Mando'a Book, Yay or Nay?

[Adi'karta]

It has been suggested that we put together a book for publication, as a fan resource for Mando'a, in a similar vein to the Star Wars Galactic Phrasebook and Travel Guide or How to Speak Wookiee. Before devoting much focus and many resources to a project of this scope, I would like to gather a sense of the community's interest in such a project. If we are going to ask for permission from Lucasfilm, we will need to have as much support as possible. Being able to show full community support for the idea when we ask would put that much more weight on the request.

Please cast your votes, and feel free to post ideas, questions, comments, and concerns. If you feel like it, go ahead and talk to other fans as well and ask them what they think. They can share their opinions and ideas as well; either by communicating through you, by creating a forum account of their own and weighing in here, or by emailing the administrator of mandoa.org (me). I am not sure if the form on the website functions, as I have never received an email from anyone but my own test emails, so valid email addresses include: admin [at] mandoa [dot] org / mandoa [dot] org [at] gmail [dot] com.

Of course, waiting until a later date to pursue this line of action is also reasonable. That is also an option in the poll.

Ke'solus, Mando'ade!

Here are a few suggestions from me, personally:

• A foreword by a sci-fi/fantasy language-smith, a professional linguist, or perhaps Karen Traviss herself might be an appropriate addition to the volume, for a nice touch of class and some personal shared insight. I love books with forewords, and I almost always read them.
• Possibly include more than just language information; like a cultural portrait of the Mandalorians, a history/timeline, an examination of the Resol'nare, and some artwork (both well-known from other books/games if we can get rights, and some new original artwork as well).
• Perhaps include a guide to making one's own Beskar'gam, written in an in-universe style, but still "translatable" into real-life, so one might still glean information on how to create a costume (plastic, etc.) beskar'gam, rather than a fully-functional technologically-advanced and lightsaber-resistant suit of armour.

Needless to say, these suggestions are shaping the book more into a Mandalorian guide, rather than strictly a Mando'a guide, but I think the book might have wider appeal if it could pass as an artbook, an in-universe fan resource, and a practical real-life guide all at once. If it becomes this diverse a project, we could name it "How to Be a Mandalorian," or "What it Means to Be Mandalorian," or something in that vein.

[Cuyan Atinii]

I'd say definitely yes, just possibly not right now

[Salvo Mereel]

Okay guys, it's been about a month, and I think the majority of us agree with this idea. Or mayby I'm just eager...

Is one of you going to contact LFL?

[Tracyn Ordo]

As Cuyan said, I think this is a good idea, however not right now. TBH 4 people propbably isn't enough support for the idea as far as LFL are concerned, and if we were serious about it we would need to have a much better outline of what would be included before we put the idea forward to them.

[Adi'karta]

I'm on board with the idea (if the first post didn't make that apparent), but broaching the topic with LFL might be a challenge without some kind of wider fanbase support, and, as Tracyn Ordo mentioned, a full, detailed outline and a list of resources we intend to include.

I have never attempted to publish a book, much less so with the blessing of a company as large and influential as LFL -- so I am understandably unfamiliar with the whole process.

[Salvo Mereel]

I agree with both of you, we should all do some research on the book creation process; then we can create the plan for publication.

I think once we get a good idea of what we are going to do we can decide about LFL. But I see no reason to not start the writing now.

On the subject of people, I consider the small amount of active users on this form -- i.e. 4 -- to be the real pioneers of Mando’a, and I don't really think that anyone else really cares what we do, as long as they get more language to play with.

To be fair though, should I start a thread over at the Mercs?

[Adi'karta]

If you want to talk about it over at Mercs, I would ask Novall Talon first. Any discussion based on using copyrighted works from LFL to do something else (other than costuming) on that forum needs to be sanctioned, as I found out when I first started showing off the translator I made. PMing him might take a short while to get a reply, but it is worth the time spent to keep them within their agreement with LFL as well. Before the forum got too big, Novall had to speak with LFL himself, I believe.

[Tracyn Ordo]

If it all checks out with Novall, there certainly wouldn't be any harm in posting on the mercs, if just to see if there is any more interest in helping on it. Some members over there may not have heard of mandoa.org, I certainly hadn't until a few days ago when I stumbled across the link and I've been on the mercs forums for several years now...

