Talossan Language
From Kingdom of Talossa
The Talossan language (El Glheþ Talossán/El Glheþ Talossan) is a constructed language created by R. Ben Madison for the micronation he founded, the Kingdom of Talossa. It's also the official language in the other Talossan micronation which split off in 2004, the Republic of Talossa.
Talossan is the best-known example of the micronational language genre of conlang. It's spoken in the Kingdom of Talossa (El Regipäts Talossán), a "kingdom" with its own parliament and a bicameral legislature, founded by Madison on December 26, 1979, and also in the Talossan Republic (La Repúblicâ Talossán), formed in 2004 by ex-citizens of the Kingdom.
In the Republic the language is kept alive by the Talossan-Language project, which built an online dictionary English-Glheþ, Glheþ-English; and the formation of l'Icastolâ, the School of Talossan Language in the Talossan Academy of Arts and Sciences that was established 9 August 2005 with the "The Talossan Academy of Arts and Sciences Act" approved by the Parlamînt.
Talossan is one of the best-known artistic languages on the Internet. It garners perennial interest and respect from online conlangers and conlang aficionados. Of particular interest to them is its large vocabulary -- with over 28,000 words in its official dictionary, it is one of the most detailed fictional languages ever invented.
The language has currently gone through an arestada (reformation) in the Kingdom, but remains the same with some other's celebrating Talossa's unique heritage. This arestada has taken away many of the diacritics and strange letter combinations.
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Linguistic Properties
Classification
Talossan is a constructed Gallo-Romance language, inspired by French and Occitan, and very naturalistic (with quite a few irregularities). In an effort to create a kind of "national mythology" for his micronation, Madison discovered in 1985 that one of the Berber sub-tribes of Morocco was called the Talesinnt, and decided that Talossans were "inexplicably and inextricably connected somehow to Berbers." This resulted in the Talossan language being inspired by Berber languages. More recently however, words are derived from Romance roots and given a French/Provençal feeling to them (some see a Romanian influence as well), but there is no one set of rules for derivation through which every word can be predicted. The word "Talossa" itself is not Romance, but Finno-Ugric in origin: it comes from the Finnish word for "inside the house" (Talossa began in Madison's bedroom.).
| Latin | Sic enim Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret, ut omnis, qui credit in eum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam æternam. |
|---|---|
| Talossan(Pre-Arestada) | Car Dïeu så ameva el mundeu, që o zoneva à sieu viensplet Figlheu, svo ath qitevri qi créa în lo fost non pieriçar, más tenadra la vidâ eternál. |
| Talossan(Post-Arestada) | Car Dieu sa ameva el mundeu, qe o zoneva à sieu viensplet Figlheu, svo ath qitevri qi crea in lo fost non pieriçar, mas tenadra la vida eternal. |
| French | Car Dieu a tellement aimé le monde, qu'il a donné son Fils unique, afin que quiconque croit en lui ne périsse point, mais qu'il ait la vie eternelle. |
| Provençal | Car Diéu a tant ama lou mounde que i'a douna soun Fiéu soulet, per que tout ome que crèi en éu noun perigue, mai ague la vido eternalo. |
| Catalan | Car talment ha estimat Déu el món, que donà son Fill unigènit, a fi que tot el qui creu en ell no es perdi, ans tingui vida eterna. |
| Spanish | Porque de tal manera amó Dios al mundo, que dió a su Hijo unigénito, para que todo aquel que cree en él, no perezca, mas tenga vida eterna. |
| Portuguese | Porque assim amou Deus ao mundo, que lhe deu seu Filho unigénito, para que todo o que crê nêle não pereça, mas tenha a vida eterna. |
| Italian | Infatti Dio ha talmente amato il mondo da dare il suo Figliuolo unigenito, affinchè chiunque crede in Lui non perisca, ma abbia la vita eterna. |
