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A little history
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This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 18 May 2021, 04:36.

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Just wanted to talk a bit about the development of Zebesian Chozo.

The most important thing to note is that there is essentially no foundation for the language in-game as far as I've been able to find. The only Chozo word that exists that I'm aware of is metroid, which means "ultimate warrior". There are some known names as well, but they're all translated into English in the manga, such as Old Bird and Grey Voice. Along with that, there is a canon writing system for the Chozo. However, I have some problems with it.

I'm tired of alien languages and fictional languages in general having a 1-1 correlation with English. In the source Chozo script, there are 26 letters that perfectly match English letters. This always feels strange to me. The Chozo are bird people that have beaks, so they shouldn't be able to make labial sounds like /b/ or /m/, or rounded sounds like /u/ or /o/. So why does the script have those letters? I began reworking it from there. The language has 36 basic letters now and more dipthongs. One of those sounds is a click of the beak, represented in the IPA by ʘ, and it uses the letter for m that was established by the creators of Metroid, ʘ, so that the spelling of metroid remains the same.

After that, it's been a lot of guesswork. This is my first conlang, so creating it has involved a lot of trial and error. The best guide has been incorporating known Chozo culture into the way the language functions, but also creating a little headcanon lore to fill in the gaps. For example, I've decided that Zebesian Chozo is supposed to be a very unambiguous language. The rules can't be broken because an extremely advanced and scientific people like the Chozo wouldn't want ambiguity to cloud meaning. This is why there's no pronoun dropping even when the verb could theoretically express the subject for you, why adjectives match by the final vowel of the noun to make it explicitly clear what it's modifying, or why even though you could change word order and for the most part maintain the meaning, it's in very bad form to try to do so outside of poetry. It's also why even though Homeworld Chozo has a complex tone system, Zebesian has, for the most part, dropped this in favour of simple and very sparse pitch accents.

Honestly, this is just a labour of love. It's for my own personal enjoyment more than for any real purpose. I'm not writing any Metroid fiction or trying to accomplish anything other than filling in a gap in the games that I wish were already filled. That's the purpose for  Talloric,  Homeworld (OLD), and  Luminoth as well. I just love these games and want to give them a little more substance in my mind.
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