Okay, first of all, I don't know if this should be here or in the "Creativity" section, so apologies if I guessed wrong.
If you've been following my recent travails down in the Officers' Lounge, you'll understand why I have a lot of time on my hands. But as I continue to mend, I'm looking at low-impact things I can do. One thing I'm quite pleased about is that Seattle has a couple of first-rate language schools. I've always loved linguistics, so I decided -- among my other studies -- I'm going to go for a Doctorate in Linguistics. And, inspired by Dr. Okrand, I want my Doctoral Thesis to be a created language. Romulan, in my case.
I've alwaus loved their culture, their ships, their racial demeanor... I've started assembling as much raw data as I can find -- ship names, individual names, geographic names, cultural references, examples of dialogue -- from all the reasonably legitimate sources I can find. I am so far delving through RPG materials (FASA and LUG), CCG materials (Decipher), novels and comics, and of course close to 1,350 television episodes (yes, even Enterprise) and ten movies.
Anyone who has suggestion for additional sources, or feels they have an interesting take on how they or their language evolved, I welcome your imput, and if I incorporate anyone's idea(s), I'll cite them in my list of sources.
One thing in particular that I've a strong interest in doing is getting an accurate phoneme map of the Romulan character set -- and not necessarily a direct cross-linking to English sounds. Don't be afraid to link letters into a compound sound, a la Russian, Greek, or Japanese.
I've already noted the indigenous names for their trojan homeworld(s) as being ch'Rihan and ch'Havran, their name for themselves being Rihannsu, their exodus from Vulcan (T'Khasi), and the etymological link between the Vulcan execution technique of tal-shaya and the Romulan secret police force called the Tal Shiar.
I have also noted the common appearance of the 'v', 'ch', and 'k' or 'kh' sounds, as well as held-over vowels.
So what else can we come up with?
--Jonah
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
There are Romulan symbols on top of the triangle part of the pre-Nemesis Romulan seel.
What about Ferengi - we've heard a bit of that on DS9.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
Hey, Jonah, what a cool way to spend some recovery time.
I'd be interested in the influence of the Remans culturally, etc. My knowledge is somewhat limited, and Nemesis is a decidedly poor source, but it's obvious that these two have coexisted in the same space for some time. It might be interesting to motviate some of their pronounciations and place-names from Reman descent. My 2 cents.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
(In Unification Part 2) That boy knew those Vulcan 'glyph' thingies... I would assume that Romulan is based somewhat on Vulcan.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Diane Duane's wrote quite a few novels that really fleshed out the Romulans. It's really a shame none of her stuff made it into cannon.
She called them "Rihannsu" for their own pronunciation of Romulan. Here is a list of her Rihannsu novels:
Star Trek: TOS #18: My Enemy, My Ally, Star Trek: TOS: Rihannsu #2: The Romulan Way, (written with Husband Peter Morwood) Star Trek: TOS #95: Swordhunt, Star Trek: TOS #96: Honor Blade Star Trek: TOS #??: The Empty Chair (Not yet published)
Posted by Shakaar (Member # 1782) on :
Romulan and Vulcan have some similar sounding worlds- but thier scripts are completely different- but neither are complete languages as Klingonese is, I think fans have totally run with it to make it a full language- where as all the rest of the Trek languages are just bits and pieces really.
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
quote:Originally posted by bX: I'd be interested in the influence of the Remans culturally, etc. My knowledge is somewhat limited, and Nemesis is a decidedly poor source, but it's obvious that these two have coexisted in the same space for some time.
Don't forget that there were some Reman guards(centurions?) on Romulus in the Enterprise episodes with those drone attack ships.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Er....there were? Screencap someone!
I doubt the Remans had a written language before becoming the Romulan's bitches. Telepathy would have allowed for a rich "oral" history of shared experiences.
