Chapter Text
I. Abstract
For several years now, I have been working on my version of the language spoken by the Lasat species as seen in Star Wars Rebels (and potentially other series soon!). In this… essay? Linguistics paper? Autism infodump?, I would like to formally introduce the result – which I have simply called Lasat – to the fandom.
This chapter will include: a pronunciation guide, a brief grammar summary, a discussion of my influences (including Anath_Tsurugi’s Lasana). Chapters 2-4 are excerpts of translated dialogue from my fic, Moonchild (Little Ghost); chapters will 5-12 translate dialogue from my other long fic, Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. I may translate other texts I have written, but if so I will likely add those to the Lasat Language Project collection as separate fics. If people are interested I’m open to translating text from other people’s fics as well, though that may be a long time in the future.
For the translations of my fics, I will treat the dialogue almost like a play script, taking out any of the prose around it so that it’s easier to treat as a whole. For those interested in the linguistics, I will then provide an IPA transcription, gloss, and any translation notes that may be relevant. It’ll look something like this:
CHARACTER:
“The original line of dialogue as it is in the fic.”
The line of dialogue translated into Lasat.
/a phonetic transcription in IPA/
# a gloss following Leipzig glossing rules #
* Any translation notes if needed. *
---dashes to separate lines of dialogue---
I hope that’s not too confusing for those who just want to read the translations! And don’t worry if you don’t know anything about linguistics. I’ve tried to make the language I use as accessible and jargon-free as possible. In some cases, I’ve included links to sources where you can find out more about a given linguistic term if you wish.
Or, if you are just here for the translations, rather than all the extra info, feel free to go to the relevant chapter once you’ve read the pronunciation guide! Perhaps one day I’ll even be able to provide audio recordings so people can better understand my intentions for the pronunciation. We’ll see.
Either way, I myself am but an amateur linguist, but I’m fairly satisfied with Lasat as a conlang. Expert linguists, feel free to offer constructive criticism. Otherwise, I hope this is interesting.
II. Pronunciation Guide for Those that Don’t Know What a Phonology Is
In this section, I’ll assume my reader is an English speaker who knows nothing about linguistics. If you do know about linguistics – if you know what a phonology is, what the word romanization means, what the IPA is all about – then please feel free to skip this section and go straight to section III.
This is a guide to how to pronounce Lasat as it is written in the italics. The way that I’ve spelled Lasat is largely similar to English, though there are a few differences.
To start with, here are all the consonants that have only one pronunciation that is unchanged from English:
m as in man
n as in never
p as in parent
b as in big
k as in king
f as in feel
v as in very
z as in Zeb
j as in juice
l as in lime
r as in read
y as in yellow
Next, here’s the consonants and combinations that may need more clarification:
t is pronounced as in tank unless followed by h.
The combination th is pronounced with a “soft th” as in think.
t is also sometimes followed by an s, even at the beginning of words – in English, the combination ts at the beginning of words will usually be pronounced as just an s, such as in the word tsunami, but in Lasat both the t and the s should be pronounced.
d is pronounced as in dark unless followed by h.
The combination dh becomes a “hard th” as in that or them.
d is also sometimes followed by a z; both the d and the z should be pronounced.
g as in good. In English, there is the concept of a “hard g” versus a “soft g”. This does not exist in Lasat; there is only the “hard g”. A word like geshar, “to eat”, would still be pronounced with the hard g as in get.
‘ as in uh-oh: The apostrophe represents what we in the biz refer to as a glottal stop. When you pronounce “uh-oh”, you will find that your throat closes briefly between the “uh” and the “oh”. That noise – or, rather, non-noise – is treated as a consonant in some Lasat syllables.
s is pronounces as in sun unless followed by h.
The combination sh is pronounced as in shoot.
The combination ch is pronounced as in charge. The letter c is not used otherwise in Lasat.
There is a difference between r and rr. As I mentioned above, r should be pronounced as in rain; rr, on the other hand, is a “rolled r”. It’s difficult to describe it using only English words; if you are familiar with Spanish, it is a similar rr as in perro.
