Trolllanguage

Alternian / Mredotch

Literally: “Brainrot”

In Alternian, we don’t say ‘stop the presses.’ We say ‘scornfully impale the messenger,’ and I think that’s beautiful.

Allow me to provide a window into the fascinating and exotic culture of the aliens known as trolls from the planet Alternia in the cult classic webcomic Homestuck!

In the comic, the trolls speak English with a set of stilted and quirky affectations. Here, I develop those ‘clues’ into a hypothetical native language.

This page contains everything there is to know about my Alternian: A gloss of a translated text, with fun facts on grammar and vocabulary, that I made up as I went along.

Page 3958 Excerpt

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

CG: HEY GUESS WHAT, BIG NEWS.
CG: LIKE HOLY SHIT STOP THE PRESSES THIS IS A HUMONGOUS DEAL SORT OF NEWS.
GC: BL44444RRRRR WH4T 1S 1T
CG: YOU'RE NOT THE RED TEAM LEADER.
CG: THAT'S ME.
CG: I'M THE LEADER.
CG: IT'S BEEN DECIDED.
CG: ON AN OFFICIAL BASIS.
GC: OK SO 1 GU3SS 1M SUPPOS3D TO M4K3 4 B1G ST1NK 4BOUT TH1S 4ND S4Y W4H W4H 1 W4NT TO B3 TH3 L34D3R >:[ >:[ >:[
CG: WHAT, NO.
CG: I MEAN YOU CAN BUT IT WON'T DO ANY GOOD BECAUSE I'M THE LEADER AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO EVACUATE THROUGH YOUR PROTEIN CHUTE ON THE MATTER.
GC: W3LL 1T M4Y SURPR1S3 YOU TO KNOW TH4T 1 DONT G1V3 4 CR4P WHO G3TS TO B3 L34D3R B3C4US3 UNL1K3 YOU 1 4CTU4LLY H4V3 4 FUCK1NG SM1DG3N OF M4TUR1TY 4ND S3LF R3SP3CT
CG: THAT'S A LIE, YOU'RE MORE OF A MELODRAMA SPAZ QUEEN THAN ME AND YOU KNOW IT AND THIS STUFF YOUR SAYING IS A PRETEND STUNT.
CG: YOU'RE LIKE A ROCKET PROPELLED SPAZ MAGGOT SPRINGLOADED UP THE ASS OF A PSYCHEDELIC FUCKING FREAKOUT WEASEL ON IDIOT DRUGS SO LETS NOT PLAY MAKEBELIEVE GAMES HERE.
CG: LEADER.
CG: ME.
GC: UUUUUUUUHNG
GC: K4RK4T 1 DONT C444R3
GC: YOU C4N B3 TH3 STUP1D L34D3R 1 JUST W4NT TO PL4Y TH1S G4M3
CG: OK, GREAT.
CG: IF IT'S ANY CONSOLATION I HAVE SELECTED YOU TO BE MY SECOND IN COMMAND.
GC: R333334444LLY????
GC: SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON >;] <3 <3 <3
CG: FUCK YOU OFFER RESCINDED.

My Translation

glickChotatiks [GC] ik chekniaGutchbunnit [CG] vizfrag

CG: SLINOOT, THOGIKAL EKUMENTA.
CG: SNIK EKCHENGRUTHGA JIBRUSTIFLEH IK CARTSNIB EKTENCHENGLITTA SMONGLEH.
GC: JL33333HHHHH SL1L1 GOK3 J4TS
CG: UNSEN EKTETSLIMEGHASSEL BROO NANGA HOSS.
CG: HAPPA SNIK REE.
CG: JI MEGA SNIK REE.
CG: LOKHRIKGUNCH SOFSUM.
CG: SCHIG.
GC: PR1SH SN1K UNGOPT3G1 T1NKZ R33Z3N GR1N OTHOHUNZ1 H1TSUK33 OOT OOT R33Z3N BR33T GR1N M3G4SOPL1 >:[ >:[ >:[

P.S. Up top, click the tab below the image to see my translation in viscerally immersive TrollType.

Basis of Alternian

The whole deal with trolls is that their culture is cartoonishly violent, fascist, and brutal, and their biology and environment grotesque and insectoid. Language, of course, reflects the priorities and ideals of its speakers.

