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General Information
Origin
Speakers
Location
Script
Dialects
Deucalia
Deucalians
Hoth, Helska III
Runic
Various
Speakers
Location
Script
Dialects
Deucalia
Deucalians
Hoth, Helska III
Runic
Various
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Dþrúkállík
Excerpt · Overview · Grammar · Vocabulary · Written form
Dþrúkállík, known as Deucalic in Basic, rarely as Deucalish, and informally as the Old Tongue, was the primary spoken language of the Deucalian people and those assimilated into their culture. Following their departure of Deucalia, Deucalic has since splintered into a number of differing dialects, although they all remain mutually intelligible with one another.
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▵ Overview
It is unknown when the ancient precursors that would become the Deucalians first arrived on Deucalia, although faint linguistic similarities strongly suggests Dþrúkállík is or descended from the proto-Basic family. Nonetheless, at some point the group that would become Deucalians diverged, both physically or culturally, which led to the two languages developing and evolving into completely separate paths.
Since the exodus from Deucalia, Dþrúkállík has branched out into multiple dialects, due to their peoples interacting with other cultures across the galaxy. Consequently, Dþrúkállík has since been influenced by a number of other languages, such as Basic, Huttese, Bocce or Mando'a, with most dialects varying depending on the location in the galaxy where it is spoken. One common variant is Æðsta Dþrúkállík or "Pure Deucalic", which is widely considered to be the closest and "least-tainted" dialect, chiefly utilized by the Thorites above all others.
Other dialects included Tómarúm Dþrúkállík or "Spacer Deucalic" (Dþrúkállík influenced by Basic and/or Bocce), Mengað Dþrúkállík or "Polluted Deucalic" (Dþrúkállík influenced by Huttese, although can sometimes include Durese, Mando'a or Concordian), Röskun Dþrúkállík or "Jumbled Deucalic" (Dþrúkállík heavily diluted by any foreign language, so that very few words are actually Deucalic), and Sameinuð Dþrúkállík or "Hybrid Deucalic" (Dþrúkállík that amalgamates elements of several dialects). With the exception of "Pure Deucalic" (which is most common to, and most heavily spoken within, Clan Thorite), most dialects can be found among all the Deucalian clans.
Although it is not considered a formal necessity, most Decualians speak Dþrúkállík fluently and can readily understand the various dialects. For the vast majority, Dþrúkállík is learned in tandem with Basic, making most Deucalians innately bilingual, before choosing to pick up additional languages. It was extremely rare to find a Deucalian that did not speak the Old Tongue, or at the very least, readily understand it.
▵ Grammar
Dþrúkállík retains many grammatical features of other ancient proto-Basic languages, and resembles Old Coruscanti before much of its fusional inflection was lost. Modern Dþrúkállík is still a heavily inflected language with four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Dþrúkállík nouns can have one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. There are two main declension paradigms for each gender: strong and weak nouns, which are, furthermore, divided in subclasses of nouns, based primarily on the genitive singular and nominative plural ending of a particular noun. Additionally, Dþrúkállík permits a quirky subject, which is a phenomenon in which certain verbs specify that their subjects are to be in a case other than the nominative.
Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in the four cases and for number in the singular and plural. Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number and voice. There are three voices: active, passive and middle (or medial), but it is variable per the dialect whether the middle voice is a voice or simply an independent class of verbs of its own. Verbs have up to ten tenses, but Dþrúkállík, like Basic, forms most of them with auxiliary verbs. There are three or four main groups of weak verbs in Dþrúkállík, depending on whether one takes a historical or a formalistic view. For many verbs that require an object, a reflexive pronoun can be used instead. The case of the pronoun depends on the case that the verb governs. As for further classification of verbs, Dþrúkállík behaves much like other Basic-related languages, with a main division between weak verbs and strong, and the class of strong verbs is divided into six plus reduplicative verbs. The standard word order in Dþrúkállík is subject–verb–object, making its structure identical to Basic.
▵ Vocabulary
Early Dþrúkállík vocabulary was very similar to several proto-Basic languages. The introduction to the galaxy from Deucalia brought the majority of new words into their common tongue, taken from other encountered languages over time; fierfek ("hex" in Huttese, although commonly attributed to mean "poison" as a curse), for example, is present in some Dþrúkállík dialects. Numerous other languages have had their influence on Dþrúkállík, such as modern Basic, Durese, Mando'a, Bocce and the forementioned Huttese, which ultimately led to the active preservation of the Old Tongue by Clan Thorite.
Dþrúkállík personal names are often patronymic and matronymic, in that they reflect the immediate father or mother of the child, although these are often kept as secondary names, as names linked to the historic family lineage are actively used. Common Dþrúkállík words or expressions are the following:
- seiðrmaðr―"spirit-weaver" or "spirit-walker", a term for Deucalian druids and shamans
- Fyrst að blæða! Síðast að deyja!―"First to bleed! Last to die!", a common Deucalian battle cry
- Gefðu óvinum þínum ekkert, en taktu frá þeim öllu―"Give your foes nothing, but take from them everything", an old Deucalian proverb
- Bersark―No literal definition; associated with failure
- Klofað höfuð lýkur ekki lengur―"A cleaved head no longer plots", an old Deucalian proverb
- Úlfurinn hefur ekki áhyggjur af skoðunum sauðfjár―"The Wolf is not concerned with the opinions of sheep", an old Deucalian proverb
▵ Written Form
The Dþrúkállík alphabet is notable for its retention of old runic characters which, while present in some proto-Basic languages, obviously no longer exist in the modern Aurebesh alphabet. In addition, the Dþrúkállík runes with diacritics are for the most part treated as separate characters and not variants of their derivative vowels.
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