Finally, let’s cover the vowels. Lasat has short vowels and long vowels – the easy way to pronounce these is when you see the long vowel version, just hold it for an extra beat compared to the short vowel.
i rhymes with tee. For that reason, the long version is spelt ee. You may also see this long vowel spelled with a y in words that I have inherited from Anath_Tsurugi and others.
e is as in bed. The long version is spelt eh.
a is as in llama. The long version is spelt ah.
o is as in pore. The long vowel is spelt aw.
u rhymes with stool. For that reason, the long version is spelt oo.
There are three vowel combinations that become a new vowel sound (what we in the biz call diphthongs). These are:
ai rhymes with pie; ei rhymes with way; au rhymes with cow.
For any other combination of vowels, pronounce them separately. For example: as you likely know, Zeb’s last name Orrelios is pronounced “o-rre-li-os”.
Now you have all the tools you need to know how to pronounce any given Lasat text. You’re most welcome to refer back to this section at any point if you need to. The following two sections will be aimed at people with more of a familiarity with linguistics, so it’s up to you whether you read them or skip them.
III. IPA Chart(s) For Those That Do
I am aware that this chart doesn’t match completely with the way I described the pronunciation above, and may not match perfectly with how I transcribe the language later on. Firstly, I wanted to make the pronunciation guide as clear as possible. Secondly, I don’t always remember to put, for example, /t͡s/ instead of /ts/. I’ve done my best but occasionally there will be mistakes! Thirdly, particularly with the vowels, I've accepted that there will be a fair bit of variation when pronouncing them, especially with accent differences in English, and that's okay. This is a broad transcription intended as a general guide.
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Consonants |
Bilabial |
Labio- |
Dental |
Alveolar |
Post- |
Velar |
Glottal |
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Nasal |
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m /m/ |
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n /n/ |
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Plosive |
p /p/ |
b /b/ |
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t /t/ |
d /d/ |
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k /k/ |
g /g/ |
‘ /ʔ/ |
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Fricative |
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f /f/ |
v /v/ |
th /θ/ |
dh /ð/ |
s /s/ |
z /z/ |
sh /ʃ/ |
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Affricate |
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ts /t͡s/ |
dz /d͡z/ |
ch /t͡ʃ/ |
j /d͡ʒ/ |
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Lateral approximant |
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l /l/ |
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Approximant |
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r /ɹ/ |
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Palatal: y /j/ |
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Trill |
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rr /r/ |
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The vowels, particularly the romanization of the long vowels, are… not how I would have done it if I were coming up with a language like this from scratch, thanks to the spelling that canon uses (more on that later), but this is what I ended up with:
|
Vowels |
Front |
Back |
|
Close |
i /i/ ee or y1 /i:/ |
u /u/ oo /u:/ |
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Close-mid |
e /e/2 eh/e:/ |
o /o/3 oh /o:/ |
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Open |
a /a/ ah /a:/ |
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The diphthongs are ai /ai/, ei /ei/, and au /au/.
1 Ananth_Tsurugi’s Lasana uses y – the most notable example I can think of is in the word alkyrreh, which they seem to translate as “(have) mercy”. However, as I have not yet found a pronunciation guide or IPA for Lasana, I have no way of knowing whether this is meant to be pronounced as an actual /y/, /i/, /ɪ/, or even somehow /j/. They seem to use i and ee more or less interchangeably, which only makes the addition of y more confusing.
If you know anything about this, I’d love to hear it! I have borrowed the word alkyrreh, so I’d love to know what the original intent for the word was. For Lasat, I have gone with the pronunciation /al.ki:.re:/, and treated any similar words I borrowed from Lasana the same.
Otherwise, as I struggle to pronounce /y/ correctly, I have not included it in Lasat.
The syllable structure is: (C)(C)V(C)(C).
