[SPOILERS] Chants of Sennaar Languages

In this guide, we'll try to analyse each language featured in Chants of Sennaar by expaining the fundamentals of the language structure, the specificities and the possible evolutions/elements we could extrapolate from this.

This guide contains spoilers for all languages of the game but is not aimed to help you further progress in your save, there are other guides for that.

Introduction

If you still haven't got it, this guide contains spoilers.

I recommend playing the game first as it is a really great game and you could easily complete it within 10 hours.

Please note that nothing in this guide has been validated by the devs or the studio, this is just a topic to discuss an aspect of the game that I got interested in and wanted to share my findings.

Feel free to comment if you have any question or rectification to add. English isn't my first language so I may have to correct a few bits.

Contributors :

• The Sojourner for translations, and a lot of interesting stuff, read the first page of comments :)
  
• mf ultimate for the in-game files extraction
  
• Detective Faux as well as The Sojourner for the Cistercian Numeral System
  
• Paul Power for the video recommendation talking about the collectivism of The Warriors
  
• go112, K3lwiN and Echo2.5 for reminding me of the missing warrior page

The Devotees

The first language that we encounter in game is, in my opinion, the most interesting one as it is the easiest to grasp and we have enough elements to already expand it!

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Glyph Page

Here is my glyph page (please note that you may have a different one as the runes currently appear in the order you find them and cannot be reordered)


I will also add here a small translation table (might need English validation as I played in French and translated into English).

(to) Open	Me/I	Death/Dead	Abbey	Garden	Instrument
Door/Gate	(to) Go (Through)/(to) Pass	Devotee	(to) Fin/(to) Reach	(to) Love/(to) Like	(to) Make/(to) Create
(to) Close	God	(to) Search/(to) Seek/(to) Want	(to be) Free/Liberty	Church	Potion
Salute/Greeting(s)/Hello/Bye	(to) Speak/(to) Tell/(to) Say	High/Up	(to) Look/(to) See	Cemetery	Lens
You	Human/Person	Warrior	Key	Music
(to) Help/(to) Aid somebody	Plant	Not	Preacher	Vase/Pot

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Language Features

From here, we can already guess most of the features of the language

It's very simple and follows an SVO (Subject, Verb, Object) structure.
We can however extrapolate a few specificities :

• Plurals are made by repeating the same symbol (Two "Devotee" symbols means "Devotees") [reduplication]
  
• Verbs contains a horizontal line at the bottom (Red in the image)
  
• Common objects have a sort-of opening bracket on the left (Blue)
  
• Locations have their main goal enclosed in an unfinished square (Green)
  
• Animated things contains the "Human" symbol (Purple)

To put it in an image, it goes

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Expading the language

In order to separate visually what is confirmed in the game and what is not, any "deducted" meaning is colored in light blue as well as its symbol.

From there, I tried to deduce abstract/generic concepts from the combined ones (e.g. Look and Lens both contains a simple that I linked as an Eye).

Notes

Translating the bottom-page notes.

• Hi [Salute] => Kinda looks like a figure waving its hand
  
• Free => Looks like a "Man" symbol flipped on the top axis that is below an horizontal line (verbs/actions). Can be interpreted as someone that is not bound to actions?
  
• Dead/Death => "Man" glyph flipped horizontally as someone laid down. The point might be to point out that this is indeed a man glyph (as if it shows "this was flipped")
  
• XX => Repetitions
  
• to Go/to Pass => Verb + Flipped Man + Location <=> Someone walking out of somewhere ?

This gives us several radicals (top row of the big image) that can be interpreted in new concepts adding the few features we've seen before.

Thanks to mf ultimate, we can confirm some elements such as the war root. Feel free to look at his comments in the second page.

E.g.

The Warriors

Let's get to the Warriors. First changes gameplay wise, heavily stealth focused.
The language is very simple and focused around clear orders and commands.

As mentioned, there is no individual pronouns encountered. Individuals are pointed at.

