Post/Author/DateTime	Post
WayneTheGame 11-21-05, 07:22 PM	Firstly, I'm only posting this here (instad of the Mature board) because it doesn't actually deal with anything in the Book of Vile Darkness, but Dark Speech is mentioned in that tome. Anyways I have a Warlock character and I think it would be cool to have some epithets and such in Dark Speech to use while roleplaying (not to mention I need one for Baleful Utterance). However, I'm not sure what "Dark Speech" is exactly (and its not really described aside from being so evil a language that even demons don't use it often)... what would be a similar language to look at to get a couple of phrases or words? Sort of how Quenyan or Sindarin would be good for Elvish or Khazalid (sp?) for Dwarvish.. I looked at Latin (you know, chanting in Latin is always a staple of the big, bad evil wizard guy) but its too fluid. So any thoughts on a language that I could look at to get some cool sayings? :D
OctoberRaven 11-21-05, 07:39 PM	I know only one word of Dark Speech: Ni! Seriously though, it's probably one of those fictional languages with 243 consonants and 2 vowels, and every fifth word is spoken backwords. In other words, there's probably no form of speech like it, except maybe Abyssal and Infernal.
WayneTheGame 11-21-05, 07:40 PM	Probably, but hey its worth a shot to try and find comparable languages so I can have some "authentic" roleplaying, eh? :)
BlaineTog 11-21-05, 07:44 PM	I looked at Latin (you know, chanting in Latin is always a staple of the big, bad evil wizard guy) but its too fluid. So any thoughts on a language that I could look at to get some cool sayings? :DSure. Masticated Latin. It's what most fantasy writers use when they want something like this. Take a latin phrase that means roughly what you want, replace every other vowel with a K, T, X, Z, or R, and throw in apostophes with abandon. If that doesn't sound nasty enough, keep adding apostophes and consonants until it does. It's not like anyone's gonna check to make sure your utterances are accurate.
Alisair Longreach II 11-22-05, 03:21 AM	You could try googling for foreign swear words. Russian swear words are supposed to be especially nasty.
a_psh 11-22-05, 05:34 AM	You could try googling for foreign swear words. Russian swear words are supposed to be especially nasty. Ah, except Russian is a lot more fluidthan it's represented in movies (try filming a movie where the characters "speak" English or Spanish by trying to sound out words and you'll see how rough it sounds, too); I think one would want a "jaggier" language here. Also, the swear words don't quite fit what you want with Dark Speech... swears for body parts, things to do, and places to stick things, but not really curses for getting your soul sucked out by thousands of abyssal demon-tongues or something any more than English curses already support that. * - This is totally a word, and a carefully defined linguistics term to boot. I swear! *shifty eyes*
Lord Gwydion 11-22-05, 06:01 AM	Well, since you already brought up Tolkien, why not use the Black Speech of Mordor?
Amaril 11-22-05, 07:58 AM	Well, since you already brought up Tolkien, why not use the Black Speech of Mordor? And that's exactly what Dark Speech is supposed to emulate.
WayneTheGame 11-22-05, 09:41 AM	Really? I wasn't sure if that was the "feel" of Dark Speech (should have seen it coming though :P ). Thanks guys, I will definatly look into Black Speech.
Callista 11-22-05, 09:56 AM	A good Google search should do it. There aren't a lot of words of Black Speech out there, because Tolkien didn't really work on it all that much; the biggest bit of text we have is the inscription on the One Ring. Ash nazg durbatulûk, Ash nazg gimbatul, Ash nazg thrakatulûk, Agh burzum-ishi krimpatul! ...and another quote, from an Orc, basically insulting another Orc... Uglúk u bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh, skai! Beyond that, only single words. Anyway, you should be able to make up your own words and phrases that sound a lot like Black Speech if you style it after these. Tips: --Consonant-heavy, especially s, k, t, p. Emphasize the sibiliants. --Spoken back in the throat, like German but more forcefully, and with the words blurred together. Growl your R's. --Does not have words for positive concepts (i.e., you couldn't say "love", just "lust"... you might be able to say "ally" but not "friend"). --Accented syllables are more forcefully accented than in any language I have encountered. --Tends towards simple rhythm (iambic), with "beats" like a war drum.
WayneTheGame 11-22-05, 10:11 AM	Thanks :D I actually printed out a small "course" on Black Speech from a website.. I forget its name but it had a lot of LotR resources. So I'll see what I can come up with. Worse comes to worse I can just kind of growl some gibberish and call it Dark Speech. My girlfriend suggested I use Parseltongue (from Harry Potter) but there's no real language available (it was, apparantly, actually designed!), just random hisses since everything said in Parseltongue in the books are translated to English. So maybe I'll throw a few long s sounds in there as well...
Stardrake 11-22-05, 10:35 PM	I have read that Tolkien based Black Speech on Turkish--but I'm no linguist (just like most Yanks!) and can't be sure. Might be worth looking into. And if all else fails, there's always Klingon.... :P
Callista 11-23-05, 12:30 AM	Mmh... Klingon just sounds like I'd imagine orcish to sound like. It sounds tough, but not quite evil.