Hi guys! A little while ago I posted a quote from the first episode of ‘Stargate Sg-1’. Then I realised that the language of the 'Ancients’ used in the TV show is derived from Latin (or the other way round, chronologically). So I decided to translate that quote into 'Ancient’ (with appropriate font, of course). If you’re interested in linguisticky things, this might interest you, otherwise, please ignore.

Analysis: So the 'Ancient’ (or 'Alteran’) language in Stargate is said, by Dr Jackson, to be similar to Medieval Latin (although, chronologically, it would be the other way around). So I decided to translate the quote from the first episode of SG-1 [O'Neill: I can save these people! Help me! Help me! / Teal'c: Many have said that. But you are the first I believe could do it!] into 'Ancient’, only using canon forms of the language, that is, only words AND forms of words that appear in the show. It would be easy to extrapolate other forms of verbs/nouns, etc., from similiarities with Latin and create new wordforms, but that somehow takes away from the authenticity!

For the words/forms, I used the Stargate Wikia used as my dictionary/lexicon, as it links all of the words used to the episodes as well, so it’s relatively complete/trustworthy. First I had to find words that would suit the context, and then think about the syntax.

In order to not assume anything about the syntax of the Ancient language (or its potential similarities to Latin), I looked at all the words that were used in the show. It seems that, when it comes to verbs, only one verb form was ever used for each verb, meaning that we can’t assume that there were other inflected verb forms (even though some of them look a bit Latinate in their endings). A single verb form seems to be used for all persons/numbers/tenses/moods, and the subject is always specified (e.g. 'ego’ - 'I’ in 'Ego deserde asordo - I need help’, or 'Nou ani Anquietas - We are the Ancients’, or a noun being used as a subject in a third person context). These same verb forms can also seem to be used as imperatives, based on the 'extant’ sentences.

In terms of noun cases, there only seems to be inflection in the context of pronouns ('Ego - 'I’ / 'Mia’ - 'to me’/'me’), which is not unlike English. So it seems that we can perhaps assume a Nominative/Oblique situation for pronouns.

Thus begins the translation. For 'I can save these people’, esentially the only canon word that exists is 'I’, so some reworking will need to be done. I eventually settled on 'Mia ani fallatus asordo omnes’, with a sort of 'Dative of possession’ type contruction (In its only canon use, 'mia’ seems to be able to convey a 'dative’ idea). So my translation literally means 'to me (there) is the ability (to) help everyone’, or rephrased: 'I have the ability to save everyone’. For 'Help me!’, I changed the canon 'Comdo asordo’ (Please help) to 'Comdo mia asordo’ (Please help me).

For Teal'c’s lines: For 'Many have said that’, bearing in mind none of those words is canon, I ultimately settled on 'Omnes asordo deserdi’, literally 'Everyone wants/desires/seeks (to) help’. I realise that in some of its uses, 'asordo’ seems more like the noun 'help’, so if you think my above translation reads a bit more like 'I want help’, rather than a prolative infinitive after the verb 'to want’, then I guess you could add in 'ani - to be’, and consider it a sort of 'predicative dative’ type construction: 'Omnes asordo ani deserdi’ - 'Everyone wants to be (a source of) help’.

For the last sentence, “But you are the first I believe could do it!”, only 'you’, 'are’ and 'believe’ exist. I settled on “Ego puta tua uno ani fallatus euge” in an indirect statement-type construction (with the same 'dative of possession’ type contruction as earlier within it: Literally “I believe to be to you one the good ability”, or rephrased “I believe [that] there is to you alone the good ability”. I’ve used 'uno - one’ in the sense of 'alone’ here, with 'euge - good’ to mean 'correct’/'sufficient’, so a final version would be “I believe that you alone have sufficient ability”.

After that, I just downloaded the Alteran font (the link is from the same Stargate Wiki page), and away we went.

All this from an idea I had at about 11pm last night!

If anyone else is familiar ith the Ancient language, feel free to comment (in Ancient, of course :)