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Glyph Page

The glyph page :


The translation table :

Plural	Duty/Obligation	Chosen	Cart/Trolley	Sun	Fear
Impure	Forteress	(to) Carry/(to) Have/(to) Possess	(to) Lay/(to) Put	Moon	Instrument
Not/Negation	(to) Love/(to) Like	Weapon	Bottle	(to) Make/(to) Create	Key
(to) Go/March/Pass	Dead/Death	Big/Large	(a) Call	Scientific	Ship
Warrior	(to) Push	Crate	Treasure	(to) Search/(to) Seek/(to) Want	Balance/Scale
(to) Wait/Stop/Halt	(to) Protect	Small/Little	Caller/Whistle-Blower	(to) Help/(to) Aid somebody	Music

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Language Features

We have an SVO (Subject, Verb, Object) structure, same as the Devotees.
Here are their specific features :

• Plurals have a distinct symbol
  
• Animated things contains a major "Y" shape
  
• Verbs have the bottom half of a losange at their bottom
  
• Some elements are based on representation of real objects (bottle, crate, key, ...)

To put in all in an image :

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Expading the language

I couldn't really find much ways of adding new stuff for the Warriors. As the language is based on the look of objects or abstract representations of actions ; one can simply use whatever they want to convey a message.

The Bards

This one is my personal favorite as it is (IMO) the most complexe and abstract one. I could not get radicals or deduct meaning while playing and its different structure shook me a bit.

Now that we've seen everything once already, we'll go through each part faster.

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Glyph Page

Translation table :

(to) Go (through)/(to) Pass	You	(to) Love/(to) Like	Comedy	Brother	(to be) Free/Liberty
Bard	(to) Be(come)	(to) Search/(to) Seek/(to) Want	Agora	Pliers/Wrench	Human/Person
Plural	Weapon	(to) Find	Compass	(to) Go up/(to) Climb (up)	Abbey
Not/Negation	(to) Carry/(to) Possess/(to) Have	Music	Way/Path	South	Forteress
Warrior	Idiot/Stupid	Instrument	Theatre	West	(to) Play
Salute/Greeting(s)/Hello/Bye	Beauty	Handsaw	Windmill	North	Fire
Question	Me/I	Monster	Hammer	East	(a) Book

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Language Features

Ooh a different sentence structure! This time, it's OSV (Object, Subject, Verb). Quite uncommon but easily understandable by Latin/Germanic languages. As Yoda, they speak.

Small thing

From the game only, we cannot actually tell whether the language follows an OSV structure or if it's a right-to-left language as arabic or hebrew.

Because of that, I felt olbiged to send an email to Rundisc directly and they actually confirmed that the language follows an OSV structure, just so you know!

Ok, we go back to the features

Now for the specificities :

• Plural is after the common name (which can be misread as a right-to-left feature with frontal plural)
  
• Verbs have a top-right dot
  
• Locations have a bottom dot
  
• Global accentuation (negation/question) are both at the start and the end of the sentence (quite similar to Spanish)
  
• Common horizontal line in each glyph, that are linked together as Nepalese or Devanagari
  
• Parts of the symbol going under the line are for animated things

To put it in an image, it goes

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Expading the language

Once again, notes/links are noted in light blue.

Notes

Translating the bottom-page notes.

• To go (through) => Looks like it shares as inverted double vertical lines symbol with Agora (a gathering public place)
  
• Theatre and Comedy also share a common symbol looking alike an 's'
  
• The windmill has a rotation pattern
  
• The warrior and the fortress share a common pattern as well

The Alchemists

Language focused on geometric forms : lines, circles, smooth curves.
As some mentioned, it does look very similar to Alchemist symbols.

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Glyph Page

Translation table :

2	(to) Find	Gold	Death/Dead	Bard	7
1	You	Silver	(to) Open	Brother	9
4	(to) Search/(to) Seek/(to) Want	(to) Close	(to) Make/(to) Create	(to) Help/(to) Aid somebody	6
3	Door/Gate	Copper	Fire	Formula	8
5	Fairy	(to) Transform/(to) Process	(a) Book	Monster	Warrior
Me/I	Library	Refectory/Canteen/Restaurant/Cafeteria	Carbon	Fear	Not/Negation
Plural	Mine	Laboratory	Alchemist	0	Plant

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Language Features

Back to SVO, nothing really interesting unfortunately.

The specificities :

• Verbs are enclosed in an unclosed circle composed of a smaller circle on the top end
  
• Locations have a specific enclosing shape as well; a kind-of rectangular shape with a small circle on the top left
  
• Anmiated things have a simple shape of a line with either a circle or a triangle on the top end. (Note: I think that triangles are for groups/commmunities/species)
  
• Physical elements are focus by a big triangle
  
• Numbers are the main focus on this language. There is a symbol for each digit (0 to 9) and numbers are formed as followed : symbol are flipped around the x or y axis to be placed along the "0" glyph. Then, the top left part corresponds to the thousands; top right are hundreds; bottom left are for tens and bottom right for units. See the image below for a simple explanation.
  It follows the same principle as the Cistercian Monk numeral system.

