The raymanian language

[Domnibus]

Raymanian is the language the people in rayman's world speak. But all times it is seen written or heard spoken in the games, it is just gibberish. And since I am very interested in linguistics, I decided to make it a real language!

In this first post, I wanted to share one of the scripts I made for the language.

I have made two scripts for the language on paper. One alphabet, which is seen written on doors in the sanctuaries and on the egg machines in the desert of the knaaren, and one other script, which is seen written in mr Dark's dare and the desert of the knaaren. I only could make the last one digital. My art and modeling skills are not that good, so if anyone who has experience with calligraphy, font making or art would like to make a better looking version, I would appreciate that!

Also, don't worry about all the diacritics, I will explain the pronunciation in another post.

In the romanization system (that means, writing the language using the latin script) a macron (a line over the letter) means a long vowel. The raymanian mark for a long vowel is placed under the consonant.

The vowel that follows a consonant is written in the consonant letter at the place indicated by the dotted circle.

 

[hoodlumsworld]

This looks really beautiful! Do the writings in the games actually translate to anything in this script, or you just used them as an inspiration?

 

[PluMGMK]

Wow, nice work! I remember Candish talked about doing something similar a long time ago but I don't know if she finished it…

Looking forward to the explanation of the diacritics – do the carons indicate palatalization by any chance?
And yes, like hoodlumsworld said, it's already looking beautiful!

 

[Sevy]

Oooh this is actually facinating! I had often wondered if the ancient writings and text in such scenes and levels could be deciphered into a language of sorts...

 

[Elite Piranha]

I hope someone turns this into a font.

 

[Domnibus]

I only used the writing in the games as inspiration, so they don't mean anything.

And also, the carons don't indicate palatalization. For example: the š is like the "sh" as in "sheep", and the ň is like "ng" as in "sing".

 

[Hunchman801]

It does indeed look really cool! Now I want a texture pack for Rayman 3 that adds actual messages written with this all around the game's locations.

 

[PluMGMK]

Silly messages or meaningful ones?

 

[Hunchman801]

Silly, of course!

 

[Flat Earth Society]

It does indeed look really cool! Now I want a texture pack for Rayman 3 that adds actual messages written with this all around the game's locations.

That would be a very interesting project, to say the least.

Awesome work also!

 

[PluMGMK]

Well, either way, whoever takes it on will have to wait for Domnibus to post a lexicon, I guess

 

[Aaron]

Interesting stuff, great work on it so far!

 

[Domnibus]

Hello everyone! It has been some time, but i finally finished making a digital version of the alphabetic script of the raymanian language.

I have decided to name the script that i posted earlier the "suksǎ", meaning dark, script, and this alphabet the "dāri", meaning good, script. I have named them this because the suksǎ script is seen written only in places of enemies, and the dāri script in places like the sanctuaries. I think the suksǎ script is mostly used as decoration, and the dāri script in everyday life, because it is easier to write.

The example text is the first sentence from the knowledge of the world:
krǎ lǎm eya yatǐl otwifīz fětik džit tihawň džit wanda zuhělkaw vǎ otsǎ ogǔ̄rǔ.

Word by word: a (plural) lums yellow are fragments thousand the (genitive) heart the (genitive) world broken by the pirates.

 

[Hunchman801]

This one looks great as well! As for the language itself, where did you draw your inspiration from?

 

[Domnibus]

Thank you! I did not really get any inspiration from other languages, but i did make some vocabulary based on the culture of rayman's world.

I made the pronunciation so that it should not be difficult to pronounce, but still not sound like english or other languages. I think i can make a post about the pronunciation soon, but i am still having difficulties making the very last bits of grammar.

 

[hoodlumsworld]

Awesome! I really hope someone makes a font of it now.

 

[PluMGMK]

Better yet, one could try to get it added to the ConScript Unicode Registry

 

[Hunchman801]

I had no idea this was even a thing! It doesn't seem to see much activity, though.

 

[paulnewman2001]

Very creative, nice work!

 

[PluMGMK]

I had no idea this was even a thing! It doesn't seem to see much activity, though.

Well, I just asked myself, what does Klingon have? And apparently, according to a search on Wikipedia, that's as far as they've gotten with it, which is still pretty impressive!