTomatoes.com, Accessed December 20 2006 : 4th paragraph from the bottom

Marc Okrand's Quote

Walt Disney Pictures. Production Notes., Production Notes, The Unofficial Disney Animation Archive, Accessed December 20 2006 : under the 8th section from the top, "Creating the Atlantean Language"

A second, more complete source for the press release from Disney on Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

External links