uo'aXy'an Lesson One: Introduction and Greetings

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] hi there I'm Britton Watkins and I'll be your guide for beginning to learn xi'an so you might be asking yourself why would I learn a fictional language while it's true that understanding xi'an or any other language in the end is it going to be the key to the game the production team here understand that this kind of investment in building out the universe has big payoffs not just for richness in gameplay but because it also gives you another dimension in which you can engage in and get enjoyment out of immersing yourself in these world's fictional languages can become real even if the original speakers are fictional while this series is intended to introduce you to the

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   foundation of speaking and writing just as you can't learn Spanish or Japanese in an hour this course will not be completely comprehensive we're also looking to enlist your help in directly contributing to the language as well but we'll get into that a little bit later in this first chapter in this series we'll be sharing with you a brief introduction to the Sheehan culture an overview of the online resources that are already available or will soon be available to help you learn and finally some basic words and phrases to get you started so who are the Xian I'll include some links in the description below that will give you a more comprehensive backstory but in a nutshell the Xian are an alien species that have a reptilian type appearance and they've served as foils for humanity both politically and

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   socially they can live for hundreds of years so there's a somewhat austere and restrained element to their interactions they tend to play their cards very close to their chests are generally perceived as being diplomatically manipulative and thanks to their long lifespan they tend to plan for decades rather than years now behind the scenes the developers looked to Han Dynasty era China as an initial inspiration for the culture just as much of the inspiration for the UAE comes from the late Roman Empire the linguistic choices I've made in constructing the language take various influences from Asia into account for Chris one of them to write vertically because there is so much verticality in their general design aesthetic which had a direct impact on the formulation of

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   the alphabet just as their culture and philosophies end up having impact on the words they use and how they frame things in daily life pitch is very important and they're long in short vowel distinctions for example in the greeting word chase women the first syllable has a long a sound and it's at a higher pitch than the rest of the word and the meaning behind the greeting comes from the semantic component meaning meeting or coming together sweat meaning converse or chat and Lin representing harmony or lack of confrontation the greeting itself is full of hopefulness that the encounter will go well the Xian might seem a bit austerity first but once you get to know them there's a lot of fascinating stuff going on behind the initial phases and attitudes that you'll

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   encounter the basic sounds of the language are pretty easy to produce but in the beginning it might be hard to hear the difference in shape and shift for example the first Shay is at a high pitch and as a long a sound the second is in a mid-range pitch and has a short vowel and with Cher the tongue is curled back a bit in the mouth and with SH it is forward if you speak Mandarin though you'll likely hear the difference more easily than if you don't it also has only 9 verbs and they don't have conjugations but those little simple looking verbs come in six different flavors of politeness and when the politeness changes the verb itself changes too and of course the verbs have to work with other content words that serve to make the language fully

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   expressive the written language will likely come across to you like Chinese or maybe Korean but it's not it's an alphabet like Korean which the letters are written in blocks but that was done so it could meet Chris's requirement to work vertically you may have noticed already that it also makes it work horizontally to an D so it's not as easy to learn as the Greek alphabet but it's not as difficult to learn as Chinese or Japanese or Thai it's almost all very logical so how will you be learning all of this at first we are preparing these videos they will help you primarily with the sounds of the language and put you on the right path to learning how to read the script they will also teach basic words and phrases and introduce you to enough

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   grammar that you can start formulating your own thoughts and sentences in Xi'an which the Xian call by the way was son but beyond these videos there is a big document that you will be able to get as a PDF it's not a bunch of step-by-step lessons either per se but it has a tremendous amount of material in it and details on the language that these videos will not be able to cover some of you will be able to digest and make more sense of this document than others so that you can all help each other out there is also a forum on the RSI site where you can come engage with me and other learners there will share ideas and answer each other's questions I created or rather I'm the person responsible for the inception of Xian as a grammatical fictional language but we all together will make it real the

