Christine Feehan 5 CARPATHIAN NOVELS

by Christine Feehan

  One small exception should be noted: the splintering of the Carpathians into separate geographic regions has led to some minor dialectization. However the telepathic links among all Carpathians (as well as each Carpathian’s regular return to his or her homeland) has ensured that the differences among dialects are relatively superficial (e.g., small numbers of new words, minor differences in pronunciation, etc.), since the deeper, internal language of mind-forms has remained the same because of continuous use across space and time.

  The Carpathian language was (and still is) the proto-language for the Uralic (or Finno-Ugrian) family of languages. Today, the Uralic languages are spoken in northern, eastern and central Europe and in Siberia. More than twenty-three million people in the world speak languages that can trace their ancestry to Carpathian. Magyar or Hungarian (about fourteen million speakers), Finnish (about five million speakers), and Estonian (about one million speakers), are the three major contemporary descendents of this proto-language. The only factor that unites the more than twenty languages in the Uralic family is that their ancestry can be traced back to a common proto-language—Carpathian—which split (starting some six thousand years ago) into the various languages in the Uralic family. In the same way, Europe an languages such as English and French, belong to the better-known Indo-Europe an family and also evolve from a common proto-language ancestor (a different one from Carpathian).

  The following table provides a sense for some of the similarities in the language family.

  Note: The Finnic/Carpathian “k” shows up often as Hungarian “h”. Similarly, the Finnic/Carpathian “p” often corresponds to the Hungarian “f.”

  Carpathian (proto-Uralic)

  Finnish (Suomi)

  Hungarian (Magyar)

  elä—live

  elä—live

  él—live

  elid—life

  elinikä—life

  élet—life

  pesä—nest

  pesä—nest

  fészek—nest

  kola—die

  kuole—die

  hal—die

  pälä—half, side

  pieltä—tilt, tip to the side

  fél, fele—fellow human, friend (half; one side of two) feleség—wife

  and—give

  anta, antaa—give

  ad—give

  koje—husband, man

  koira—dog, the male

  here—drone, testicle (of animals)

  wäke—power

  väki—folks, people, men; force

  val/-vel—with (instrumental suffix)

  väkevä—powerful, strong

  vele—with him/her/it

  wete—water

  vesi—water

  víz—water

  2. CARPATHIAN GRAMMAR AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE

  Idioms. As both an ancient language, and a language of an earth people, Carpathian is more inclined toward use of idioms constructed from concrete, “earthy” terms, rather than abstractions. For instance, our modern abstraction, “to cherish,” is expressed more concretely in Carpathian as “to hold in one’s heart” the “nether world” is, in Carpathian, “the land of night, fog and ghosts” etc.

  Word order. The order of words in a sentence is determined not by syntactic roles (like subject, verb and object) but rather by pragmatic, discourse-driven factors. Examples: “Tied vagyok.” (“Yours am I.”); “Sívamet andam.” (“My heart I give you.”)

  Agglutination. The Carpathian language is agglutinative; that is, longer words are constructed from smaller components. An agglutinating language uses suffixes or prefixes whose meaning is generally unique, and which are concatenated one after another without overlap. In Carpathian, words typically consist of a stem that is followed by one or more suffixes. For example, “sívambam ” derives from the stem “sív ” (“heart”) followed by “am ” (“my,” making it “my heart”), followed by “bam ” (“in,” making it “in my heart”). As you might imagine, agglutination in Carpathian can sometimes produce very long words, or words that are very difficult to pronounce. Vowels often get inserted between suffixes, to prevent too many consonants from appearing in a row (which can make the word unpronouncable).

  Noun cases. Like all languages, Carpathian has many noun cases; the same noun will be “spelled” differently depending on its role in the sentence. Some of the noun cases include: nominative (when the noun is the subject of the sentence), accusative (when the noun is a direct object of the verb), dative (indirect object), genitive (or possessive), instrumental, final, supressive, inessive, elative, terminative and delative.

  We will use the possessive (or genitive) case as an example, to illustrate how all noun cases in Carpathian involve adding standard suffixes to the noun stems. Thus expressing possession in Carpathian—“my lifemate,” “your lifemate,” “his lifemate,” “her lifemate,” etc.—involves adding a particular suffix (such as “=am”) to the noun stem (“päläfertiil”), to produce the possessive (“päläfertiilam”—“my lifemate”). Which suffix to use depends upon which person (“my,” “your,” “his,” etc.) and whether the noun ends in a consonant or vowel. The following table shows the suffixes for singular nouns only (not plural), and also shows the similarity to the suffixes used in contemporary Hungarian. (Hungarian is actually a little more complex, in that it also requires “vowel rhyming”: which suffix to use also depends on the last vowel in the noun; hence the multiple choices in the cells below, where Carpathian only has a single choice.)

