Warriors Musings: Language, Part One
Having recently re-read
Watership Down, I've been struck with the mood to talk about something that Hunter never really considered, which is a feline language. The author of
Watership Down, Richard Adams, has a preface in the book in which he discusses how he came to develop the rabbits' world and behavior. There's several points he made that I think should be noted here:
- Animals live differently than us, and might have words for something that we don't.
- The language of an animal should sound like something that they both would and could speak.
- Research is absolutely everything. (This is a given, but it needs to be said.)
After finishing the book, I sat down for a while and considered, as I usually do, how
Warriors could have been so much better if it was written like that. Of course, being a complete rip-off isn't exactly recommended, but there were plenty of things lacking in the series. Language is one of the biggest missed opportunities. The cats would not have to speak the language all the time - in fact, you'd only have to make up certain words as you went along. But the inclusion of a language helps feed a lot into the worldbuilding.
"Well," I hear you say. "You clearly think you could do it better. How about you tell us what you'd do with a language, if you can even come up with one at all?"
I'll get right on that, but we need to talk about a few things first before we can come up with words and phrases.
Phonology
Believe it or not, wild cats aren't very vocal creatures. Domestic cats are noisy because, as we do with most domestic animals, we keep them in a baby state of mind. Kittens are naturally very vocal, and our pets stay this way as they grow. Cats have a good range of noises they're capable of making, but most stick to one or two different tones.
A feral cat would grow out of the need for vocalization once they could catch their own meals, because in the wild, too much noise means your prey gets away, and for an animal whose main skill is stealth, that's a big problem. They tend to communicate through body language, with the occasional purr, hiss and growl. Meowing and catcalling are saved for breeding season.
So let's say there's two parts to the feline language - vocal, and physical. Vocal would likely be pretty flat in tone, with M, R, and S being the most common letters. Heavily-vowled words would probably be saved for words and terms relating to breeding and kittens (since that's when cats would be noisiest). Physical would carry the tone of what the cat is saying - for example, if a cat says "RiverClan eats fish" with contempt, they might curl their tail or raise their head haughtily. If they're saying it more conversationally or explaining something, they might not use much body language at all, and say it flatly.
So M's, R's, S's for "grown-up" talk. Each letter might be used for something more than the others. How would that break down?
M's - regarding food/hunting, and other things that would require stealth.
S's and R's - regarding fighting/harsh words. Vowels would also be in more use here.
E's, A's, and I's - regarding kittens and young cats. The word for kittypets might have these vowels, since kittypets are noisy and soft, like kittens.
O's - regarding breeding and cats in heat. If you've heard caterwauling from a cat in heat, you'll know that's the perfect letter.
Th's, T's and P's - mostly used in words that have no real weight to them and can be used in conversation - prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc. It's likely that these words and letters would be saved for times of relaxation.
As for the physical part of the language, that gives words their tones? That's already done for us. A good guide on cats will give you their body language and what each motion means, so all you'd have to do when writing is to note which part of their body they're moving.
This should give us plenty to work with so far.
Part 2 coming soon!
by Rain_ » Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:06 pm 