An early concern is the sound inventory. I decided Alternian simply has the exact same sounds, letters, and spelling conventions as English. But I’m creating the words with a certain texture in mind: basically, the guttural, liquid, sneering, threatening tone that eeeeeevil creatures have on TV.

Gloss

“carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]”

“glickChotatiks [GC] ik chekniaGutchbunnit [CG] vizfrag”

glick-chota-tiks	ik	cheknia-gutch-bunnit	viz-frag
dragon-hang-playful	VIC	cancer-spread-plague	INIT-troll

frag, troll: The most important word: Just as in English, the name of the species is also a verb for harassing people online. (And is the way their instant messaging client announces any interaction.)

Word order: Clauses generally go subject-verb-object, like in English. But there are also post-word determiners, like in Japanese. So there’s more than one way to convey the same idea. For instance, you could say ‘Vriska bullies Tavros’ or ‘Tavros ik Vriska bullies.’

ik: An essential determining particle, ik marks the preceding noun as the ‘victim’ of an action.

Tense: Tense is marked with prefixes on the verb. Here, viz- marks the action as being initiated.

Trolltags: For realism, I wanted their screen names not to translate perfectly. With Karkat [CG] we lose the idea of being a scientist, but with Terezi [GC] we say more about what she hangs and how she feels about it.

Karkat [CG]

“Hey guess what, big news.”

“Slinoot, thogikal ekumenta.”

sli-noot,	tho-gikal	ekumenta
PROG-chestburster,	very-rotten	information

noot, chestburster: The image of a parasite bursting from one’s chest is an idiom for new, exciting events.

Tense-Noun: You can apply a tense prefix to a noun to invoke an associated event. Ex: long-googir, ‘PAST-slime,’ commonly refers to last day’s sleep in sopor slime. sli-ooji, ‘PROG-drone,’ could refer to someone currently being culled by an enforcement drone.

gikal, rotten: Rottenness correlates to importance and prestige.

“Like, holy-shit, stop-the-presses, this-is-a-humongous-deal sort of news.”

Lit: “[This info] is traitorous, murder-the-messenger, covered-in-grubs.”

“Snik ekchengruthga, ji-brusti-fleh-ik-cartsnib, ektenchenglitta-smongleh.”

snik	ek-chen-gruthga,	ji	brusti	fleh	ik
HAS	not-not-disobedient,	one	message	rustblood	VIC

cart-snib,	ek-ten-chen-glitta	smong-leh
impale-scornful,	not-not-not-few	grub-rust

Prepjuncerbs: Somewhere between prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs, this magical part of speech expresses a relationship between two things or ideas. I will gloss them in caps to emphasize their grammatical function. Here, snik would best translate as “contains,” but is used figuratively: The descriptors that follow apply to the ‘info’ from the previous line.

not-not: Trolls would rather say ‘not hate’ than ‘like.’ Indirectness through negation shows toughness. So much so that multiple layers of negative prefixes have gotten fused onto words over the centuries. ektenchenglitta is now an indivisible unit meaning ‘a hell of a lot.’ Only Troll Shakespeare would just say *glitta to mean ‘few,’ or *chenglitta to mean ‘many.’

ekchengruthga, traitorous: I figure the primary Alternian curse words would be references to rebellion.

Caste case: Trolls live in a caste hierarchy based on the literal colors of their blood, ranging from wretched crimson to royal violet. I decided that all references to a person would carry a caste suffix. There is no caste-neutral word for ‘person.’ (Referring to a multi-caste group involves a hazardous calculation of relative status.)

fleh, rustblood person; smongleh, rustblood grub: Here, Karkat chooses the lowest caste to refer to a figurative casually-slaughtered messenger and figurative troll grubs swarming a source of rot.

Three word device: One of the troll-isms in the comic is to call a skateboard or wheelchair a ‘four wheel device,’ a bike a ‘two wheel device,’ a gun a ‘multi bullet device,’ etc. I’m incorporating this number-component-category pattern as much as possible. A ‘one message rustblood’ would be a messenger.

Violence: Violence is the cornerstone of troll culture. In fact, trolls have an extra form of romance based on vitriolic rivalry instead of affection. I decided that all references to violence would be viscerally specific, and carry a suffix that shows the emotion or intention behind it. There is a big difference between a hate-stab and a love-stab.

