Old Myopsian

Stringed Tongue

Written by Endrise

Nobody but the scholars even bother learning the language. I wouldn't be surprised in a generation or two nobody even knows how to speak it at all.

Myopsians have a past that predates long before the mainland discovered them. Amongst them is a language that has over time died out amongst the populace. Referred to as Old Myopsian, only a handful of documents exist written in said language. As for those that speak it, only a few dozen still know the pronunciations.

The Cephalopod Tongue

Writing the Language

The first thing to note about the language is that it is written and read from top to bottom, left to right. Entire words get written down as single characters rather than with an alphabet. As a result, there are hundreds of known symbols in the old Myopsian language.

More complex characters combine aspects of simpler words. For example, "family" combines the characters for "man", "woman" and "child" when written down. Some characters will have different meaning depending on their position in the sentence.

Structure-wise, a basic sentence is built up as verb-subject-object. Extra information like time and location end up placed around the subject part.

Gender

Subjects and objects with a defined gender get a prefix indicating if they are male or female. Directly translated those prefixes can translate as "fin" and "finless".

Should there be no known gender of the person in question, no prefix gets added.

Adjectives

The position of adjectives depends on whether their tone is positive or negative. Positive adjectives tend to get written before the noun, while negative ones end up behind the noun. There are some exceptions, but these are the general rules.

Numerical System

The old numerical system of Myopsians works on base-8, counting from 0 to 7. For single, double and triple digits there are unique symbols, each one building on top the circular pattern.

When the numbers reach a thousand, a half circle gets drawn from the right side downwards. Below a new circle begins, and the process repeats itself. For larger numbers, abbreviations exist that shorten the length of the characters.

Speaking the Language

The language in its spoken form is as of now partly incomplete. Certain syllabaries are forgotten over time, making some words also lack proper pronunciation.

To speak it, people put emphasis on the first syllable of each word alongside the usual ones. The period itself also gets spoken before one has a break while talking.

Describing how it sounds, one can call it a "language where one knows exactly where it starts and stops. Where one can hear a sentence and know how it exactly is written."

777 written in Old Myopsian by Endrise

Spoken by

• Inselreicher

Android Ties

One thing to note is that the language is understood by Androids, even those that never heard it before. People believe the language exists within their subconscious, built in from the day they are made.
The old Myopsian language also got found on some of the Iron Womb's internal walls. As such, it led to a theory that both groups are related in one manner or another.