Heaven's Vault Language Thread

[skysailor]

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii so I have been completely obsessed with the videogame Heaven's Vault for a good few weeks now (or longer? when did I start this?) and the language stuff is SO INTERESTING. I have been filling up my Bullet Journal with all kinds of language notes~ and just finished the game for the second time. I want to organize my language notes into a more searchable dictionary and squeeze as much spoken-word language out of the game as possible (the game is full to the brim with written language, but spoken is in drips and drops). And also I like yammering about it. So, thread! I will try to CW spoilers for anything other than the language itself, but I might miss some.

[skysailor]

I have broken up the radicals/characters into four subtypes: core radicals (cores) that create the central meaning of a word, modifiers (mods) that influence the meaning, semi-cores that sometimes act as cores and sometimes as mods, scaffolds that glue words together, and numbers because idk numbers work weird. I think I am going to organize the dictionary by core radical, and roughly order the core radicals by stroke count.

Cores (stroke count):
know (1)
stone (1)
circle (1)
up (2)
creature (2)
water (2)
time (2)
life (2)
hold (2)
food (2)
harm (2)
divide (2)
join (3)
light (3)
speak (3)
tool (4)
plant (4)
truth (9+)

Semi-Cores:
person (used often as a mod)
place (used often as a mod)
be (core when used solo or with not-, but usually a mod when it appears in compounds)
and (core when used solo or with not-, but usually a mod when it appears in compounds)

Mods:
thing (noun marker)
do (verb marker)
back (past-tense marker)
forward (possibly a future tense marker, I am not sure)
quality (adjective marker)
idea (marker for an abstract concept)
question (question-word marker)
of/as (possessive marker)
many (plural marker, but most words instead have a single form for both singular and plural, like fish)
not (can also mean opposite-of-[word])

Scaffolds:
. (usually means that/which/who/where)
\ (word ending marker, only used for some words)
: (joinder, used to list multiple concepts a word encompasses)

Numbers:
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
(the internet says they are more, but I have not seen them in the game yet)

Examples of how cores, mods, scaffolds and numbers work together:
person.know (person who knows) - deity
of.person.know (of person who knows) - deity's/of deity
do of.person.know (action of person who knows) - bless
thing do of person.know (noun for action of person-that-knows) - blessing

place person.know (place [for] person who knows) - temple
do move\ (action of movement) - go
person.do move place person.know (person who goes [to the] place for person who knows) - pilgrim

question person - who
person.1 - I/me
of.person.1 - my
thing person.1 - this
time.thing person.1 - now
place person.1 - here
person.many1 - we/us
of.person.many1 - our
thing person.many1 -these
person.2 - you
of.person.2 - your
thing person.2 - that
place person.2 - there
person.many3 - they/them
of.person.3 - their

do hold\ - hold
thing up\ - air
do hold:thing up (hold air) - breathe
do back hold:thing up - breathed

thing light\ - light
thing not light\ - darkness

do speak\ - tell/say
do back speak - told
thing do speak - voice
thing do speak person - tongue
do idea.speak up - sing
thing idea.speak up - song
creature.up - bird
creature.thing idea.speak up creature.up - songbird
do speak not speak - write
thing quality do speak not speak - word

[skysailor]

I now have a spreadsheet for my dictionary! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing Have not finished entering in all the words I know yet. So that Excel doesn't fuss at me, I've changed the scaffolds into words:

. that
\ end
: with

The dictionary is organized by what I consider to be the core core radical of each word, the one most central to its meaning. But, realistically, some words should be double-listed, so I'll probably go back and do that. Eventually I'm going to figure out how to better organize the entries, because I think there should be a standard flow for the most common iterations that get applied to nearly every core - ex., now we're going to talk about all variations on the core that start with "thing", then "do", then "place", etc.

[skysailor]

Sheet updates:
- Added some words
- Improved the format
- Tried to line up overlapping concepts between word chunks to better show how the words develop out
- Double-listed some words for ease of reference

[InspectorCaracal]

Oh wow this is even more in-depth than I thought from when I played, this is amazing!! (I was really enjoying it but then I got scared off by The Possibility Of Losing,,,)

[skysailor]

Things that might reassure:

• Spoiler

  You can't really lose the game, even people intentionally playing as clueless as possible have managed to get to the endgame. You can piss people off so much they won't talk to you, though.
  The game is designed to be replayed and even has Aliya's vocab knowledge carry over to the next playthrough and generates new texts for you to translate.

