Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this would be the best way of getting in contact with someone, but I wanted to try this before doing something like submitting a support request.

I’m a professional linguist, experienced conlanger and active member of the Language Creation Society, and a Guild Wars fan, and I’m interested in creating the Asuran language just for the sake of player immersion and my own amusement. I have some fun ideas of how to integrate the “half-mathematical” aspect given by the writing team, but I would first like to know what (to my knowledge) the only piece of the language available to players means: “qwa umza lagee wan” and “o kwa tanzin wan”. If that can be released to me, I can make the conceptualized language more authentic, and if anything else regarding the language has been considered, all the better.

Whether or not Arenanet gives me a hand here, my grammar and lexicon for the language will be available publicly online for the interest of fans. I understand the need to keep certain aspects of story and canon development under wraps, but any information I could get would be very much appreciated. Thanks very much in advance!

Sincerely,
Justin Mann

“qwa umza lagee wan”
Can I ask where that came from?

To my knowledge the only known Asuran word is Bookah.

We do however have Asuran script:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Asuran_script
But I would personally be remarkably surprised if they had actually developed an Asuran language given that it would have required hiring someone with the appropriate knowledge to do so – and if they had you can be sure it would be in game.

A response I gave to a similair thread:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Both the Asura forums and Lore forums seem to be fitting for this question.

Anyway, to your question.

The Asura have their own language from when they were underground, but quickly adapted to the “common” language, so there are very few instances of the Asura language used. There are only two cases of the Asura language being seen.
The first, and most familiar, is the term Bookah. The second is the Asura banners on the Asuran Beacon.

Before their surfacing, the Asuran language was half-mathematical and half-structured.

What you see below is a sample of the Asuran language, It translates into Line 1: qwa umza lagee wan Line 2: o kwa tanzin wan

Source

Yeah. It’s a strange transliteration, because to make things simple it SHOULD just be “kwa umza lagi” and “o kwa tanzin wan”, but yes, I want to know what they mean.

I jumped the gun a little and churned out this, though. Behold: the mathy language (presented to you in-character by Philologist Sprokk!)

It just needs words, so actually, in the meantime, I’m taking word donations. Asuran has very few rules on what a word can be apart from “don’t make it too long, and it should at least be kind of pronounceable”, so if anyone wants to have a little fun and throw out random asura-y words, I would welcome it

EDIT: I would also welcome anyone reading this and interested to tell me anything they find confusing in there. I know the math stuff is confusing and needs more examples, but if there’s anything linguisticky that people have difficulties with… I sometimes forget what’s hard for people without degrees in this stuff, so I’d appreciate reminders :P

Hey, Geckat, I believe this should shed some light on its meaning… to your disappointment

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_Martin

“O kwa tanzin wan” seems to be simply a reference to Riley Martin’s fact/fictional Biaviian alien comrade O-Qua Tangin Wann. Qua Omsa Lagee Wann is also another alien, if I remember correctly. I’m not sure if the writer meant it to be more than this, but atm it appears to be a well-disguised joke about the inspiration behind Asura.
I hope this helps, and good luck with the language!

ToaLux, thank you very much! I’m not terribly disappointed; this gives me more freedom with the language. Maybe I can even make those two lines mean something relevant to the place they were found, eventually.

Another mystery solved. Back to work!