Myst Online: Dona Nobis Pacem
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 8:00 pm
This just floors me.
I never was a super-fluent speaker of the Myst universe's conlang. D'ni ("Dunny") is strongly based on a few South Pacific dialects, coupled with some of Richard Watson's own constructed phrasal patterns, but in-fiction, it's a language with ten of thousands of years worth of history. The lexicon isn't fully developed and any sort of online Rehevkor, as the language's dictionary is called, is filled with holes that are in sore need of being filled. It's always being worked on, the fans are still extrapolating more verbs and substantives - but I don't know if it's ever going to reach levels of potential fluency that could reach Quenya, Sindarin or Klingon's ability to be used as actual, near-everyday languages. I know Dothraki comes close (thanks, Game of Thrones!), but it still is in need of some fleshing-out.
All that aside, I never expected the Myst fans to take to D'ni in an artistic point of view. Well, here's a D'ni version of the Latin liturgic classic, the Dona Nobis Pacem, or "Give Us Peace".
In D'ni, that translates as Tahgemah behseht shorah. Screw your religious or linguistic biases, the result is beautiful. The video isn't much to look at, but the concept of a Skype-conducted choir that sounds so clear thanks to careful mixing is just awesome.
I never was a super-fluent speaker of the Myst universe's conlang. D'ni ("Dunny") is strongly based on a few South Pacific dialects, coupled with some of Richard Watson's own constructed phrasal patterns, but in-fiction, it's a language with ten of thousands of years worth of history. The lexicon isn't fully developed and any sort of online Rehevkor, as the language's dictionary is called, is filled with holes that are in sore need of being filled. It's always being worked on, the fans are still extrapolating more verbs and substantives - but I don't know if it's ever going to reach levels of potential fluency that could reach Quenya, Sindarin or Klingon's ability to be used as actual, near-everyday languages. I know Dothraki comes close (thanks, Game of Thrones!), but it still is in need of some fleshing-out.
All that aside, I never expected the Myst fans to take to D'ni in an artistic point of view. Well, here's a D'ni version of the Latin liturgic classic, the Dona Nobis Pacem, or "Give Us Peace".
In D'ni, that translates as Tahgemah behseht shorah. Screw your religious or linguistic biases, the result is beautiful. The video isn't much to look at, but the concept of a Skype-conducted choir that sounds so clear thanks to careful mixing is just awesome.