The Dedhramae Text

Also known as the Dedhramae Codex, this is the name given to a beautifully executed manuscript of undeniably ancient origins recently excavated in a remote part of Ralstavia by the renowned archaeologist Professor Baldon. The manuscript was enclosed in a featureless cuboidal stone sarcophagus; nevertheless the centuries have taken their toll upon it and most of it has decayed, such that we have now only the start of the document.

The manuscript has been deciphered, as it was written in a "Rosetta Stone" type of format. The first language is named "Dedhramae", this apparently being a corruption of "Derdhra Maes" in same language, meaning "Speech of Men". From this it may be deduced that at the time of the origination of this language the Dedhramae speakers believed themselves to be the only nation, and that furthermore they distinguished themselves from the animals by Man's unique gift of Speech.

The second language on the codex is named Eltranika; the third, which was the key to deciphering the former two, is a highly obscure dialect of Old Xoltek, the language spoken in Ralstavia between three and four thousand years ago. This dialect is unlike any hithertofore known, and may represent either a very early or a very late form of the language, in which case the document may have been written outside of the time limits indicated above.

Similarly, Dedhramae and Eltranika bear little if any resemblance in their vocabulary to any known languages, and it is not at present possible to identify their relationships to other language families. There may well be none, which would support the view expressed above that the speakers of Dedhramae were cut off from all other nations.

Both languages appear to be minimalist in that they use no more syllables or letters than necessary, and that the time taken to convey an utterance is brief and also that the letters themselves are designed to take up as little space as possible. Given just the document this would imply that the Dedhramae speakers lived in a land where materials were in great scarcity, but considering that the languages probably preceded the alphabet it is more likely that this culture valued economy.

The language of Dedhramae has, in its grammar and syntax, certain points of resemblance to Indo-European languages, in that it has structures of verbs, subjects and objects, nouns, adjectuives, verbs and adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and clause-formers. However, Eltranika lacks all of these and operates along completely different lines, each sentence being formed of one or more couplets, each couplet consisting, in reverse order, of a noun and a concept describing it, which may contain any of the parts of speech listed above for Dedhramae. However, many words in Eltranika are similar to the equivalent Dedhramae words, and in fact almost all word-element stems are identical in the two languages. How can this be?

The mystery deepens further when one considers that although this is the case, Dedhramae possesses certain letters and sounds that Eltranika does not, for example /s, kh, hh, rh, w, ē, ū/ and the written schwa. Certain other letters missing in Eltran ika are simulated by two or more letters, e.g. /j/ by /dzh/, /au/ by /aō, a-u/ or /aü/ as appropriate; and certain sounds may not occur in certain positions in Eltranika words. Furthermore, the very name "Eltranika" must be a Dedhramae word, since in Eltranika it would be "Elhtranika" (although it may commonly have been pronounced as written in Dedhramae).

The key to this mystery is contained within the text, in which there is confusion expressed between two possible meanings of a phrase. In Dedhramae these are "walaye" and "walt a yīā"; in Eltranika they are "hwlāra" and "hwaltāyī". Even paraphrasing the second Eltranika rendition to give "hwlerāyī" it is still clear that the two Dedhramae words resemble each other more than the two Eltranika words. Thus the confusion must have arisen in Dedhramae and subsequently been translated into Eltranika.

This implies that it is Dedhramae which is the original, and aboriginal language; and Professor Baldon has put forward the following theory to account for the similarities and differences between the two languages:-

In his theory it was at an era after the time of Silamon the Old that a new people came to the land; or alternatively that the Dedhramae speakers invaded a new land. This new people dropped their old tongue and took up speaking Dedhramae, or at least spoke Dedhramae as well; but Dedhramae was a tongue vastly different to their native one, with strange sounds and a strange grammer, neither of which they could master. Consequently, once they became a community separate from the Dedhramae speakers they took to speaking Dedhramae with such sounds as they could manage, and with their old language's grammar and syntax. This pidgin Dedhramae evolved then into Eltranika.

This model does not answer all the questions, nor are all satisfied with it, but it has become accepted as standard.

Of the words of the text itself, it is the same in all three languages. The part we have seems to be the start of a philosophical or maybe theological discussion with later added commentary. Unless further documents are found it seems that unfortunately we shall never know who were those with the Sight, what this Sight was, or what type of "school" the School of Brodwa was.

The text runs as follows:

¹Three bad men went to the water. ²One of them was very quickly given the land by a man. ³He accepted it. ⁴It is his land. ⁵The second want to be able to read and write. ⁶He said "hello" to me.

