Posts Tagged ‘alien dictionary’
Meniscus Science Fiction Series: the extras
As I write the Meniscus Science Fiction Series, a very enjoyable task is to update the extras in each book:
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Ancient Argenop Wisdom: every book includes an associated line of ancient Argenop wisdom. The Argenops are the gentle rodent-like aliens who befriend the Humans. They became separated from the Dock-winders, in history and sentiment, when geology (The Fault) divided En’ast from Themble. I plan to do a full book collecting the wisdom of the ancient Argenops.
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The Meniscus Solar System: This is a fairly recent edition to the books. A representation of the solar system of Meniscus includes: the two suns (Tathlet and Amblyn), the planets (Aagle, Meniscus, Di-natha and Sel), and the Meniscus moons (Cardoth roe and Cardoth grill-en).
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This is Meniscus, a planet far from Earth: this is an introductory bit, meant to introduce readers of every book to some background information about the planet Meniscus. The text includes the odd behavior of water on the planet, a description of the landscape, the various aliens encountered, and a short history of the Slain. Oddly, this is the section I have occasionally forgotten to include in every book.
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The Maps: Producing the maps of the planet Meniscus is essential to the writing since the stories are chronicles of the Human travels through the landscape. I produce the maps in GIMP, so I am able to highlight certain features of interest to a particular book. I also include a dotted line showing the path of the travels of the main characters. At first, only the east and west maps for Prell-nan South District were shown. As the adventure expanded, maps for east and west halves of Prell-nan North District were included. In the upcoming adventure Meniscus: The Reckoning, readers will see El’ban District, often mentioned in the earlier books.
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North District
(West Half)
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The Cast of Characters: I include all of the characters in the Series, whether they occur in the current book or not. The notes on the characters are meant to explore a brief history of each character: Human, Slain, Argenop, Dock-winder, Gel-head, and Others, including the pets. This section was added to books after …. at the suggestion of one of my terrific beta-readers.
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Glossary: Various unfamiliar words used by Humans in the story are explained here. They include measurements, names of plant and animal life, and items found on the planet of Meniscus. Some of these are names borrowed from the local aliens, and others are names the Humans have devised for various items, based on their experience on Earth or with other Humans.
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nodding woodland flower
corms edible
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A Condensed Guide to Gel-speak: The dictionary, at first short, has grown with each book – there are now 180 words in the Gel-speak dictionary. Although most Gel-speak is translated right in the text, readers may like to find out how an idea is expressed in Gel-speak as the translation is not literal. So ‘genetic material’ is translated as ath-elan-elana, literally ‘body memory.’
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The next book in the Series, Meniscus: The Struggle will be released in the next couple of weeks. I am looking forward to having a release and book signing in August, details to be announced here.
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If you haven’t read any of the Meniscus books, there are a couple of places to jump in to the action:
Meniscus: Oral Traditions
Meniscus: Rosetta Stone
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All my best,
keep reading!
Alexandra, a.k.a. Jane
next book in the Meniscus Series: the Gel-head dictionary
From the beginning, I have included an alien language dictionary at the end of my science fiction books. Gel-speak is the common language on the planet Meniscus. Many of my Human characters speak a little Gel-speak; the genetically-altered Humans, the Slain, speak it fluently. In each book, there are lines of Gel-speak, usually translated, occasionally not.
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The Gel-speak language originates with the Gel-heads, the most maligned of the aliens on Meniscus. The intelligent Dock-winders also have a language but it is not spoken in the presence of other species.
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By the eighth book, I have added to the dictionary until there are 170 words.
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The Gel-speak language has a grammar, or set of rules governing the words and their order. There are verbs and nouns, articles and adjectives. The Gel-speak language includes many of the same sounds as English and includes a ‘click’ at the end of certain words. Any linguists among you are now laughing.
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So, with the dictionary, you can count in Gel-speak to five:
u-hath – one
ull – two
undel – three
urth – four
v-hath – five
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Gel-speak words have ‘roots’ and build on one-another. For example, here are words associated with the female gender:
ora – light
ora-nee – home
ora-nell – female
ora-nell-elan – mother
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or, with the idea of sharing a hearth:
parelan – family
parennel – friend
pargath – hearth
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OK linguists, you can stop laughing now. This is fiction, after all.
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Want a look at the entire dictionary? Have a look at the books in the Meniscus Series, beginning here.
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All my best,
staying home (ora-nee),
and staying in my two-family (ull-paralan) bubble,
Jane
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