Hey, my Squids! I thought I would continue with some Abaroguian language lessons from the world of Taliah. Abaroguian is one of the largest languages in the world of Taliah, rivaled only by Procolish (the English equivalent), Ain-na and, debatably, Shehra in the number of speakers, both native and learned. It is, however, the second largest language in Procoline. In fact, a number of things that are considered Procolish in origin actually originated in Abaroguian, such as the way numbers are written, a lot of slang terms, and even some Procolish root words. It is a frequently cited and loanword language across the world.
Our resident Abaroguian is Leira Orta, main character of our tale, and it’s her first language. She didn’t begin learning Procolish until she was eight years old. Even then, she speaks Abaroguian 70 to 80% of the time, speaking Procolish mostly at work and around non-Abaroguian speakers.
Some rules to note about Abaroguian sounds and pronunciation: while there are specific sounds that Abaroguians use, the language is very intention and immediacy based, so word choice matters more than specifically sounding out each word correctly. Almost all Abaroguians will know what is being said without needing the syllables to be spoken perfectly.
Abaroguian is typically spoken in a more upper manner in terms of sound, so people who speak lower register languages like Procolish and Wathra tend to think Abaroguian voices sound “higher” when spoken. There are also a lot more softer sounds for letters than in Procolish and some sounds, like a hard G, are omitted entirely.
Of note, the two sound patterns that exist in Abaroguian more than Procolish are the rolled R and the soft G. Here is a breakdown of how it typically works:
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In Procolish, the world Abarogue is pronounced “A-buh-RO-GUH” where the final “GUH” sound is typically clipped.
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In Abaroguian, the world Abarogue is pronounced”Ah-bah-rrro-juh-shh” where the R is rolled into the O and the G is a soft “J” sound trailing into a softer “Shh”. In this way the word Abaroguian is pronounced the same way, with the shh fading into a “shan” sound.
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“G”s are spoken this way as it is said they carry the wind with their sound, so you hear trailing whispers in words that feature them. Abaroguian people are very mountain and wind oriented.
Alternatively, “J” has a slightly harder and shorter tone, so words like “retire” which is “jubalaede” feature a shorter “joo” sound than a “aleego” which means “some.”
For words or letters that have accents, some of the pronunciations may correspond with ones on Earth but here are how they pronounced in Abaroguian:
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à – hua or who-ah
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ì – yee-ee
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ï – ay-ee
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ÿ – why
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ò – aw
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These tones are part of an interesting mix that lends itself to a unique accent among the Abaroguian people. This list is not exhaustive but gives you a general idea of how Abaroguian sounds.
Let’s talk about sentence structure next.
Basic Sentence Structure: Sentences in Abaroguian follow a general English structure: Subject does Verb to Object. So a sentence that says “I go to the store” will be roughly the equivalent in Abaroguian. The only difference is if the Subject is already known. In cases where the Subject is known, Abaroguian drops the Subject from the sentence, so “I go to the store” becomes “Go (to) the store”. The “to” is in parentheses for a reason and we will talk about that in the Advanced Sentence Structure section.
Advanced Sentence Structure: Since Abaroguian incorporates sentence modifiers such as Intention and Particles, more advanced sentences divulge from English. Advanced sentence structure will look more like: Intention of Subject modified by Particle performs Verb in Tense Stance to Object modified by Particle. A sentence like “I will go to the store” in English reads as “(In the future) I going store to”. The Intention modifier helps direct whether the sentence will or won’t happen in the future while also denoting who is performing the action. You will typically drop the subject when an Intention modifier is applied, so the sentence reads “(In the future) going store to”. You will also notice that the particle “to” is after store. This will be better explained in the Particle section but the take away here is that particles come after the word they apply to.
Questions: Questions obey the same sentence structure as other sentences but end differently, indicating a question with a word. That word is “deh,” pronounced just as it’s spelled. The difference between “You’re going to the store” and “Are you going to the store” is “Paresca douto gires iotaja parsa” and “¿Paresca douto gires iotaja parsa deh?” In written form, you add ¿? at the beginning and end of the sentence, respectively. “Deh” has no other meaning outside of this usage, though colloquially, people will say it as a form of “Huh” or “What’s that?”
I hope this helps you understand some Abaroguian when you see it in the comics!