⁷These are the words of Silamon the Old. [ Commentary: ⁸Silamon is thought to have been the last of those with the Sight.] ⁹In them is contained the wisdom of the world. [¹⁰What is this wisdom? ¹¹It has been said that these words are the remains of a story of the creation of the World. ¹²Is this wisdom? asked the wise. ¹³It is a greater matter than that. ¹⁴The mind of Silamon is unknoweable. ¹⁵These are words, said Filbar, to describe aspects of the mind for which there are no words. ¹⁶Who shall know his brother's mind? ¹⁷Let us examine all meanings and the truly wise shall discern Truth.]

¹⁸The tradition of Brodwa holds that the last sentence should not read "Dhil ō yaei 'walaye'" ("He said 'hello' to me") but that this is a corruption of "Dhil ō yaei sid walt a yīā" ("He told me to read the remnant"). ¹⁹What remnant is this? ²⁰It is said that it was the interpretation of Brodwa that this is a conjuration to read this text so that it should not be forgotten; and therefore the school of Brodwa reads it every year. ²¹Why should it not be forgotten? ²². Because in the future one will come who shall be able to understand it wholly.

The Dedhramae Text

Orthography

Consonants

The orthography used is largely Latin-based, i.e. c and g are always hard (and in 'cat' and 'gag' respectively). Exceptions include:

Consonant:	Pronounciation*:
dh	this
gh	(vocalised 'kh')
kh	loch
lh	'l' gargled in the back of the throat
ng	sing
rh	'r' gargled in the back of the throat
th	thistle
zh	treasure

Vowels

Vowel:	Pron.*:	Vowel:	Pron.*:	Vowel:	Pron.*:
a	pat	à	father	ae	high
e	pet			ei	hey
i	pit	ì	peat
o	pot	ò	toad	oi	boy
u	good	ù	food	ə	<schwa>

* According to Received Pronunciation.

Because juxtaposed vowels occur frequently in both languages, diaereses are generally left out except where needed to disambiguate (for example, between 'äei' and 'aeï'). Occasionally a dot is similarly used to show where 'dh' are pronounced separately.

Similarly, because most of the verbs are atensal, schwas are omitted to stop the text cluttering up with them. If you see two consecutive consonants and the second one is an 'n' or an 'l' the chances are there's a schwa between them. A few schwas are explicitly denoted (with 'ə').

The text

Indexing is given in the form <block-number>.<line-number>, reading leftwards. A parenthesised work indicates one for which the English and Dedhramae equivalents have become separated by a line-break.

1.1                                       1.2
1. Three bad men went to the water. 2. One of them was very quickly given
ar. Gl ken mas ter a nā.          bar. Pn aeleng heng ara īn ōs

                   1.3
the land by a man. 3. He accepted it. 4. It is his land.
a lā i mor.      ken. Brl sō styō.  det. Bl stō la soae.

1.4                                                      1.5
5. The second wants to be able to read and write. 6. He said hello to me.
fig. Thōn-tōn-wl ec vl a bara.                  mat. Dhil ō yaei "walaye".

                                  1.6
7. These are the words of Silamon the Old. 8. Silamon is thought to have been
sok. Bl zos a dhrīas Silamonae    a Dwe.  eg. Hn Silamona bilt

            1.7                                                      2.1
the last of those with the Sight. 9. In them is contained the wisdom of the
a chre īn   ōs īn a derna.      len. Jrn s'ōs a faghra               f'

                                                     2.2
world. 10. What is this wisdom? 11. It has been said that these words are the
nya.  ten. Bl wa faghra zo?   artn. Dhin             sid bl dhrīas zos a

                                   2.3
remains of a story of the creation of the world. 12. (Is this wisdom?)
yīas īn za f'a talta               īn a nya.  bartn. Thil a mas faghrie

2.4                             2.5
(asked the wise.) 13. It is a   greater (matter) than that. 14. The mind
bl zo faghra?  kentn. Bl ō stra menel el zō.              detn. Bl zha

           2.6                                        2.7
of Silamon (is) unknowable. 15. These are words, said Filbar, to describe
Silamonae  tōn-ghnlan.   figtn. Bl zos dhrīās, dhil   Filbara sid tadhrīalt

                    3.1                                              3.2
aspects of the mind for which there are no words. 16. Who shall know (his)
brarās zhae         blan da dhrīās stauei.      matn. Ghrul awa      zhā

                                                3.3
brother's mind? 17. Let us examine all meanings and the truly wise shall
bae sōae?    soktn. Malter as zhrhaltas hare    ec ghrul a mas faghrie hreng

                3.4                                     3.5
(discern) truth. 18. The tradition of Brodwa holds that the last sentence
hrā.           egtn. Dhl ghribria Brodwae sid           thnōn-wnan a dhrīoia

                              3.6
should not read "Dhil ō yaei 'walaye'" ("He said 'hello' to me") but that
a chre "Dhil ō yaei"         'walaye'" sru sid

                        3.7
this is a corruption of "Dhil ō yaei sid walt a yīā" ("He told me to read the
bl zo i tnāra in        "Dhil ō yaei sid walt a yīā".