Stress is on the leftmost heavy syllable of the word, or if the syllable weights are equal it falls on the first syllable. Weight is determined based on whether a syllable contains a long vowel, a coda consonant, a coda cluster, or some combination of the above. Ignoring onsets, the below is a weight scale to determine which syllables are heavier than others – heaviest at the top, lightest at the bottom.
VVCC VVC
VV
VCC VC
V
Stress does not change with the addition of affixes (see below).
IV. A Very Brief Overview of the Grammar
Standard word order for sentences is Subject – Verb – Object.
Negation comes after the word it modifies (usually the verb). Adjectives are placed before the noun they describe, while adverbs come after. Many adjectives and adverbs are only distinguished by their position in a sentence. And yes, this can introduce confusion in longer sentences over which role a given word is playing; meaning is reliant on context. Adjectives can be nominalised by suffixing the appropriate case (ie. treating them as if they were a noun).
Lasat also has a variety of adpositions to specify location in space and time. These usually come after the word they modify.
The copula is dropped whenever possible. When it does appear, it inflects irregularly – see below. It is mostly used to indicate tense, aspect, and mood if no other verbs are present.
There are a host of question words (“what, when, where”, etc), which I won’t cover here. A polar (yes/no) question is indicated by a rising tone at the end of the sentence. The word order does not change, so “Will you go to the house?” is structured as “You will go to the house?”
(This is a simplified example ignoring tense marking and case to get the point across.)
Lasat has a base-8 counting system, as they have four fingers on each hand. Numbers act like adjectives, in that they precede the noun they modify. Like adjectives, they can take on their own case marking or plurality to be used as nouns where they would not otherwise. (Think of the English “dozens” or “hundreds”).
Plurals can be created by suffixing -ru to any noun. Cases can also be suffixed to any noun. The chart for how plurals and cases interact is below. There is some irregularity in how these case suffixes are applied depending on the word ending, as well a fair amount of nuance in how these cases are used, however I won’t go too much into detail about that.
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Cases |
Suffix |
PL |
|---|---|---|
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NOM |
|
ru |
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ACC |
kad |
rukad |
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GEN |
ahn |
rahn |
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DAT |
tum |
rutum |
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LOC |
rab |
ruab |
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ABL |
dash |
rudash |
Pronouns also can have cases applied, although the forms for these are simplified. There is also a reflexive pronoun nau, “self”, which does not inflect for plurality or case (except in one very specific situation which will come up in the translation section).
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1 |
1PL |
2 |
2PL |
3 |
3PL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Ø |
ve |
veru |
zi |
zir |
shu |
shur |
|
ACC |
vek |
veruk |
zik |
ziruk |
shuk |
shuruk |
|
GEN |
vahn |
verahn |
zhahn |
zhirahn |
shun |
shurahn |
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DAT |
vet |
verut |
zit |
zirut |
shut |
shurut |
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LOC |
vera |
verua |
zira |
zirua |
shura |
shurua |
|
ABL |
vesh |
verush |
zish |
zirush |
shush |
shurush |
Tenses, and the Imperfect and Imperative moods, may be suffixed to any verb. The below is the standard conjugation table. The Present Imperfect can nominalise verbs.
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|
Ø |
IPF |
IMP |
|---|---|---|---|
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Ø |
|
li |
fadh |
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PAST |
dem |
lidem |
fadhem |
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FUT |
mai |
mali |
fadhi |
The copula resa, “to be”, inflects irregularly.
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|
Ø |
IPF |
IMP |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Ø |
|
reli |
refa |
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PAST |
redem |
redli |
redhem |
|
FUT |
rema |
remli |
redhi |
I think that’s all the basics! If I’ve forgotten anything I’ll be adding more to this section when I think of it. I hope that all makes sense.
V. My Processes and Influences
In this section, I will go into some of my criticisms of Lasana – for which I can only deeply apologise. As will become clear, I respect Anath_Tsurugi as one of the fandom greats, and I very much appreciate Lasana as the impetus for me to start working on this in the first place. I don’t want this to be any kind of callout post or bullying, nor do I want to come across as a nitpicky know-it-all. I simply felt that I could apply my existing linguistics/conlanging knowledge (minimal as it may be) to build on what they had created.