| Romanian | Fiindcà atât de mult a iubit Dumnezeu lumea, cà a dat pe singurul Lui Fiu, pentru cà oricine crede în El, sà nu piarà, ci sà aibà viatza vecinicà. |
| Rhaeto-Romance | Perche cha Deis ha tant amâ il muond, ch'el ha dat seis unigenit figl, acio cha scodün chi craja in el non giaja a perder, ma haja la vita eterna. |
| English | God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. |
Writing System
The Talossan alphabet is Roman, but contains three letters not found in English -- the Germanic scharfes S (ß), thorn (þ), and eth (Ð, or, in lowercase, ð). These three, however, have become formal or archaic, having been replaced in modern Talossan by the equivalent digraphs ss, tg, and th, respectively. Without counting these three letters, and without the letters K, W, and Y, which are not found in Talossan, the pre-arestada language is expressed using 23 letters adorned with seven diacritical marks -- the acute accent (é), grave accent (è), circumflex (â), tilde (ñ), cedilla (ç), umlaut (ä), and bolle (å). The post-arestada language does only uses the circumflex as a stressed form of vowels with umlats, and does not use the tilde or bolle at all. The Talossan alphabet is as follows, but letters not used in the post-arestada form are marked with an asterisk (*) and the forms only used in the post-arestada forms are marked with a carrot (^)
Criticism
Criticism of Talossan includes:
- That words and grammar are just made up at random, thus having no regular derivation from Latin, as claimed by Talossans by calling it a Romance language.
- The use of too many unnecessary accents and letter combinations, although a series of recent revisions within the arestada (see above) attempted to remedy this problem.
Example of the language
The following are the first two tercines of the first stanzas of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ode to the West Wind translated in El Glhetg Talossán (pre-arestada):
- Ô vînt traversâ salvátx, tú ånd d'Otogñheu së eßençù,
- tú par qissen ûnvidat presençù els föglhâs morteschti
- sînt drivadâs, come spiritzen d'iens encantéir escapînden,
- vermél, és negreu, és brançéu, és gripesc roxh,
- pestidonça-cünsütadâs plenitüds: ô tú,
- qi apoartás à lor auscür þivereu vuode.
Post-arestada:
- O vint traversa salvatx, tu and d'Otogneu se eßençù,
- tu par qissen unvidat presençù els föglhas morteschti
- sint drivadas, come spiritzen da 'n encanteir escapinden,
- vermel, es negreu, es brançéu, es gripesc roxh,
- pestidonça-cünsütadas plenitüds: o tu,
- qi apoartás à lor auscür þivereu vuode.
State of the language
Currently the two Talossan communities are starting collaborations on the language in order to expand the corpus. They also are collaborating to make available downloadable and public domain courses for all conlangers who want to discover the language. The holder of the copyright on the previous grammar (La Scúrzniâ Gramáticâ del Glheþ Talossán) has put it offline.
La Comità per l'Útzil del Glheþ
La Comità per l'Útzil del Glheþ was officially founded on 14 November, 1983, by Talossa's first King - King Robert I. The Commitee for the Use of the Language remains one of the most vibrant of all Talossan institutions, and holds the honor of being Talossa's oldest and largest cultural organization. The CÚG's mission is to continue to develope, preserve, and promote the Talossan Language.
| Xhorxh Asmour | Presedint (President) |
|---|---|
| Quedeir Baron Castiglha | Doyen (Senior Member) |
| King John I | Patron dal Comità (Patron of the Committee) |
| Cresti Matáiwos Siervicül | Member |
| Prüm Baron Tepistà | Member |
| Nicola Casálmac'h | Member |
| Aspra Liara | Probationary Member* |
| Matáiwos Vürinalt | Probationary Member* |
| Dréu Gavárþic'h | Probationary Member* |
According to a recent change in the CÚG charter, all members must go through a six month probationary period before they are counted as full members of the CÚG.*
L'Icastola
L'Icastola is the Republic's language institute. L'Icastola currently does not recognize the Kingdom's 2007 Arestada, which changed much of the orthography of the Talossan Language.