To put it in an image, it goes

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Expading the language

Once again, notes/links are noted in light blue.

Notes

Translating/Explaining the notes :

• "5"; "to Create/To" Make and "a Book" have a similar central symbol with the big circle and a middle dot but I cannot figure what it means or if it is actually linked
  
• "Library" and "to Find" also share the symbol which could have a "knowledge" link or something along this ?
  
• "to Search" and "Laboratory" also; probably linked to research or questions or unknown
  
• "to Close" and "to Open" have an inverted triangle linked to the circle by a line
  
• Monster kinda looks like a big monster is behind a small "Man" glyph, or the transformation of a man to something bigger
  
• Plural kinda looks like a "Man" symbol on top of a set or a group, meaning one in a set; therefore many

The Anchorites

This is the final and in my opinion the least interesting one.
The whole point is the focus of combination but it means that the language is the least readable, the least visually-impaired friendly and the least scalable. This is especially true because on top of the single-glyph restriction; only straight lines are allowed and only of fixed sizes (to or from one corner or the middle).

Also it is quite rushed in-game as we get almost everything in three terminals.
(Love the game though, but this part wasn't to my liking)

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Glyph Page

Translation table :

Us/We	(to) Die	(to) Speak	(to become) Disengaged/(to) Lose interest	(to go) Up/(to) Climb (Up)
Salute/Greeting(s)/Hello/Bye	(to) Go	Key	Stranger	Doors/Gates
Nations	Dead/Death	Human/Person	(to) Come	(to) Open
Tower	Door/Gate	(to) Make/(to) Create	Plural	(to) Stop
Exile	High/Up	Me/I	(to) Wait	(to) Revive
Nation	(to) Help/(to) Aid somebody	(to) Search/(to) Seek/(to) Want	Not/Negation	Our People(s)
	You		Fear

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Language Features

SVO, standard.
There is only one feature here : you create new words by combining bases. So "Go" + "Death" = "To die".

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Expading the language

For better clarity, combinations were shown.

Notes

Translating/Explaining the notes :

• Us/We = Me + Plural
  
• Stranger = Me + Not
  
• Nations = Nation + Plural
  
• Our people = Nation + Me
  
• To die = To go + To die
  
• To revive = To die + Not
  
• To lose interest = to Seek + Not
  
• To come = To go + Me
  
• To climb = To go + Up

Conclusion

Language features

In the span of 5 languages, we got 4 SVO structure against one uncommon one as OSV for the bards.

Languages have a very distinct (IMO) graphical aspect and real-life inspirations in terms of looking :

Początkowo opublikowane przez Hairy Phil:

The symbols are fictional, but mimic the style of some real languages:
Devotees = Hebrew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language
Warriors = Runic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes
Bards = Devanagari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari
Alchemists = Alchemy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemical_symbol
Anchorites = unique to this game

Also, see The Sojourner comment about the Devotee's language :

Początkowo opublikowane przez The Sojourner:

In my guide, I don't think of Hebrew as an inspiration for the Devotees' language. Instead I think of older Mesopotamian and European scripts such as Cypriot and Phoenician (Elbasan and Elymaic in particular bear a really strong resemblance to the Devotees' script).

Some elements are generally visually differentiable :

• Verbs
  
• Animated things
  
• Locations

And there is usually a focus for each language on some subject with more words introduced (devotees and religion, bards and arts, alchemists and elements).

Overall, a few interesting features; glyph that are supposed to represent the common way of thinking of each community with logical representations.

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Evolutions

Some discussions on the forum talk about possible new languages and there are some really cool ideas.

In my opinion, the current state of the game is enough for its play length but falls rather short when you are interested in the languages themselves. I'd love a DLC or a sequel going in more details (or in a different timeline) that would be an excuse to discover new symbols and possibly evolution of them.

With the reunion of all communities at the end of the game (the true end I mean), it would be fairly certain that some glyphs might change over time and that some words would be borrowed from other languages.

