lizardsquid:

conlangprompts:

lizardsquid:

aturinfortheworse:

conlangprompts:

Your protagonist takes years to translate text from a mysterious ancient language only to realise it’s the equivalent of an instruction manual for building a fishing boat.

now you know how to build a mysterious ancient fishing boat. accurate reconstructions. clear understandings of technological capabilities. field testing. materials. the benefits of that translation work itself. its a win/win bro.

Accurately translating the instructions for a fishing boat gives you a lot of information about the culture as well:

  • They were literate enough that the people who make fishing boats could write – so either their entire society was literate, or making fishing boats was just something that people did

  • You know how they convey information – did they use relative directions (left/right), absolute directions (upstream/downstream), something else? Did they have a system of measurement based on an arbitrary size (like centimetres or inches) or is it based on approximate sizes of common household objects?

Also, if writing down an instruction manual was done, then a lot of other stuff is also going to be written down somewhere, so you’re in luck!

I guess it depends on what the protagonist’s motivation is. Which is up to the author, of course. Yes they my be an archaeologist or historian or in some related field. But perhaps not. Also who’s to say they haven’t already found fishing boats and aren’t completely aware of how th woe technology works? What if they’re looking for something else? – Daniella (promptsblog)

“oh for goodness sake!”

“What, what now?”

“It’s yet another boat building manual.”

“That’s the twelfth one this week! Why can’t you just recognise them on sight?”

“The Language has this weird feature where the pronunciation shifts depending on who you’re speaking to, and because the writing system is phonemic…”