Need help with philology!!!!! (for story)

[rokkun]

Hey all,

I have been working on a web comic story line since last year, and recently redid the whole thing in order for it to help it make more sense. Well one of the things i have been having trouble is the language.

Just a breif introduction to my plot:

There are two worlds, ours and one that came before ours, the anchient world. Men left that world or dimension and came to a world that was much more structured and advanced, filled with capitalistic ideas and political power. Now here lies my problem...

PROBLEM: I want to find out what came before latin, im relatively sure something did come before it but im not exactly sure, and that would really help add some realism to my plot, basically people speak the language of the anchients, and so it would help if i could find some sources on it...

Thanks a lot for your help!


Chris

[GT1047]

well inglish and spanish are mostly parallel but written

and said diffrently

[rokkun]

well yes, but what i am looking for is basically a language before latin... basically man left the other world and the language changed... but on the world that they left, the language evolved at a much slower pace, so im basing the language roughly off of whatever came before latin, thus my search ^ ^

[Lardmaster]

Wern't the cyric alphabets earlier... or wait .. no.. or ... blarg. How about some really old school language like phoenician or something. There were tons of weird languages.. and im anything but an expert on it ... I mean having one dominant "language" really requires a world center type deal, like Rome was or the Us is now, and I dont really know if there was much unity in this manner before Rome. So you have amny smaller nations, asian and eurpoean, African and Middle Eastern as well as greek and etcetra.. all of em with their little weird stuff. Then you go back and you have your meopotamian cultures n such. So many choices and dialects man. Lotsa choices.

But that is kinda ... weird. I want to throw some ideas out @ j00. Does it have to be pre latin. How about something that is just different. Or maybe just early latin. I mean tons of stuff sounds cool in latin. How about some celtic language. How about old Irish lol. Thats a fun one.

PS i cant spell.

[rokkun]

Hey, dont worry about it... these are comic message boards, not english literature discussion rings *snigger

Anyways, yes i am totally up for any ideas you have for me, im still in the preproduction phase and am just looking at the possibilities.. I am, in fact, looking for a rather pretty language. Thanks for the options you listed, im definitly gonna look around to see if i can find the ideal language, if you have any more ideas i would be pleased to hear 'em

[GT1047]

well im ispanic and american and we have no c or h we use ch and curse this keybord

[Rai the Cheetah]

Cheat the system! Rearrange the english alphabet by spinning a lottery machine to pop out random letters that now take a new letter form, i.e. a->k. laugh manacially and claim genius. Then call it Al-Bhed.. oh wait.. dammit.

[Lardmaster]

he he dirty language generator. USe elvish from lotr ;p
No, if you are serious about this im sure there is something you will find that fits your taste.

[rokkun]

yeah, im still looking around, something that is *COUGH EASY TO TRANSLATE *COUGH and yet an... easy language.. smooth...

but im not that picky, i just need it to have some kind of history so i can link it to the history in my story

[GT1047]

Italy???

[Lardmaster]

Oh. EASY to translate. Probably dont want gaelic then.. in any of its flavors. There are forums thatll do it, but i dont think that counts as easy. Although theres tons of fun history n mythology in the Celtic countries. Actual ancient languages are more than likely even more difficult to translate lol.

[seigfox]

Has anyone suggested sanscrit? It's reallt old, but I have no idea how hard it is to translate.

Mandarin and Cantonese are both really old, but als o REALLY hard to translate for someone not familiar with them, or at least asian languages in general.

[Lardmaster]

Well, I suppose it depends on what you like in a language... sanscrit IS old, and it links to a very interesting cultural background and mythology. But, well, I guess its personla but I jsut dont like the way it sounds spoken as much. Could be bias based on inexperience, but bah...
And I know nothing about translating to and or from, but i hear its ver difficult to do and the meaning is difficult to acertain die to the differences in our culture bases....

[VimoZ]

Geez...
Hmmm...
Of cause there is older things than latin, but its easier to find out much about latin anyway, and if u need something hard to read/translate/old in mythologi way
Old n hard tranclated... well Illiaden Odyssen is hard enough... i tried to read it when i was 14-15, i got a headache after one chapter =/ the thing is almost a poem.
Most languages (mordern ones) have some roots in latin... exept maybe the asian ones. Before latin well... there wasn't much of a high culture (in europe) before the mykanies (or something alike that, or the other almost like one...) in europe i think. Later grece culture spread about europe and middle east/central Asia (650-550). Dig up something before those years, that is... around or before the mykanies culture... or at least around ^^ (around 1400 before christ).
Maybe egypt?
Then again, that might be as hard to find something about, sanscrit sounds easier ^^ it was just an idee in my head, maybe ill try to find something instead >.>

U find loads of culture and mythologi in the ancient rome and grece anyway ^^.

[seigfox]

How about a middle american language? Like Mayan or somthing? Do they even know what they spoke like? I dunno.