Let Me Just - Tumblr Posts
I am over 275,000 words into writing a Mandalorian based fanfiction, and already have like 30 pages of book two written.
and I haven't been able to get anything significant written for it in over a year
THE STRUGGLE IS REAL
Edit: yo i just realized i could do a shameless self-advertisement for said fic so here ya gooooo
The struggle is Real
thinking about how narinder only remembers the versions of his siblings that he didn't maul. there's a pretty popular (with evidence, one could argue) theory/headcanon that the bishops had their crowns mask over/aid them with their disabilities. but in the lamb's cult, they wouldn't have their crowns anymore, and they'd have to learn how to deal with their disabilities the way mortals do.
im specifically thinking of narinder seeing leshy bumping into things, heket struggling to speak, kallamar needing to learn sign language, and shamura unable to remember most things at any given time, and realizing. "I did that. That's my fault. That's what I did that to them all that time ago."
and then, on the other end, each one of the siblings seeing/realizing that the way narinder's arms and hands shake, why he has "bad pain days", the reason why he can't really do any fine tuned detailed work with his hands the way the lamb's followers can, is because they did that to him. "We did that to him. He's in pain because of us."
all of them realizing, "I hurt you and you hurt me and nothing will ever be the same. But despite everything, I still love you."
and all of them are too scared to ask, "do you still love me?"
3am art post: Firefighter Miguel for the discord family! Very much nsfw so you get a crop 😮💨
Oh and some quick and dirty sketches
i love this picture because every time I am reminded just how horny i drew Toshi’s hand (and he deserves it)
Mando'a Dialects in- and out-of-universe
Outgame (irl) there are several different versions of Mandoʻa: The Shadows of the Empire Soundtrack version (Notron Cant), the Republic Commando Soundtrack version (Jesse Harlin's text), the Old Republic version (as seen in SWtOR or KotOR), the Republic Commando Novels version (Karen Traviss' version), the Mandoa.org version (their forum members made up a lot of extra vocabulary), several different tumblr versions, and the Disney version (as in the TV-series Star Wars Rebels). They all have distinctive similarities (the Notron Cant is an exception), but unfortunately, they also all somewhat differ. Since Karen Traviss published her Mandoʻa version online, complete with a dictionary, the Mandoa.org version and most tumblr versions are based on her version. Her version in turn is vaguely based on Jesse Harlin's version-the first Mandoʻa on file, so to say. I myself see them as different dialects or development stages of the same language.
See, Karen Traviss' Mandoʻa and also most of Mandoa.org's Mandoʻa uses Basic (i.e. English) grammar with a Mandalorian vocabulary, so I call that version Soldiers' Pidgin. It's obviously (ingame) a creole language that came into existence after the Mandalorian diaspora. It is this Soldiers' Pidgin that Kal Skirata taught his children (the Nulls) and possibly also the language that the Alphas taught other, younger clones (e.g. the CC class or the ARC-troopers) as a "secret" language to hide from the Kaminoans. If it was used by the clones in such a way, the GAR should have its own dialect. The different internet versions of Mandoʻa all seem to be based on Karen Traviss' dictionary, so I see them as different dialects of the Soldiers' Pidgin. The same reasoning can be applied to Disney's Mandoʻa.
The language of Vode An, Graʻtua Cuun, Darasuum Kote, etc. on the other hand uses a grammar that differs from Basic. It is an older form of Mandoʻa, probably the Mandoʻa spoken on Mandaʻyaim before the Excision - seven-hundred years ago. It's a lot more interesting (for me, at least). I propose calling it Classic Mandoʻa. It has its own grammar; it has a similar vocabulary as Soldiers' Pidgin, but with distinct and sometimes varying pronunciations (sometimes depending on the rhyme or rhythm of the song); it has a lot of epitaphs and kennings and references and can have very flowery phrasing. It's used, in or around the time of Palpatine's Empire, predominantly in older songs and poems. An irl-equivalent could be Shakespearean English.
We can probably view the (archaic) tOR version as vaguely translated into modern Mandoʻa (Soldiers' Pidgin, probably) since there is exactly no way that the language changes so little in over 3000 years. I also propose that the Basic back then has very few similarities to the Basic that's spoken during the Skywalker Wars.
Missing is a sort of current, modern version of Classic Mandoʻa. I think that is (sadly) very realistic. A society that is so broken up by something like orbital bombardment would likely, over the centuries, develop several different creole versions and try to keep their original language as unchanged as possible, leading to exactly the combination described above.
Here are some other people's thoughts:
Resources
Su Cuy' gar! Olarom anade.
(Hello, welcome all)
These are my main resources I use to learn and translate Mando'a!
Mando'a.org
Dictionary
Mando'a Wookiepedia
Dictionary
Mando'a lessons
YouTube, verbally teaches Mando'a
Albertamando
Tiktok, teaches Mando'a
Memrise course by Mando'a lessons
Oyu'Baat
Discord server dedicated to learning Mando'a culture, language and teaching others the same way.