  Carpathian (proto-Uralic)

  contemporary Hungarian

  person

  noun ends in vowel

  noun ends in consonant

  noun ends in vowel

  noun ends in consonant

  1st singular (my)

  -m

  -am

  -m

  -om, -em, -öm

  2nd singular (your)

  -d

  -ad

  -d

  -od, -ed, -öd

  3rd singular (his, her, its)

  -ja

  -a

  -ja/-je

  -a, -e

  1st plural (our)

  -nk

  -ank

  -nk

  -unk, -ünk

  2nd plural (your)

  -tak

  -atak

  -tok, -tek, -tök

  -otok,-etek, -ötök

  3rd plural (their)

  -jak

  -ak

  -juk, -jük

  -uk, -ük

  Note: As mentioned earlier, vowels often get inserted between the word and its suffix so as to prevent too many consonants from appearing in a row (which would produce unpronouncable words). For example, in the table above, all nouns that end in a consonant are followed by suffixes beginning with “a.”

  Verb conjugation. Like its modern descendents (such as Finnish and Hungarian), Carpathian has many verb tenses, far too many to describe here. We will just focus on the conjugation of the present tense. Again, we will place contemporary Hungarian side by side with the Carpathian, because of the marked similarity of the two.

  As with the possessive case for nouns, the conjugation of verbs is done by adding a suffix onto the verb stem:

  Person

  Carpathian (proto-Uralic)

  contemporary Hungarian

  1st (I give)

  -am (andam),-ak

  -ok,-ek,-ök

  2nd singular (you give)

  -sz (andsz)

  -sz

  3rd singular (he/she/it gives)

  —(and)

  —

  1st plural (we give)

  -ak (andak)

  -unk,-ünk

  2nd plural (you give)

  -tak (andtak)

  -tok,-tek,-tök

  3rd plural (they give)

  -nak (andnak)

  -nak,-nek

  As with all languages, there are many “irregular verbs” in Carpathian that don’t exac
tly fit this pattern. But the above table is still a useful guideline for most verbs.

  3. EXAMPLES OF THE CARPATHIAN LANGUAGE

  Here are some brief examples of conversational Carpathian, used in the Dark books. We include the literal translation in square brackets. It is interestingly different from the most appropriate English translation.

  Susu.

  I am home.

  [“home/birthplace.” “I am” is understood, as is often the case in Carpathian.]

  Möért?

  What for?

  csitri

  little one

  [“little slip of a thing”, “little slip of a girl”]

  ainaak enyém

  forever mine

  ainaak sívamet jutta

  forever mine (another form)

  [“forever to-my-heart connected/fixed”]

  sívamet

  my love

  [“of-my-heart,” “to-my-heart”]

  Sarna Rituaali (The Ritual Words) is a longer example, and an example of chanted rather than conversational Carpathian. Note the recurring use of “andam ” (“I give”), to give the chant musicality and force through repetition.

  Sarna Rituaali (The Ritual Words)

  Te avio päläfertiilam.

  You are my lifemate.

  [You wedded wife-my. “Are” is understood, as is generally the case in Carpathian when one thing is equated with another: “You-my lifemate.”]

  Éntölam kuulua, avio päläfertiilam.

  I claim you as my lifemate.

  [To-me belong-you, wedded wife-my.]

  Ted kuuluak, kacad, kojed.

  I belong to you.

  [To-you belong-I, lover-your, man/husband/drone-your.]

  Élidamet andam.

  I offer my life for you.

  [Life-my give-I. “you” is understood.]

  Pesämet andam.

  I give you my protection.

  [Nest-my give-I.]

  Uskolfertiilamet andam.

  I give you my allegiance.

  [Fidelity-my give-I.]

  Sívamet andam.

  I give you my heart.

  [Heart-my give-I.]

  Sielamet andam.

  I give you my soul.

  [Soul-my give-I.]

  Ainamet andam.

  I give you my body.

  [Body-my give-I.]

  Sívamet kuuluak kaik että a ted.

  I take into my keeping the same that is yours.

  [To-my-heart hold-I all that-is yours.]

  Ainaak olenszal sívambin.

  Your life will be cherished by me for all my time.

  [Forever will-be-you in-my-heart.]

  Te élidet ainaak pide minan.

  Your life will be placed above my own for all time.

  [Your life forever above mine.]

  Te avio päläfertiilam.

  You are my lifemate.

  [You wedded wife-my.]

  Ainaak sívamet jutta oleny.

  You are bound to me for all eternity.

  [Forever to-my-heart connected are-you.]

  Ainaak terád vigyázak.

  You are always in my care.

  [Forever you I-take-care-of.]

  See Appendix 1 for Carpathian healing chants, including both the Kepä Sarna Pus (“The Lesser Healing Chant”) and the En Sarna Pus (“The Great Healing Chant”).