Like many in the Rebels fandom – and specifically the Kalluzeb corner – I discovered their version of the Lasat language which they called Lasana through their fics, and am a big fan of their work in general. As many of you know, their influence has been so great that “Lasana” has now become more or less the default way of referring to the Lasat language across the fandom.
Indeed, I started my journey to Lasat when I wanted to translate a few sentences from Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft into Lasana. However, despite attempting to document both every example of Lasana I came across and referring to this webpage, there were some gaps in both the lexicon and grammar. Looking back, I probably could have commented on one of the fics in question to ask, but instead as I have some experience in conlanging myself I began to think about making my own version.
I originally intended to treat Lasana as a base, and expand on the vocabulary and grammar with my own work. However, I soon ran into issues with this. First of all, as mentioned in the IPA section, I wasn’t quite sure how any of the words were meant to be pronounced. Secondly – and I realise this sounds a bit harsh especially coming from me – the grammar came across a little amateurish. Yes, I know it’s all for fun, and it doesn’t actually matter to anyone but me; these are just points I feel like they could improve on in their future conlanging endeavours.
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The infinitive forms of most verbs seemed to end in ir, er, and ar, which is… that’s just Spanish. Not every verb conjugation system is going to have Spanish verb endings, especially not a language that evolved on another planet.
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It seemed to have a lot of repeated sounds – particularly a, s, and n – to the point where it felt unbalanced. Some sentences are inevitably going to end up having a lot of similar sounds in them, it happens to me as well, but there comes a point where it becomes too much.
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There seemed to be a more or less one-for-one correlation with English (and maybe some Spanish) based on the translations they provided. This is not necessarily a bad thing: in the conlang community, we call this a relex. It’s a common pitfall for beginner conlangers, as in the beginning people don’t know the full extent of the weird and wonderful things language can do.
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The translations I found gave the impression of being made up as they went along, which led to inconsistencies at best. I of course realise that they probably put in a lot more work than I see on the surface, and I’m sure their idea of what Lasana was did develop over the years. Most conlangs just need an initial base of root words and to have the grammar planned out before they start translating so that they don’t end up as English in a fancy hat.
I still wanted to honour Lasana as one of the OGs of the fandom, though, so I decided to treat it as an influence on Lasat – in a similar way to how French or Latin has influenced English by loaning a lot of words. In-universe, I see no reason why the two languages couldn’t have been spoken side by side. Humans in the real world have multiple languages, so why not Lasats?
Anyway, I got to researching, and quickly found that Wookieepedia lists the language of Lasats as, well, Lasat. I thus decided to name my version of the language Lasat both to reflect this and to differentiate my language from Lasana.
I first had to decide what consonants and vowels I would use in Lasat. For this, I started off by collecting all the Lasat words and names I could find. First, there are all four of the words listed on Wookieepedia, which I have copied over here:
Ashla—The Lasat name for the Force
Bogan—A term used by Garazeb Orrelios for dokma, creatures he found bothersome.
Ashbo—Roughly translated to "steady" or "balanced".
Karabast—An exclamation used in moments of crisis.
To this, I of course had to add the phrase boosahn keeraw, which is translated in dialogue as “the warrior’s way”. It almost goes without saying, but the words Lasat, Lasan, and Lira San got added as well.
I also added the word Bendu, as the Bendu claims he is in the middle of the Ashla and the Bogan, and it seemed logical to assume that if Lasats believe in the first two they might also believe in the Bendu.
Next, I compiled the names of every named Lasat character. They are:
Garazeb Orrelios (of course), Jaro Tapal, Chava, and Gron.
Then, I of course took some time to look at Lasana and the general vibes there.