Terezi [GC]

“Blaaaaarrrrr what is it?”

Lit: “Blaaaaarrrrr what’s on my shoes?”

“Jleeeeehhhhh slili goke jats?”

slili	goke	jats
shoe	LOC	what

goke: Locative particle. “At shoe, what?”

Karkat [CG]

“You’re not the red team leader.”

Lit: “You won’t be whipping the red team.”

“Unsen ektetslimeghassel broo nanga hoss.”

un-sen	ek-tet-sli-meg-hassel	broo	nanga	hoss
you-teal	not-FUT-PROG-whip-overbearing	red	color	team

“That’s me.”

“Happa snik ree.”

happa	snik	ree-Ø
that	HAS	me-[caste]

ree-Ø: Karkat keeps his own blood color secret. I decided he would ungrammatically omit the caste suffix for himself.

snik: Another use for this prepjuncerb: Here it links a role to the person filling it.

“I’m the leader.”

“Ji mega snik ree.”

ji	mega	Ø	snik	ree-Ø
one	whip	[person]	HAS	me-[caste]

“It’s been decided.”

Lit: “The matter has been decisively gutted.”

“Lokhrikgunch sofsum.”

lok-hrik-gunch	sofsum
PST-gut-decisive	matter

“On an official basis.”

Lit: “Completely and mercilessly eviscerated.”

“Schig.”

schig: The great part about studying a language is finding those untranslatable words that express something so beautifully and succinctly.

Terezi [GC]

“Ok, so I guess I’m supposed to make a big stink about this and ‘say wah wah I want to be the leader.’”

Lit: “Ok, in other words, according to you I go on a huge rampage and whine ‘wah wah I want to whip.’”

“Prish, snik ungoptegi tinkz reezen grin othohunzi, hitsukee ‘oot oot reezen breet grin megasopli.’”

prish,	snik	un-goptegi	tinkz	ree-zen	grin	o-tho-hunzi,
ok,	HAS	you-mystery	POV	me-teal	PRP	big-big-rampage,

hitsukee	'oot oot	ree-zen	breet	grin	mega-sopli'
whine	'wah wah	me-teal	SHOULD	PRP	whip-maniacal'

snik: Here, Terezi uses snik to combatively link Karkat’s statement to her own reply, meaning ‘Oh, so what you’re saying is...’

ungoptegi: Terezi sardonically uses ‘mystery’ instead of a caste suffix for Karkat.

tinkz: This particle marks the preceding party as the ‘point of view’ of the statement. ‘According to you...’

grin: Marks the perpetrator of an action; carries an implication of malice. (Then again, so does the entire language.)

othohunzi, huge rampage: A noun referring to an event or action can be a whole sentence. If we ignore the particle phrases, the first clause just says ‘according to you, rampage [happens].’

breet: Another prepjuncerb; it usually expresses some kind of preference, desire, or correctness.

me-teal SHOULD PRP whip-maniacal: Here, the verb ‘whip-maniacal’ could be a whole clause by itself; it acknowledges that a whipping is occurring. ‘me-teal SHOULD PRP’ forms a particle phrase, expressing that the speaker wants the noun (herself) to be the perpetrator.

Karkat [CG]

“What, no.”

“Preck, tenenen.”

preck,	ten-en-en
(surprise),	not-not-not

“I mean, you can, but it won't do any good, because I'm the leader, and that's all there is to evacuate through your protein chute on the matter.”

Lit: “In other words you are free, but that's limited because I will be whipping, and that contains everything from your protein chute that should be expelled for any reason, on that matter.“

“Snik unzen jaz ektenzhok, sonik ree tetslimegagunch, snik ekenthowoot unzen thots musalmik riklon seel bantsh breet orbul, sofsum kyuch.”

snik	un-zen	jaz	ek-ten-zhok,	sonik	ree-Ø
HAS	you-teal	be	not-not-free,	BUT	me-[caste]

tet-sli-mega-gunch,	snik	ek-en-tho-woot
FUT-PROG-whip-decisive,	HAS	not-not-very-all

un-zen	thots	musalmik	rik-lon	seel
you-teal	multi	protein	POSS-chute	FROM

bantsh	breet	orbul,	sofsum	kyuch
expel	FOR	any_reason,	matter	RE