  To hear these words pronounced (and for more about Carpathian pronunciation altogether), please visit: http://www.christinefeehan.com/members/.

  4. A MUCH ABRIDGED CARPATHIAN DICTIONARY

  This very much abridged Carpathian dictionary contains most of the Carpathian words used in these Dark books. Of course, a full Carpathian dictionary would be as large as the usual dictionary for an entire language.

  Note: The Carpathian nouns and verbs below are word stems. They generally do not appear in their isolated, “stem” form, as below. Instead, they usually appear with suffixes (e.g., “andam”—“I give,” rather than just the root, “and”).

  aina—body

  ainaak—forever

  akarat—mind; will

  ál—bless, attach to

  alatt—through

  al?—to lift; to raise

  and—to give

  avaa—to open

  avio—wedded

  avio päläfertiil—lifemate

  bels —within; inside

  ća a—to flee; to run; to escape

  ćoro—to flow; to run like rain

  csitri—little one (female)

  ekä—brother

  elä—to live

  elävä—alive

  elävä ainak majaknak—land of the living

  elid—life

  én—I

  en—great, many, big

  En Puwe—The Great Tree. Related to the legends of Ygddrasil, the axis mundi, Mount Meru, heaven and hell, etc.

  engem—me

  eći—to fall

  ek—suffix added after a noun ending in a consonant to make it plural

  és—and

  että—that

  fáz—to feel cold or chilly

  fertiil—fertile one

  fesztelen—airy

  fü—herbs; grass

  gond—care; worry (noun)

  hän—he; she; it

  hany—clod; lump of earth

  irgalom—compassion; pity; mercy

  jälleen—again

  jama—to be sick, wounded, or dying; to be near death (verb)

  jelä—sunlight; day, sun; light

  joma—to be under way; to go

  j?orem—to forget; to lose one’s way; to make a mistake

  juta—to go; to wander

  jüti—night; evening

  jutta—connected; fixed (adj.). to connect; to fix; to bind (verb)

  k—suffix added after a noun ending in a vowel to make it plural

  kaca—male lover

  kaik—all (noun)

  kaŋa—to call; to invite; to request; to beg

  kaŋk—windpipe; Adam’s apple; throat

  Karpatii—Carpathian

  käsi—hand

  kepä—lesser, small, easy, few

  kinn—out; outdoors; outside; without

  kinta—fog, mist, smoke

  koje—man; husband; drone

  kola—to die

  koma—empty hand; bare hand; palm of the hand; hollow of the hand

  kont—warrior

  kule—hear

  kuly—intestinal worm; tapeworm; demon who possesses and devours souls

  kulke—to go or to travel (on land or water)

  kuńa—to lie as if asleep; to close or cover the eyes in a game of hide-and-seek; to die

  kunta—band, clan, tribe, family

  kuulua—to belong; to hold

  lamti—lowland; meadow

  lamti ból jüti, kinta, ja szelem—the nether world (literally: “the meadow of night, mists, and ghosts”)

  lejkka—crack, fissure, split (noun). To cut; hit; to strike forcefully (verb).

  lewl—spirit

  lewl ma—the other world (literally: “spirit land”). Lewl ma includes lamti ból jüti, kinta, ja szelem: the nether world, but also includes the worlds higher up En Puwe, the Great Tree

  löyly—breath; steam. (related to lewl: “spirit”)

  ma—land; forest

  mäne—rescue; save

  me—we

  meke—deed; work (noun). To do; to make; to work (verb)

  minan—mine

  minden—every, all (adj.)

  möért?—what for? (exclamation)

  molo—to crush; to break into bits

  molanâ—to crumble; to fall apart

  mozdul—to begin to move, to enter into movement

  nä—for

  ŋamaŋ—this; this one here

  nélkül—without

  nenä—anger

  nó—like; in the same way as; as

  numa—god; sky; top; upper part; highest (related to the English
word: “numinous”)

  nyelv—tongue

  nyál—saliva; spit (noun). (related to nyelv: “tongue”)

  odam—dream; sleep (verb)

  oma—old; ancient

  omboće—other; second (adj.)

  o—the (used before a noun beginning with a consonant)

  ot—the (used before a noun beginning with a vowel)

  otti—to look; to see; to find

  owe—door

  pajna—to press

  pälä—half; side

  päläfertiil—mate or wife

  pél—to be afraid; to be scared of

  pesä—nest (literal); protection (figurative)

  pide—above

  pirä—circle; ring (noun). To surround; to enclose (verb).

  pitä—keep; hold

  piwtä—to follow; to follow the track of game

  pukta—to drive away; to persecute; to put to flight

  pusm—to be restored to health

  pus—healthy; healing

  puwe—tree; wood

  reka—ecstasy; trance

  rituaali—ritual

  sa e—to arrive; to come; to reach

  salama—lightning; lightning bolt