Chapter Text
"The Dai Bendu language was spoken by the members of the ancient Order of Dai Bendu on the frozen planet of Ando Prime. The name of the Je'daii Order was forged in that language."
"Every language is like a one-of-a-kind species. It captures unique conceptualizations of the world and has its own ways of constructing words, phrases and sentences for communicating ideas. As we compare the words and structures of various languages, we come to a greater understanding of our world. (...) Language captures how we perceive the world around us and how we relate to one another, it defines who we are. The Mother tongue language we grow up with is the one used to express what is in our hearts; our heart language."
"Studying language is invaluable for learning about other cultures and mapping their respective developments, histories, myths, customs, etc. Linguistics also helps us understand and document geographical /environmental influences, periods of migration/diaspora, origin of certain spiritual beliefs, etc. through the study of things like cognates, shared myths between cultures, language families, and tracking differences in word usage and dialects over a long period of time."
Sources:
“Tamah qa brok vaversi, ji enoah qa mikodail orhma bika!”
Or, in literally: “Outside it is cold, but we are all warm together here”, a greeting to welcome somebody home.
This work is meant to act as a guide further explaining the syntax and semantics of our Jedi Conlang Dai Bendu .
We, ghostwriterofthemachine and loosingletters, have decided to make a working conlang for the Jedi, incorporating their philosophy and culture, based on the three words we have of Dai Bendu in canon.
ghostwriterofthemachine: I am a Masters student studying English, as well as an MFA student in poetry. I speak English, Spanish, and Esperanto, and know just enough about French and German that I can cheat my way through a reading at a first-grade reading level, which makes me not nearly as cool as loosingletters. My focus is in translation studies, deep syntax and semantical analysis of English grammar, and the study and analysis of how the language you think in determines how you think — the building blocks of meaning in which you construct the world. The idea of giving that to the Jedi was way too fun to miss out on.
loosingletters: I’m a German third-year English language and literature student with a focus on contrastive syntax - comparing English and German syntax - as I’ll hopefully someday teach English. I speak German and English, have my Latinum, and remember some high school French and Spanish (and hopefully I will get started on Ancient Greek sometime soon.) I am forever in awe of ghostwriterofthemachine’s determination and skill level. I’m especially interested in how giving the Jedi a concrete language opens up new discourse topics.
aroacejoot: I am a freshly graduated college student with a BA in linguists and my focus in on phonetics and writing systems. I primarily study Japanese with some German on the side. I also have some experience with the Ainu language as well as a tiny bit with a couple Salishan languages (Sliammon and Lushootseed) but given that I am personally not Native I won't be drawing from those experiences much. I was brought onto the project after the first month to make sure that two grammar-syntax focused nerds remember that the mouth noises also need to make sense. I made my first con-script in highschool when i made a vertical cursive and ive kinda never stopped being obsessed with writing systems. I just *clenches fist* really love languages.
This project was born after a rather entertaining discussion about the repercussions of Jedi having their own language. We hereby give you permission to use this language in your own projects. We only ask that you credit us as we have put quite a lot of work into constructing this language. Either link back to this series or this work in particular or @ us on tumblr @dai-bendu-conlang. And if you have any questions, we'll gladly answer them!
That being said, we hope you enjoy our nerdy project and get inspired to make your own. Have fun exploring some of our thoughts when constructing this language.