Language
The language of the mri appears to be agglutinative, with each element having a single function. The apostrophes that give mri words their distinctive appearance appear to represent a glottal stop when separating two vowels, for instance, in kel’e’en, "a woman of the kel". However, in other words they seem to merely mark the boundaries between morphemes. There are a few words in which the function of the apostrophe is unclear, and it has been suggested that those are purely decorative, to make the words look more alien.
A careful reader can assemble a fairly large vocabulary of nouns, and even conjecture additional forms. However, there is little in the way of verbs or grammatical structure, so the novels cannot be used as the basis of a working language, as opposed to the elvish languages of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.
Read more about this topic: Mri (fictional Alien Species)
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“One who speaks a foreign language just a little takes more pleasure in it than one who speaks it well. Enjoyment belongs to those who know things halfway.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
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“Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy flame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)