[Adi'karta]

After my initial attempted introduction, and subsequent discussion with Novall, and sub-subsequent introduction to LFL, I was honoured with a link in the links section of the Mercs forum, but I did not push a discussion or anything, so it wasn't exactly widely advertised.

[rafael_ms]

As a test we could set a small "travel guide" in the forum, like those "learn a language in 15 minutes guide". It would be a follow on the 2 lessons created by Cuyan.

I am on vacation and i can help this project, can someone else take part in it?

[Drala Kad]

I agree with all of Adi'karta's suggestions in the original post.

A foreword would provide a sense of meaning and direction to the book.

It's impossible to study language without learning about the culture and forming an idea of that culture's mindset, especially as many Mando'a phrases and idioms make no sense without an understanding of their ways. Like the idiom for adoption literally meaning to give a soul to someone, or the untranslatable concept of aay'han. And while you're at it, you may as well compile and explain the an'kandosii Resol'nare and include some inspiring artwork. (This underscores visually what words represent, allowing the brain to absorb the same information a second way. A picture's worth a thousand words.)

I'm not as sold on the necessity of "How to Make Beskar'gam," but I do understand there's lots of role-playing enthusiasts out there who would appreciate such a resource. That being said, even if you don't include it, they'll figure it out on their own.

I think such a resource would be a guide for Mandos by Mandos, and anyone not serious enough to learn the language may not really care. (Though if we get some really high quality artwork, I could be wrong.) There's a couple ways to lay out the language information side of things. We could lay it all out in alphabetical order, like a Mando'a-English dictionary. But honestly, there's already several websites that allow you to search a growing online database with the click of a button. What I personally find myself wishing for as I continue my journey is a resource that focuses on the relations between words. I love to see words that all come from the same root, for instance, because I love to see the seemingly disparate concepts Mando'ade tie together and the laughable semi-literal meanings of their turns of phrase. (Miit'gaanir, for instance--word-hand, to write). Or, organized another way, words that all relate to the same topic. Like all the words for armor in one place, all the words for weapons in another, all words about family or ideals, and so on. It makes it easier to master a subject before moving on to the next, transforming a zebra-herd of words into bite-sized portions. I'm going to try to compile a few such lists in my thread on Tactical Language as I have time.

Finally, I don't think this project will get off the ground unless we can get support across forums, as Tracyn Ordo pointed out. The more forums and groups we can reach out to, the better. Especially if we can crowd-source work on different sections, which might work if we have a single core team doing all of the editing and fact-checking.

The best way might be to prepare a manuscript and then ask LFL for their blessing. If we've already done all the work, they might be more open to it. If not, we've already done all the work. We know that much more Mando'a than when we started. And Lucasfilm can never take that from us.

[ParjaiTracyn]

What I personally find myself wishing for as I continue my journey is a resource that focuses on the relations between words. I love to see words that all come from the same root, for instance, because I love to see the seemingly disparate concepts Mando'ade tie together and the laughable semi-literal meanings of their turns of phrase.

For too many of the words, there is no agreement on whether they are related — and the original author left few notes beyond what we see in the original word list. For example, it's unlikely that all the ba' or me' words are related. I've come to realize that Traviss would sometimes make a root from the beginning of the word, sometimes from the end of a word, or sometimes by dropping letters from throughout the word to create a new root. Sometimes, multiple techniques were used with the same original word. Sometimes words are related but the spelling of roots were changed, making them look they are part of family that they are not (for example, jahaatir/jehaat or dawoor being part of the dush family rather than the dar family). In other cases, Traviss ported in slang from Portsmouth, England, with or without spelling modification. For the "jare" words, those are based on the name of a real-world person.

Or, organized another way, words that all relate to the same topic. Like all the words for armor in one place, all the words for weapons in another, all words about family or ideals, and so on.

Here's a link to most of the original dictionary divided by theme (Google spreadsheet); created by Coyote (Discord name; I don't remember what the name is on here): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... vw9p-_0Gk/

Here's a page of links to categories of words from the original dictionary and the MandoCreator expansion. (The rest of the site has other information about Mando'a, Mandalorians, and various real-world inspirations.)
https://sites.google.com/view/hibirarma ... tory-ideas

Here's a link to quotes from Karen Traviss and Jesse Harlin about the development and inspiration for Mando'a, plus some fan guesses at to real-world inspiration for various words.
https://sites.google.com/view/hibirarma ... nspiration

Hopefully, you find something useful!

[Drala Kad]

Thanks!