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   dictionary for Xian is a hosted digital database and it will grow over time as language grows and finally on the topic of learning to speak it I can't do that fluently yet either we're all in this together so I'm looking forward to meeting you on the forum come on over and introduce yourself before we wrap up this segment by starting to learn some useful words and phrases I want to point out to you again that by engaging with everyone else who cares about this language you will be expanding its scope and importance as the Xian culture grows and as the writing team and technical folks at star citizen build out more and more elements of their society cities worlds and systems the language will grow also and the Xian despite

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   humanoids are very unlike humans in so many different ways star citizen thinks of you as being a vital part in this experience so by understanding this alien civilization and talking about them and writing stories in their more in their culture in their own language that you can learn here over time you'll be on a path to influence how Xian civilization evolves to be more fun and engaging for everyone even the people who are not learning the language regarding that the Xian might even say a school Wong at Guam it's surely of great importance ok let's learn some she on the next video chapter we'll go into detail on the sound system of the language but for now let's just take a repeat after me approach and

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    learn some basic words and phrases to get started we'll begin by going back to chase villain this is the greeting for hello when meeting people you might recall from earlier in this video that the parts break down into something that means more or less meet and chat amicably but that's not important now let's just learn to pronounce the word the pronunciation will show up along with the native Xian script Oh me I see I didn't know I repeat after me again sheis Wilin she Wilin she Wilin this works as a proper way to say hello or greetings or good day to anyone you know or don't know I find it a good idea to always repeat things at least three times to help lock them into my brain so

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    if I say sheisse willin to you what do you say back to get the first sound the X sound right try saying an Sh with your tongue curled back a tiny bit chase women next let's learn how to ask someone how things are going will be polite about it so this version is a bit long awesome I show up first just listen at full speed often we show up often we show up often we show this is actually three separate words Oh anyways sure they are all at a low pitch so your voice should not jump around keep it all flat and emotionless in terms of the pitch put some yeah see I repeat after me again this time often

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    what Sherlock I threw myself often was sure the low pitch does not indicate that the shion don't really care how you're doing even if it comes across that way it's simply coincidental that all of these words feature a consistent low pitch the shorter more familiar way to ask this something like what's up it's just a show again all low and flat tone ah show up if you get all human emotional and you let your tone drop and you're all like all show ah ashion would likely not even understand what you're asking the most common answer to this question is cold with a long ol it sounds a lot like the English word Kol it has a generically positive meaning like well or fine or if thumbs

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    up okay let's repeat Cole Cole Cole and to your having done well with that I might just say again Cole and it would mean good job in that context whenever anyone is learning a new language the phrase I don't understand is generally very useful here we go all the way a you'll night and your night hey your night I don't understand it literally means that you don't have a grasp of what is being asked however if you did understand the question but you don't know the answer then you would say that we let's practice repeat after me and we and we and we we is an important

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    philosophical concept in Xi'an culture of the void or nothingness or the great unknown out there so this tiny little two-word phrase is basically saying that there is nothing in me that can contribute to answering your question now just for fun let's learn to count in Cheon from zero to ten here we go we'll start with zero whoo yeah Shin why you qua Leia war teeth lo ha kyun did you hear the pitch jumping around a bit if you did that's good if you didn't let's give some examples of why it's important to learn to hear pitch and Xian

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    three of these numbers are distinguished from other common words by pitch alone for you at a high pitch contrast with you meaning man or male 5 quoi at a low pitch contrast with quoi meaning opinion quiet quoi could mean 5 opinions for example 9 low ha with the rising pitch is very different than the meaning of low ah at a flat middle pitch meaning eat or drink we'll talk more in the next lesson about the importance of pitch for now let's just practice these in order again repeat after me please and watch the extra information on the screen to see a visualization of what's going on with the pitch patterns here we go

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    whoo-yah skin why you quoi Leia wall teeth Lola Q before we say goodbye let's learn how to say goodbye repeat please a flake or a flake or a flake oh it literally means fare-thee-well or something very close to that your voice pitch is low and then goes up and then falls each syllable is different again here we go athletic Oh athletically athletic oh ok cold next time we'll be diving deep into all the sounds of the language it should

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    give your tongue and your brain a great workout until then Toa which means thanks and a flake or