Alien lexicon
Nhál
First contact 2192 · spoken tongue, largely auto-translated · 24 words recorded
A spoken, human-descended tongue. Two-beat words, soft fricatives, a glottal stop (written ’). The register is low and even — raising the voice is itself meaningful. Translator tech renders most Nhál automatically; the words below are the ones that survive untranslated, because the not-translating is the point.
A non-human tongue with recorded vocabulary.
Physiology
Human-descended Seam-traversal communities, stranded long ago and grown a long way from their root. By the Spent Light era they keep an oral language alongside their older Seam-network signalling.
Structure
Roots compound, and — this is the part a reader needs — the WRITTEN FORM marks how tightly they are bound. There are three degrees of join. **Bare fusion** (korrvesh, saelvesh, threivesh) welds two roots into a single settled concept, a thing in itself. A **hyphen** (tael-vesh, thren-aune, threi-sael) holds two full roots in a phrase, each keeping its own beat and its own visible work. An **apostrophe** (vesh'a, sael'korr, kel'aune) is a glottal catch binding a root to a particle or a tightly-bonded second root — the closest join of all. The rule of thumb: the more completely two parts have fused into one idea, the less punctuation. ⚠ The apostrophe is a phoneme, not typography; the forms are not interchangeable and the punctuation is never stripped. Order matters too, and is deliberate: korrsael (the weight voiced) and sael'korr (the voicing owed) share both roots and are different words. Belonging is marked by the suffix -en. Plurality is unmarked; context carries number. There is no tense — Nhál marks certainty and standing instead of past and future.
Contact protocol
Translator renders almost everything; the catalogued words are the ones speakers deliberately leave untranslated.
Recorded vocabulary
The words characters deliberately leave untranslated, because the not-translating is the point.
aune
/OW-neh/
Renders as
“kin; line; those one belongs to”
What it actually means
Family in the widest sense: the line you come from and answer to.
aunen
/OW-nen/
Renders as
“of my line; my people”
What it actually means
The -en suffix of belonging on aune (kin, line). Nhál marks possession this way rather than with a separate word.
kel
/kel/
Renders as
“no; a refusal; a closed door”
What it actually means
Short, flat, final. The hardest small word in the language.
kel'aune
/KEL-ow-neh/
Renders as
“the line that closes its door on one of its own”
What it actually means
kel (refusal, a closed door) + aune (kin, line). The wrong of a people that shuts out one of its own members. Spoken once, untranslated, then glossed by the speaker: “We have that word because we have needed it.”
kel'korr
/KEL-kor/
Renders as
““the debt that cannot be paid””
What it actually means
Despair, or an unforgivable act. kel (refusal) + korr (debt). Reserved for the worst weight a voice can carry.
korr
/kor/
Renders as
“weight owed; a debt”
What it actually means
A central Nhál concept. Roots most of their words about obligation, grief, and inheritance.
korrsael
/KORR-sale/
Renders as
“the weight given to the air — a formal grief-utterance”
What it actually means
korr (weight owed) + sael (breath, voice). A korrsael does not narrate a grief or explain it; it is the weight itself, voiced — a long unhurried falling that ends rather than breaks off. ⚠ Contrast sael'korr: same two roots, reversed, and a different word.
korrvesh
/KOR-vesh/
Renders as
“grief-debt”
What it actually means
A grief formally carried rather than discharged quickly — held, witnessed, not rushed. korr (weight owed) + vesh (the standing-quiet).
naru
/NAH-roo/
Renders as
“to listen; to receive without answering yet”
What it actually means
A virtue the Nhál prize. Listening that does not rush to reply is its own act of respect.
naru-sa?
/NAH-roo-sah/
Renders as
““will you listen?””
What it actually means
The politeness frame that opens a serious exchange. Asked before something is given that matters.
sael
/sah-EL/
Renders as
“breath; voice; the act of speaking”
What it actually means
A human root buried in it, just out of reach. The unit from which speech-words are built.
sael'en
/sah-EL-en/
Renders as
““of one voice” — agreement, accord”
What it actually means
Weightier than the human "agreed." The -en suffix marks belonging.
sael'korr
/sah-EL-kor/
Renders as
“the debt of inheritance”
What it actually means
What every voice owes the voices before it. "Every hand that writes is full of older hands." Paid formally, witnessed.
saelvesh
/SAH-el-vesh/
Renders as
““the voice-quiet””
What it actually means
A willing, openable silence — stillness that holds a voice ready. The good inverse of threivesh. sael (voice) + vesh (standing-quiet).
tael
/tah-EL/
Renders as
“light; a star”
What it actually means
A plain word, made heavy by what it compounds into.
tael-vesh
/tah-EL-vesh/
Renders as
“spent light — a guttered star; a dead or dying sun”
What it actually means
tael (light) + vesh (the standing-quiet). The far edge is full of tael-vesh. Often left untranslated; the silence around it carries the weight.
threi
/thray/
Renders as
“breach; the wrong-loud; disorder unset”
What it actually means
The order broken and not yet set right. To raise the voice is a threi- act.
threi-korr
/THRAY-korr/
Renders as
“the breach-debt”
What it actually means
threi (breach; the wrong-loud) + korr (weight owed). What is owed where the order broke — debt accrued by one's own wrong-loud acts, owed to those the breach harmed. Distinct from korrvesh, which is grief for what was lost rather than guilt for what was done.
threi-sael
/thray-sah-EL/
Renders as
““haste-speech”; speaking or acting before standing”
What it actually means
threi (breach) + sael (voice). The human habit of rushing. Not quite an insult — closer to "breach-speech."
threivesh
/THRAY-vesh/
Renders as
““the breach-silence / the wrong-still””
What it actually means
A silence that should be a voice and is not — aware, unanswering. The dark inverse of vesh. Reserved for the truly alien.
thren
/thren/
Renders as
“the long view; the fixed line of time”
What it actually means
The concept that lets the Nhál speak with no grammatical tense — time is a line already drawn, not a before and after.
thren-aune
/THREN-ow-neh/
Renders as
“the long-parted line”
What it actually means
thren (the long view; the fixed line of time) + aune (kin, line). A lineage recognised across time; a branch known by its bones after a long sundering. The word names the shape of such a branch and never whose it is.
vesh
/vesh/
Renders as
“the standing-quiet; rest, stillness, baseline”
What it actually means
The Nhál resting state. To "hold vesh" is to be at peace. The root from which much of the language grows.
vesh'a
/VESH-ʔa/
Renders as
““be still / it is well / peace””
What it actually means
The default greeting and leave-taking. Lands like both "hello" and "be at peace" at once.