                      4.1
remnant"). 19. (What) remnant (is) this? 20. It is said that it was the
        lentn. Bl     wa zo yīa?    bartony. Dhn sid bol a

4.2                                                 4.3
interpretation of Brodwa that this is a conjuration to read this text so that
debrerhoia Brodwae sid bl zo hwella                 sid walt dhrīoida zo sid

                           4.4                           4.5
(it) should not be forgotten; and therefore the School   of Brodwa reads it
tōnanuntan                 ō; ec plostīa wal a dulrhalta Brodwae styō

            4.6
every year.         21. Why should it not be forgotten?    22. Because
hare voida. bartony-ar. Thnōn-tōnanənan yeng stō? bartony-bar. īn

4.7
in the future one will come who shall be able to understand it wholly.
kul ul ō tōn-ghroiəl āreng aua styō.

The Dedhramae Text—Eltranika Translation

(21) Note that whilst Dedhramae uses a relative pronoun here (and in sentence 15), Eltranika largely avoids use of relative pronouns by using "-i" in the previous couplet/clause, which achieves the same effect but <photocopier error>.

The Dedhramae Text—Old Xoltek Translation

So why then is it that all three scripts on the Dedhramae Codex are written from right to left? Simple answer, really; it's because I'm left-handed and didn't want to smudge my fountain-pen ink as I wrote.

The Dedhramae Text—Rationale

Well, why not? It's fun.

Once upon a time, my little brother, then aged about twelve, called me into his room and declared he'd invented a language. "What!?" I cried. "Show me." It turned out that what he'd actually come up with was an alphabet. I patiently explained the difference to him, and returned to my room. However, this had started something off within me. I'd tried inventing both languages and alphabets beforehand; I thought let's try again and see just how well I've learned from my mistakes.

I'd been thinking about how inefficient English was, and decided to see if I could come up with a minimalist language and alphabet.

On reflection, this was probably doomed to failure from the start. Compare language with proteins. Now both language and proteins are evolved entities, and as such have to build on what they've already got; they're not allowed to redesign from scratch; but even if they're trapped in local minima to an extent this way, by and large both of them have had so long to optimise themselves that you're unlikely to do better by trying.

In the case of proteins, scientists had observed that proteins' tertiary structures—the shape the linear amino acid chain folds into— are held together together by the weakest of margins; frequently now more than the energy of a single hydrogen bond. So they set out to design a protein that had more internal salt bridges holding it together, which should be more thermodynamically stable and less easily denatured (what happens to the white of an egg when you cook it).

But the protein they came up with up could form so many possible internal salt bridges that it had no proper tertiary structure, existing in a state of flux known as the Molten Globule state, a state which proteins normally pass through only transiently whilst folding into shape.

And so it was with Dedhramae. The letters are designed to take up the minimum amount of room on the page—this isn't fully apparent from the Codex, where I had to stretch the lines in order to justify them—but even so compare the amount of room taken up by the Dedhramae, Eltranika and Old Xoltek parts of the Codex. But, and this is the big but, the letters are so similar that written Dedhramae would be a dyslexic's nightmare; though not minimalist at least the letters of the Latin alphabet are readily distinguishable.

And as for spoken Dedhramae and Eltranika; well if you listen to real life languages which are very verbose—such as Serbo-Croat -- you'll see that speakers of them tend to speak very fast, thus achieving the same overall rate as speakers of English. The chances are that Dedhramae and Eltranika would be spoken in a slow manner for the same reasons.

There's other reasons why Dedhramae and Eltranika wouldn't work in real life, but I'd have to reread The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker, in order to remember. ;^)

But it was fun.

And in any case... Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennett once wrote on rec.arts.sf.composition:

   : Jonathan L Cunningham writes:
   :
   : >>Tolkien was a professor, but he had to make the word up.
   :
   : >How come that when I make up a word, it doesn't get into the
   : >dictionary, but when Tolkien does, it does? That's discrimination
   : >against the unfamous (but probably not against the infamous).
   :
   : No, it hasn't anything to do with that—this falls into the "leave
   : this to the experts, don't try this at home." Tolkien was a
   : philologist and invented languages the way some people secretly eat
   : chocolate. When he invented a word, it stayed invented.

I do one better—I do both. ;^)

Any would be welcome!

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© copyright Michael Grant 1995