At last, I arranged all of the phonemes in these words into an IPA chart and filled in a few of the gaps that I saw. The consonants were relatively easy, especially when I factored in the (apparent) phoneme inventory of Lasana – that’s where I got the glottal stop from, for example (though, again, it’s difficult to know how any of those words are actually meant to be pronounced, so I was largely guessing). The vowels… were more interesting.
Just from Zeb’s name, it was obvious that Lasat had /a e i o/. Since I also counted Bendu, that accounted for /u/. Five vowel system, that’s easy, right? …Right?
Boosahn keeraw.
I’ve already rambled about how completely wack the romanisation of this phrase is. I know, it’s intended to be read and understood by monolingual English speakers, but what the fuck? Why is it spelt like that when it would be almost certainly just as easy to pronounce if it was – for example – busan kiroh? Kirau? For a long time, the way it was meant to be pronounced was completely illogical to me, especially that last aw. I pronounced it to rhyme with “saw” until I rewatched the episode and realised Steve (bless his heart) pronounced the word closer to /ki.ɹa:/. Seriously. Argh.
In the end, I decided that the difference in spelling was intentional, and that the weird spellings were the romanisations of long vowels. In universe, this was probably the fault of Human linguists not fully understanding the phonology and assigning combinations of vowels to the words that made sense to them but that were not as accurate as they could have been. From this phrase alone, I got the romanisations oo for /u:/, ah for /a:/, ee for /i:/, and aw for /o:/. Yes, I know that last one is atrocious, but I’m doing the best I can with what I have. I then added eh for /e:/ from Lasana.
With my phonemic inventory decided on, I began to think about grammar. Based on the critiques above, Lasana grammar wasn’t quite right for my purposes, so I started from scratch. The one bit of grammar that I did know from canon was the above boosahn keeraw meaning “warrior’s way”. This I decided to analyse as boos meaning “warrior”, -ahn as the genitive suffix (“of, ’s”), and keeraw as “way”. I decided to make this part of the six-case system listed above. I also decided to keep tense/aspect/mood fairly simple, conjugating with suffixes.
I set out to make some words. Again, I started out borrowing a lot from Lasana, but some words hadn’t been translated into Lasana – and many of the words that had were much more complex and specific than I wanted to start with. Top tip for conlanging, don’t come up with the most complex words first: you need to start with a lot of very simple base words, and work from there. Then you can make more complex words by combining, deriving, and generally improvising on the theme of the words you have.
As it happens, though, I had an abandoned conlang called Bahatla sitting around which I borrowed some of the missing root words from – it had a slightly different phonology, like Lasana, but I adapted the words to fit Lasat. From the base of words I had set up, I began to do some short preliminary translations.
And then I ran into a source of words I’d completely forgotten about. About a third of the way into working on Lasat, I rewatched Rebels and realised that there was one more source of potential Lasat words – that is, the chant that Chava, Gron, and Ezra use to divine the way to Lira San. At that point, I already had a relatively solid grammar to work from and quite a lot of words. To be honest, I’m pretty sure the writers just shoved a bunch of random sounds together to sound “mystical” without thinking about grammar or anything. This is what I was able to parse:
Lira San koko masita… fono kati la la.
If you have a more accurate transcription – particularly if you somehow have access to the original script from the episode – please let me know. As it stands, though, it sounds like gibberish. However, I hope to figure out a way to make real words out of this eventually, as this chant does conform to my existing phonology. It doesn’t even have to conform to grammar rules – a “poetic” or (for want of a better word) “magical” chant doesn’t necessarily have to be grammatical, it could just be a series of words meant to evoke the general feel of Lira San. For example, as my version of Lasat tends to avoid reduplication, the repeated syllables koko and la la could just be, well, repeated syllables to make it sound cool.
Anyway, I took a break for a few months while life stuff was happening, and in the last few months have got back into it, bringing Lasat to the point where I feel completely confident translating the long stretches of dialogue which you’ll be able to read in the coming chapters. I’ll likely continue to develop my understanding of Lasat further, and I’m more than happy to tweak it if anyone has suggestions based on said translations. With all that said, enjoy!