ATLA language [GAANG]
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ATLA language
ATLA languageRegistered by
[Deactivated User] on 21 July 2022
Language type
Artistic Language (Artlang)
Species
Human/humanoid
About ATLA language
my idea of what the language in avatar the last air-bender would sound like.
In universe, people from opposite sides of the world and living hundreds of years apart can understand each other with little difficulty apart from slang terms and regional vocabulary (I doubt water tribe folk have separate words for rice and wheat if neither of them grow in the region).
This is for plot convenience, but this project is a semi serious take on how that could actually work.
My idea is that people in universe are just born with the grammar and most vocabulary terms just imprinted on their brain, so the core of the language stays the same over time. the slang and coined vocabulary terms would change over time though, albeit at a glacial pace compared to real life languages, so there are phonological changes. water tribe names have a lot of geminated consonants for example, while air nomad names do not, so water tribe slang words should incorporate that.
The only indicator as to what unique sounds are in each nation's dialect are in character names, so I came up with the sounds by looking at character names from each nation and noting all the sounds they had in common for the core language, and the ones that were unique to each language for some of these slang terms.
to showcase the differences between each dialect, I'll translate the katara's opening monologue.
In universe, people from opposite sides of the world and living hundreds of years apart can understand each other with little difficulty apart from slang terms and regional vocabulary (I doubt water tribe folk have separate words for rice and wheat if neither of them grow in the region).
This is for plot convenience, but this project is a semi serious take on how that could actually work.
My idea is that people in universe are just born with the grammar and most vocabulary terms just imprinted on their brain, so the core of the language stays the same over time. the slang and coined vocabulary terms would change over time though, albeit at a glacial pace compared to real life languages, so there are phonological changes. water tribe names have a lot of geminated consonants for example, while air nomad names do not, so water tribe slang words should incorporate that.
The only indicator as to what unique sounds are in each nation's dialect are in character names, so I came up with the sounds by looking at character names from each nation and noting all the sounds they had in common for the core language, and the ones that were unique to each language for some of these slang terms.
to showcase the differences between each dialect, I'll translate the katara's opening monologue.
Sample of ATLA languageCan't find any yet.
Language family relationships
Phonology
| Consonants | Bilabial | Labio- dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar | Palatal | Labio- velar | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | h | ||||||||||
| Affricate | t͡ʃ | d͡ʒ | ||||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||||
| Blends | sk |
| Vowels | Front | Central | Back | |||
| Close | i i: | u u: | ||||
| Mid | e̞ | o̞ | ||||
| Open | ä ä: | |||||
Orthography
Below is the orthography for ATLA language. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
 ATLA languageOrthography [edit] | |||||||||
| Aa/ä/ | AA aa/ä:/ | Bb/b/ | CH ch/t͡ʃ/ | Dd/d/ | Ee/e̞/ | Ff/f/ | Gg/g/ | Hh/h/ | Ii/i/ |
| II ii/i:/ | Kk/k/ | Ll/l/ | Mm/m/ | Nn/n/ | NG ng/ŋ/ | Oo/o̞/ | Pp/p/ | Rr/r/ | Ss/s/ |
| SK sk/sk/ | Tt/t/ | Uu/u/ | UU uu/u:/ | Vv/v/ | Ww/w/ | Xx/ʃ/ | Yy/j/ | Zz/z/ | ZH zh/d͡ʒ/ |
| ✖ Unknown alphabetical order [change] | |||||||||
