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Name: G. Dalton Peck听
Advisor: Prof.听James Andrew Cowell
Class: LING 1020: Languages of the World
Semester: Spring 2023
LURA 2024

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While over 6000 identified languages have naturally evolved within human cultural groups, individual human imaginations have expanded that number further. While some have embarked to create a language in an attempt to speak to the divine, bridge cultural gaps, or communicate entirely logically, many of the invented languages that the general public could identify were created to help tell engaging stories in imagined worlds. The fictional settings of stories from The Lord of the Rings to Star Trek to Game of Thrones have all become known for introducing detailed new languages for fantastical cultures. For a series of science fiction novels that I, myself have been planning, I sought to include my own invented language for a unique and peculiar alien species: the Y鈥橳ekriy.

First off, who are the Y鈥橳ekriy? Who speaks this language? The Y鈥橳ekriy hail from Kepler 186f, an exoplanet discovered in 2014 by Astronomer Elisa Quintana of NASA鈥檚 Kepler Space Telescope. While it may not be as scientifically rigorous as some other approaches, I used an animal already found on Earth as a starting point. Given the kind of planet I assessed Kepler 186f to be (one with a consistently colder climate, in which Primates wouldn鈥檛 likely evolve), I thought about what kind of Earth animal would most likely evolve enough intelligence to develop a civilization there. My answer was Beavers, whose language, I imagined, would heavily rely on dental consonants and 鈥榟igher pitched鈥� vowels. I also thought it would be interesting to imagine an ecosystem without predator-prey dynamics, leading to a civilization that never resorts to violent conflict and instead uses diplomacy, persuasion and clever statecraft to shift the balance of power. All told, I imagined the Y鈥橳ekriy as a peaceful civilization of skilled orators and musicians, unified long ago into a cohesive culture, but also one that has struggled to advance beyond a rigid social hierarchy.

So how does this all translate (pun semi-intended) into the structure of the Y鈥橳ekriy language? To start, I imagined it as a highly organized and structured language. This can perhaps best be seen with Y鈥橳ekriy nouns, which rigidly adhere to a system of classification by prefixes. For example:听听 听

• Feminine names, titles and pronouns all begin with the prefix /k鈥�-/, admittedly something of a staple of science fiction languages. K鈥橳hril is an example of a feminine proper name, while 鈥榢鈥檛hal,鈥� meaning mother, also functions as a political title in the Y鈥橳ekriy鈥檚 family-based matriarchal society. The masculine equivalent prefix is /r鈥�-/, and /y鈥�-/ is used in the gender-neutral or collective case, often to describe a group.
• Place names and types are denoted by /ik鈥�-/, with Kepler 186f鈥檚 Y鈥橳ekriy name being Ik鈥橳helas and 鈥榠k鈥檒anth鈥� being the word for 鈥榗ity鈥�.
• Food items and other agricultural products are denoted by /ti鈥�-/. Ti鈥檙eketh is a hot beverage, similar to tea but made with pine needles, while ti鈥檛hlet is a dessert made by layering a syrup-like glaze onto something analogous to a shortbread cookie.

Verbs are often characterized by long vowels, denoted in latin script by repetition, and related verbs will often bear a morphology similarity and use endings and suffixes to denote degree of intent and specific variation to the verb, for example:听听 听

• Riil = think
• Riilta = speak
• Riith = argue, reason, persuade

All told, a sentence in Y鈥橳ekriy may look like:

• K鈥檔ith riilta鈥檏e atrith k鈥檔ith riil鈥檚a.

鈥淪he does not say what she thinks.鈥�

• Re鈥檔ith liirk鈥檚a ti鈥檙eketh ithas it ek鈥檚elna.

鈥淗e makes tea in the morning."

Another notable feature of the Y鈥橳ekriy language is that, with the Y鈥橳ekriy valuing music as much as they do, their language includes separate variations for regular speech and for musical lyrics. Lyrical Y鈥橳ekriy changes the spellings and pronunciations of many words, allows for greater freedom听in stressed vs. unstressed syllables, and includes a number of filler prefixes purely to aid with rhyming. Perhaps the largest difference is found in word order; prosaic Y鈥橳ekriy, like English and many other languages, uses subject-verb-object word order, while lyrical Y鈥橳ekriy structures sentences according to subject-object-verb order, strictly enforcing every poetic line ending with a verb so as to aid in rhyming. Interestingly, however, in direct contravention to an identified universal linguistic rule, lyrical Y鈥橳ekriy preserves the prepositions found in its prosaic variant.

Overall, imagining the Y鈥橳ekriy language has been a fascinating exercise in hypothetical language evolution, and I鈥檓 nowhere near done with it!

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Title Image Credit听

Peck, Nan.听"Y'Tekriy."听

References

1. Quintana, Elisa et al. 鈥淎n Earth-Sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Cool Star.鈥� Science. 18 April 2014. .