Also, a focus on different linguistic concepts would be nice. I'm talking about right-to-left languages which are rare but interesting; new sentence structures; tonalities (e.g. exclamation! or something harder as some Asian modes); diacritics or even slang! Talking with various people of the same community with differences as time passed. You could see some symbols simplified, changed, mixed or replaced.

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Final words

Anyway, it was the first game that had me interested in its concept so quickly that I bought it the very same hour I discovered it and nearly one-sited it. Finishing it only got me into more thinking about the game rules of the world I was evolving in and it shows a great work in realism and implication.

Thank you for this wonderful game and I hope that either Rundisc or other game makers will continue this game genre introducing translating and interpreting languages.

Edits

Feel free to tell me if something is wrong such as unfinished editing, mistakes, typos, inconsistencies, missing contributors or if you do not want to be mentioned.

14th January 2024

• "Living things" renamed to "Animated things"
  
• Lot of translation improvements
  
• Mentioned Cistercian System
  
• Mentioned other possible language origin for Devotees
  
• Mentioned alchemist symbols for Alchemist language
  
• Mentioned contributors in introduction to not miss them
  
• Mentioned the in-game file names/symbols
  
• Added this section for clarity/tracking

13th September 2024

• Fixed table layout
  
• Added missing extension page for the Warriors
  
• Fixed mixed-up between "not" and "plural" runes in the Warriors features

30th October 2024

• Added missing extension page for the Anchorites
  
• Added missing translations for footnotes and extension ideas

[Dalen]

In the devotee language, the dot in a verb glyph e.g. "to die" may indicate a perfective verb. That is, an action that is completed "in an instant", without continuity or constituent parts.

For the "place name" glyphs in the Bard language, the short vertical line may indicate a building.

Also, notice the the motions inherent in drawing the glyphs:
Devotees - short taps, like stick in the mud.
Warriors - forceful cuts, a blade across the surface.
Bards - smooth, flowing, brushstrokes on canvas.
Alchemists - precise and measured, drafting tools.
Exiles - not meant to be written at all, but displayed on a screen.

[Ōkami Mashū]

Personal observations and hypothesis cont'd. [2/2

Alchemist
'Alchemist' containing the element for verb might hint to 'Person who is always doing' (Given we see they work a lot). 'Alchemist' also shares a pattern with 'Me', probably because that's how they refer to themselves.
The 'Library' and 'Find' connection probably means that a Library is a 'Place of Findings'
Similarly, 'Seek' and 'Laboratory' could mean 'Place of searching' or 'Place of figuring out'
Bards are the only other profession in the Alchemist's language to have a large circular element, this may be in reference to their common ancestry.
Also, the glyph for 'Bard' looks a bit like someone crossing their arms. In my opinion this may hint to the Alchemists seeing the Bards as 'People who refuse to seek'

[Ōkami Mashū]

Some observations I have made, mainly regarding similarities in glyphs. These are my own hypotheses that I want to share. [1/2]

Devotee
'Door' has the element for object. Upside down T may be 'passage' or 'path'. By this assumption, 'Go' could be 'Verb - Path - Place'.
'Potion' is 'Object Help', I like to think of it as "Bottled Help" given the Devotees' primitive nature.

Bards
'Weapon', 'Warrior', and 'Fortress' share a pattern. This can be interpreted as 'Weapon people' and 'Weapon place'.
Similarly, 'Bard' shares a pattern with 'Music', 'Music people'.
'Love/Like' share a pattern with 'Instrument'
'Ascend' is 'Go/Pass' with a curve between the lines
'Seek' and 'Find' are incredibly similar. The Y shape reminds me of a magnifying glass.

[mechante.anemone]

Très bonne analyse, merci beaucoup pour cet article!

[IceWizard88]

I craved for a clasification like you did in your notes, I dreamed too about continuing that language :) I started the thing on my own but it seems you had more time to do it ahahah Thanks for this cool thread to read :) Take care.

[Aeith]

Flecks
Nicely spotted!

[Aeith]

Negative Zero
Indeed, that's a likely view of its structure

[Aeith]

go112
Thanks for pointing it out. The page is now added.
Concerning the English/Readable version it will be faster for you to do it on your own probably.I'm sorry but I don't have access to the old files, it's been a while and I don't feel like putting the effort in.

[Aeith]

stasencia
This was exactly my thought. It was already in my notes but the page was missing and the explanations are apparently missing but I agree with you.

[Aeith]

K3lwiN and Echo2.5
Correct, it is fixed, thanks