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A Brief History of Origin:

The current language of the Surksàasna has changed little since its beginning. Coincidentally, it is because of humans that the Surks have any spoken language at all.

Millennia ago, in the days before accurate recorded human history, the lore of dragons, castles and knights is seeded. While most of us regard this nowadays as fairy-tales and bedtime-stories, much of it held some actual fact: the creatures we called "dragons" are actually the ancestors of the Surksàasna. How they came to be in our world is only speculative. Some believe that these dragons (and other creatures of their world) had the ability to travel between the two worlds freely, and did so for their own entertainment in interacting with medieval-age humans. Over time and evolution, it would seem the Surks lost their ability to move across worlds; however, it was their living amongst humans that gave them their spoken language.

Before the dragons--or "early Surks" to be more accurate--had any use for language, they communicated purely via telepathy with their own species. Surk history tells us that this was their only method of communication, aside from simple feral noises like growling, purring and roaring. This means of communication was as simple as the "speaker" projecting his/her thoughts unto the "listener," and was extremely efficient due to the lack of actual words being exchanged. Being in contact with humans gave the early Surks the need to better communicate with the other species that lacked the mental capacity to interpret the telepathic speech they used. Over hundreds of years, the early Surks inhabiting our world combined several human languages from that time using whatever sounds their reptilian mouths could create (the Surks we know today have evolved lips and oral muscles which allow them to speak almost any language), and old-Surksàasnian slowly came into existence.

Old Surksàasnian was a Surk language that was actually far more complex than modern Surksàasnian. It had an extensive vocabulary, several tenses, and conjugations that made it possible for a human to learn, understand and fluently speak it. The early Surks needed to abandon all of their telepathy when speaking with humans, so it was a necessity to have a language that had no telepathy involved. Unfortunately, no documentation of Old Surksàasnian has been found by either Surks or humans, and the language has become completely extinct (it is possible that neither party had decided on a method of scribing this new language).

After some obscure conflict saw the early Surks driven off our world completely, they returned to their realm to realize that the effects of time had taken a toll on their ancient methods of communication: they had forgotten how to speak telepathically. They could still project thoughts; however to the recipient, each message was like a mottled and blurry image--completely undecipherable. This became frustrating when they attempted to re-integrate themselves into Surk society and could not properly communicate. With the number of returning Surks at just over a thousand, it was impossible to just ignore them and let them live their lives separate from more traditional Surk culture. Thus the Surks and their amazing ability to quickly evolve and adapt led to a compromise of sorts. The elders of their tribes taught everyone to speak a combination of simplified Old Surksàasnian while using limited telepathy to help convey the meanings of each word and sentence. This eventually became the language we know as modern Surksàasnian.

Speech-Telepathy Mechanics

Modern Surksàasnian involves two mediums: audible spoken words and telepathic imbuement of those words. Essentially, Surks have a small vocabulary where each word can have several meanings (ie: nekska can mean "sun," "fire," "burn," "heat," or "light"). To differentiate between meanings, any word with multiple definitions is "stamped" with the intended meaning when it is spoken. This is as second-nature for a Surk as it is for a human to differentiate between "to," "two," and "too," by simply considering the context. There are few words in Surksàasnian that have singular meanings.

Humans naturally do not have the biological capability of receiving or transmitting telepathic signals as the Surks do. Even humans who have received implants that allow them to do so still cannot decrypt the telepathically-stamped words spoken by a Surk. Research into this is ongoing. It is possible for a human to interpret a small amount of Surksàasnian speech by utilizing context, but full, in-depth conversations will leave many parts out due to the sheer number of various meanings some Surksàasnian words represent.

Surksàasnian Writing

Written Surksàasnian is unique in the way that non-traditional or informal "writing" can be anything. A Surk can draw a few obscure lines inside of a circle and call it a "sentence." What actually makes it a sentence or phrase is the fact that Surks also stamp their intended meanings into their writing, no matter what medium is used to write on or with. Quite often the symbols depicted are semi-pictorial, much like the Japanese kanji characters or Chinese, where many of the characters vaguely depict an image of the words they represent. Other times they can be just an abstract symbol expressing thoughts and emotions experienced by the writer, with the same telepathic imprint to specifically convey the meaning. It is interesting to note that two Surks writing the same sentence will almost always produce two unique visual diagrams. Another notable feature is the fact that two Surks may read the same diagram and explain it differently, but each will always arrive at the exact same meaning (much like two individuals interpreting a painting that contains a single obvious theme).

Surksàasnian traditional or formal writing is far more structured and clear. An alphabet consisting of eight vowels and thirteen consonants is used in full, along with nine numerical characters. No special symbols or characters are used in the most formal of Surksàasnian writing, yet the sentences are telepathically stamped the exact same way an informal document is. This is comparable to the Japanese hiragana alphabet, where the phonetic syllables are written in lieu of using complex symbols from the kanji alphabet (and also leads historians to believe that much of Surksàasnian written language was inspired by the Japanese).

Surksàasnian Alphabet

The Surks use an alphabet of twenty-one characters. The characters strictly represent specific sounds and none of them have more than one pronunciation (the letter G can only utilize the back of the tongue on the roof of the mouth; it cannot make the same sound as a J).

These are the Surksàasnian vowels. Notice how each character has its own distinct sound. These sounds have no accents or modifiers to otherwise change their pronunciation (although, when translated into the Roman alphabet, we use accents to distinguish their sounds to people who cannot read the Surk alphabet).

Àa - [Aww] As in "Walk."

A - [Ah] As in "Cat."

È - [Eh] As in "Wet."

É - [Ay] As in "Play."

I - [Ee] As in "Eat."

E - [Eu] As in "Push."

U - [Oo] As in "Too."

O - [Oh] As in "Go."

The following are the consonants of the Surk alphabet.

S Z N L T D K G R H

*Hr *Sr *Nr

*The last three characters are quite specific to the structure of the Surks' reptilian mouths and vocal chords, but their sounds can be emulated by someone with good mimickery skills. Each is a combination of the first consonant with a rolling R or a growl underneath it.

Surksàasnian Numerical System

The Surk numbering system is a base-10 system like our own. When written formal, the corresponding character is always used; no phonetic characters from the Surk alphabet are ever used in place of the actual number.