Sometimes, everything is easier after you end the world

[ultranos]

Currently working on the apocafic from hell. Daniel, dear, you would not shut up when I was busy dealing with finals. Now, I have all the time in the world, and now you decide to be recalcitrant? And no, trying to get me to read The Hagakure and/or The Tale of Genji does not count. Really.

And neither does trying to get me to solve this linguistic tangle you have presented me. *sigh*



From what I can remember, Goa'uld is, in theory, some kind of root of Ancient Egyptian. At the very least, the written language is.

So it makes sense for the Goa'uld that posed as Egyptian gods (Ra, Apophis, etc) to have had an influence on the linguistic development of Egypt. This, of course, begs the question of "what about non-Egyptian gods?"

I can handwave a little about other Mediterranian cultures, because there was a lot of cross-cultural blending around that area due to trade even thousands of years ago. So Greek gods like Cronus are, theoretically, okay. Even though Ancient Greek is not really at all related to Ancient Egyptian.

Where this gets ridiculously sticky is when we get out of the Mediterranian. Yu and Ameteratsu, I am looking at you. I am at an utter loss to explain even basic communication between the Goa'uld and any random human. Not that I expect there was much, but still. There is no hint at all. Hell, some of the sounds in both languages don't even exist in each other, much less in Goa'uld. (l and r are rather notorious examples)

So, when I have a story set in Ameteratsu's old territory, logically the local language should be some kind of blend of Goa'uld and Old Japanese (pre-Nara period). Only...oh holy fuck, does Goa'uld romanji scare the crap out of me. And gives me a headache even contemplating it. But I can't possibly see how else to work this.

Comments

[windstar127.livejournal.com]

i actually have a very pretty musical version of genji monogatari...unfortunately, it's all in japanese, and not subbed. but i'll offer to help with Goa'uld romaji if you want it?

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Maybe. I'm going to try to get around it by implying heavily that this is what it is but never actually trying to define it exactly. I might take you up on that offer if it proves to be utterly impossible.