In a 1984 interview published in The Space Gamer magazine, he said he first became interested in inventing languages when, as a child in St. After that, every fantasy RPG features an ability for willpower.Languages were what most interested Barker himself about Tékumel from a young age. In 1978, with the release of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Gary expanded Wisdom’s portfolio to include willpower. Arduin adds an Ego ability score as a measure of willpower. And nothing is more fun to figure out than the detailed invented languages and linguistic histories.Empire of the Petal Throne (1975) replaces Wisdom with Psychic Strength.In all, Barker published grammars and word lists for five invented languages: Tsolyáni, Yan Koryáni, Livyáni, Engsvanyáli, and Sunúz. Tsolyáni (and other) language texts and proper names also appeared in later source material, magazine articles, and short language studies. Citation needed Both Feist and Wurts have ruled out any further novels featuring these characters.This is the original manuscript for Empire of the Petal Throne, produced in the Spring of 1974 in a limited and confidential run of fifty copies for the.The first Tékumel RPG work, EPT, included elaborately drawn inscriptions in Tsolyáni (and one snippet of Classical Tsolyáni), allusions to the modern and classical languages of all the five empires, a pronunciation guide to Tsolyáni, and a guide to the Tsolyáni script. He said he could not consciously remember any real-world influences on Tsolyáni and that the knowledge of his invented languages had “just come.”Page 1 of 16 EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE: TALISLANTA CHRONICLES MODIFICATION (1st ed., Bard Games, 1987, Sechi, et al) Talislanta Chronicles gaming system used without permissionThe feudal Empire of Tsuranuanni as depicted in the series, features social and political institutions which show a clear influence both of feudal Japan and Imperial China, while some of the characters have Nahuatl-influenced names. Barker had invented the Tsolyáni script by age 12, before learning any other languages.
![]() However, I have never seen a version marked “Imperium Publishing Company” and I believe that Imperium simply sold the self-published version, which has a plain turquoise cover and is marked “Richfield Printing.”Dave Arneson’s Adventure Games reprinted the two volumes of the language book in 1981. The Imperium Publishing Co., which we discussed in our last post, advertised “The Tsolyáni Language” in late 1977 and Brett Slocum’s excellent index of published Tékumel works lists the self-published version and an Imperium version separately. Barker in 1977 self-published a detailed two-volume, 120-page grammar, phrasebook, and dictionary of Tsolyáni, which is now collectible. Barker also published an article on the ideographic kázhra ve ngakóme script, which I have not read.A language book was an early Tékumel product. EPT includes the Salarvyáni book title “Guppíshsha Hrakkúq Mazhzhátl” translated as the “The Book of the Fragrant Garden”), but no extensive word lists. A few scattered words of these latter six languages appear in the Tékumel canon (e.g. Even if you have no interest in the Tsolyáni language per se, reading through the phrasebook provides excellent background.A version of the audio file originally included with the Adventure Games edition is still available on Brett Slocum’s site. Carl Brodt’s Tita’s House of Games reprinted the books in 1999 along with a CD version of the audio cassette.The language guide is a wonderful window into Tsolyáni culture. The only differences were that the new version had a well-drawn but stupid cover, some slight differences in the front matter, and an advertisement in the back of each volume for a few Tékumel products published by Adventure Games. The interior pages of the Adventure Games edition are identical to the self-published version. ![]() (Note: I don’t own and have never read this article.) 2 (1982) included an article on the kazhrá ve ngakóme script. The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. Tita’s House of Games in 2000 republished the primer in hard copy. A PDF version of the primer later appeared on the Blue Room website. The Tékumel Journal published “The Tsolyáni Primer” by Curtis Scott (1982). Tongits play4 (1982) included an article on the Mu’ugalavyáni script. The Journal of Tékumel Affairs Vol III No. 3 (1982) included an article on the Classical Tsolyáni script. I am not clear when the descriptions of Thu’úsa and Bednálljan scripts first appeared but they are marked copyright 2006 and were made available on the RPGNow website that year (also not collectible). The grammars of Engsvanyáli, Sunúz, Livyáni, and Yan Koryáni were published as PDFs on the old Blue Room website in 1994 (not collectible). The novel Man of Gold (1984) included notes about languages, especially Llyáni. Tsolyáni, Mu’ugalavyáni, Yan Koryáni, Salarvyáni, and Livyáni) and briefer mentions of many others. The Swords & Glory (S&G) Sourcebook published by Gamescience (1983) included extensive descriptions of the languages of the Five Empires (i.e. 5 (1983) included an article on the ancient Llyáni script. Ghatóni, Pecháni, Hijajái, Tsoléi’i, and Milumanayáni are all Khíshan languages as well. Briefly, the languages of the five empires all are in the Khíshan language family, which derives proximately from Engsvanyáli, which in turn descends from Bednálljan, which is a child language of Llyáni which may have a relation to a “dubiously identified” tongue of the Three States of the Triangle. The latest Tékumel RPG does not included a chart of the Tsolyáni script.(Some Diacritic Vowels Written with the Consonant “B”)I will not recapitulate here all of Barker’s descriptions of the languages of Tékumel. There is also a perception among the latter-day Tékumel community that the languages are off-putting to new players. Joe Saul’s Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne (2005), but as Barker got older he stopped creating new languages from whole cloth. (Based on circumstantial evidence, I also speculate below that Barker might have invented Yan Koryáni before Tsolyáni, but there isn’t enough evidence to establish this firmly.) Though Barker denied any influences from real-world languages, there are enough traces of real-world influence in Tsolyáni to establish that Barker must have read some books on ancient languages as a child.Jeff Berry has documented that Barker owned the following books:— Ancient Egyptian Religion by H. He also makes many scattered references to other languages and argots throughout the canon.For many more details, see the S&G Sourcebook.How did Barker dream up this extensive material and what real-world roots can we detect in these languages? To consider this question, it would be useful to examine the languages Barker spoke himself.Barker said he invented Tsolyáni “by age 12.” Though this precise year may be an exaggeration or inaccurate recollection, it’s fairly clear that Barker had largely completed the Tsolyáni script before he went to college. Some of the latter are written in the ideographic kázhra ve ngakóme script.Barker also mentions two isolated families unrelated to the three families above: Qùótl, which is spoken in the jungles to the west of Mu’ugalavyá, including M’mórcha and Pe’é which is spoken in the Nyémesel Isles. And in any case, Barker probably underestimated the variety of sounds that would accumulate as the corpus of published languages grew.In addition to Khíshan, there are two other major families represented on the portion of the globe well mapped in canon Tékumel: the Nlü’ársh family, which includes Pijenáni and the language of the N’lüss and descends from the tongue of the Dragon Warriors and the tonal Aom family, which includes Saá Allaqiyáni and some other northeastern languages. However, the Indic languages , which were Barker’s academic focus, share many sounds but have been written in many varying scripts and are a better basis of comparison.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorShirley ArchivesCategories |