Possibly the ability to vocalize sounds into speech was bred in by their Romulan masters for convience.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Hmm were Remans related in anyway to Romulans? Why did they develop differently? Was it that their ships landed on Remus after they fled Vulcan while the Romulans landed on Romulus? Or where they already there and the Romulans enslaved the Remans?
I would have thought the Romulans to be too proud to acknowledge the Remans as equals in things like their emblem/logo thingy.
It sort of implys they are equal or at least rely on one another.
Posted by Shakaar (Member # 1782) on :
I'm not certain if the the Remans' genetic lineage has been addressed. I would have to vote for them being a separate species, because I can see the Romulans evloving to be just so slightly different than the Vulcans, but I think it'd take a lot more time for a Vulcan to evolve into something that looked like a Reman.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
I'm still honked off at the prosthetic foreheads they foisted off on the Romulans in the TNG era. Bad idea.
--Jonah
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I have never minded them. I think it can easily be reconciled that they had some intermingling with the Klingons, which fits with their history of friends/enemies and sharing things.
Remember Beverly said that Worf shared some ??enzymes?? with that dying Romulan?
I'd say there was some intermingling with the Remans too though - they have a vaguely Romulan look - well the brow and the pointed ears.
Or maybe the mines that they populated altered their Romulan heritge after a few generations to create a Reman race.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
How does that explain why some Vulcans have the raised foreheads then?
I think it's as likely that the Romulans represented some ethnic faction on Vulcan (possibly a super-power state) that got cheesed and mostly split for cold space, rather that bake in Vulcan's logic. Imagine the majority of asian people leaving Earth over some dispute...
On Vulcan the relativly few remianinig members of this ethnic offshoot were not discriminated against (as it would be illogical to do so) and thre eventually grew a population on Viuulcan with those "raised" traits.
Fuck all if this works with Enterprise though- I missed almost all of fourth season (gotta get that on DVD, damnit!)
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"How does that explain why some Vulcans have the raised foreheads then?"
I don't recall ever having seen one, but, if they were there, they could be Romulans who chose to return to Vulcan.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Jason, I think you have the germ of a wonderful idea there. I'll noodle on it a bit over the next few days and see what I can come up with. If there can be dark-skinned Vulcans with short, kinky hair, I see no reason why there can't be Vulcans with differently-shaped skulls...
--Jonah
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Somebody had a neat idea (IMO) that there were two racial groups on Vulcan and that the schism took place largely along these lines. There would be some "crossovers," naturally, explaining the smooth-headed Romulans in TOS, and any other abberations in later shows.
This scenario could open up some interesting story possibilities involving the politics of Vulcan. After all, we already know from ENT's "Stigma" and the "Awakening/Kir'shara" arc that the government had some rather...discriminatory policies, even at that late date.
On the subject of Remans, although it has not been addresses in canon, I prefer to believe they were a pre-existent indigenous race that was subjugated by the Romulans. To me, it's just beyond suspension of disbelief that such a specialized morphology could have developed within the time since the Romulans arrived in the system.
-MMoM Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
When last seen Spock was on Romulus passing as a Romulan with no sugical alterations to his smooth-headed appearance. Similarly, the Vulcan terrorist T'Paal/Tallera who disgised herself as a Romulan in TNG: "Gambit" and she has pronounced cranial bones like most of the Romulans.
So these ridges may be just genetic differences within the Vulcans and Romulans.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
But Tallera was disguising herself as a Romulan, wasn't she? So, presumably, the ridges were fake and part of the disguise.
And do we know whether Spock was actually posing as a Romulan, as opposed to just a Vulcan expatriate?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'd have to watch the episode again, but was Spock even traveling in disguise? It seems to me that he was just hiding out with that underground group, and wasn't pretending to be anyone else. I'd think Spock would be too famous for that to work anyway.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Pretty much, Sol. He spent time at restaurants with Picard and various Romulans, without seeming too concerned about not being seen/recognised.
"Ambassador T'Pel" got her ridges back when she returned to her ship in "Data's Day".
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