Post by Narimya on Sept 10, 2010 18:01:30 GMT -5
SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION
In the Ancient Language, sometimes the noun seems to go before the next word, like many other foreign languages. For example: Gath sem oro un lam iet means "Unite that arrow with my hand." Iet here means "my," which is at the end of the sentence after the noun. Another example is Mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr, which means "Peace live in your heart." Onr means "your" (not to be confused with ono which means "you"), and it is at the end of the sentence after the noun (which in this case is hjarta or "heart").
COMBINING WORDS
In some instances, Paolini combines two words to make one. An example of this is the word lethrblaka. Lethr means "leather", and Blaka means "flap/flapper", so lethrblaka means "leather-flapper", which is also the name of the Ra'zac's mounts. The same holds true for fethrblaka (feather-flapper aka a bird) and skulblaka (scale-flapper aka a dragon).
Another example of this is the word brunhvitr. Hvitr means "white", and brun most likely means "brow", so brunhvitr means "brow-white" or "white-browed." This word is used in the lyrics of an elven song: Gala O Wyrda brunhvitr/Abr Berundal vandr-fodhr/Burthro lausblädar eja undir/Eom kona dauthleikr... (Sing O white-browed fate/Of ill-marked Berundal/Born under oaken leaves/To mortal woman...)
FORMAL AND INFORMAL
The only instance that we get of formal and informal words is of the word "my." The informal word for "my" is iet, such as used in Gath sem oro un lam iet (Unite that arrow with my hand). The formal word is pömnuria, such as used in Wiol pömnuria ilian (For my happiness). This phrase is used when Eragon is telling Arya to stay safe before the battle at Farthen Dur (Eragon, pg. 4710. "Iet" is usually used in magic because it is shorter and there is no need to be formal while casting a spell, whereas while speaking, "pömnuria" is usually used.
WORD TENSE
When you use the Ancient Language, you never lie, so what you say will come true no matter if you want it to or not. Thus you have to be very careful whenever you speak, especially when you're giving a blessing. You must make sure that you word everything correctly or else something could go drastically wrong, such as Eragon did in Book One. He blessed a baby using the following words: Atra gülia un ilian tauthr ono un atra ono waíse skölir frá rauthr. Skölir means "shield" as we found out in Eldest, so instead of saying "Let luck and happiness follow you and may you be shielded from misfortune," Eragon accidentally said, "...and may you be a shield from misfortune," turning the blessing into a curse and making Elva the way she is. As you can see now, word tense is especially important.
As a sidenote: Eragon, skölir is translated as "shielded," but in Eldest, it is changed to "shield." This could show that Paolini didn't intentionally make the blessing a curse until he was writing Book Two. However, Paolini added the following note to the beginning of the Eragon word list: "Note: As Eragon is not yet a master of the ancient language, his words and remarks were not translated literally so as to save readers from his atrocious grammar. Quotations from other characters, however, have been left untouched."
This could indicate that the error was intentional, although it doesn't prove it. The interesting part is that in most cases, Eragon's words were translated literally.