[InspectorCaracal]

Things that might reassure:

• Spoiler

  You can't really lose the game, even people intentionally playing as clueless as possible have managed to get to the endgame. You can piss people off so much they won't talk to you, though.
  The game is designed to be replayed and even has Aliya's vocab knowledge carry over to the next playthrough and generates new texts for you to translate.

Ooooooohhhhhh, it's THAT kinda game. That does reassure a lot!

[skysailor]

Here are the conversations in spoken Ancient I've encountered so far in the game. These are pretty plot-important, so spoiler-tags ahoy!

I'm definitely missing at least one of the gate conversations. I'm probably also missing some of the dialogue from Myari's office, since how much dialogue you get depends on how many spoken words Aliya has when the conversation activates.

[brackets = my translation guesses]
(parentheses = official translations the game gives)

Things the Elboreth gate says (minor spoilers):

Spoiler

Aliya (stands in front of gate)
Gate: Set boyauki refar. ("It's asking where you want to go.") [Say your destination.]

Aliya (no weapons): Catkis.
Gate: Ieni-hua ke. [Welcome, person.]

Aliya (holding weapons): Catkis.
Gate: Re-menya m-ieni-hua. [?-??? not welcome.]
Aliya (offers the gate a weapon): You want this?
Gate: En. [Yes/true.]
(weapon disappears)

Aliya: Kibenya. (Holy water goddess.)
Gate: Ieni-hua salle-cataliti. (Welcome, pilgrim.)

Shit the

Spoiler

labor-monger

yells at you (who says it is more spoilers than what's said):
Farwet sallehua!

Conversation with

Spoiler

Six

in Myari's office (major spoilers):

Spoiler

Myari: Sliset. (Silence.)
Myari: Ri-angset. [?-? say.]
Six: Set siang. [Say question.]
Aliya: Sallehua. [Traveling ?.]
Six: Sallehua i ya huameke. Re ari. [Traveling ? blesses ?-creature-person. ? ?.]
Aliya: Huameke. [?-creature-person.]
Six: Huameke i ya hua bo renfar. [?-creature-person blesses ? of ?move.]
Aliya: Catkis. [Palace.]
Six: Catkis i hua bo yekiphys-el. [The palace does ? of the ? moon.]
Aliya: Malifar. (Fall.)
Myari: Mya? Malifar. (Robot? Fall.)
Six: Wetsalle malifar ori Elboreth. [?travel fall ? Elboreth.]
Six: Catiokis malifar bo meke siboar Humenyaqi-cat. Set siang. [Iox fell from creatures/people ?of? the Withering Palace. Say question.]
Aliya: Heaven's Vault?
Six: En-ang.
Six: Bo-cataliti ifarali mifar boali. [The people of the temple teleport and stay on.]

End-game conversation (major spoilers):

Spoiler

Eagle: Ieni-hua, mykis. (Welcome, overseer.)
Eagle: Ari en-bas ali ti.
Eagle: Yaiki i-ensi ifarali? (Do you wish to vault?)
Eagle: Sifar... (Tell me...)
Not 100% sure about sifar/tell-me.

[skysailor]

Dictionary version 2.0: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

It still doesn't have all the vocab from my notebook copied in, but it goes at least as far as the first version of the dictionary. This one has me better trying to figure out how to organize word-pieces (see Parts of Writing below), has extensive cross-referencing and mirrored entries across different core radicals, and also has "breakdowns", aka my best (and often loose) guess at how you get from radicals to word.

Parts of Writing:

Scaffold (scaf):
of
that
end
with

Who/What/When/Where (w):
person
creature
plant
tool
time
place

Marker (mark):
thing
idea
quality
do
question

Number (#):
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
up (when used in a numerical context)

Tense (tense):
back

Negator (neg):
not

Multiplier/Pluralizer (pl):
many

Cores and Semi-Cores (core):
and
be
circle
know
move
stone
divide
food
harm
hold
life
up
water
join
light
speak
truth

Sometimes things act more like cores than their usual and go into the core columns instead of where they'd normally go. (Ex., "back" usually just marks tense, like do-back-speak = tell-past = told, but it acts more like a core sometimes, like in thing-back-end = story.)

[skysailor]

Oh yeah spoiler warning for Dictionary II - the "uncertain" tab has dialogue for context in the Context column. Could always hide the column, I guess... I'll do that next upload.