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Sylphic lore

Names and gender

While there exist two distinct genders amongst the sylphs, neither fall into what we would label as male or female. As has been revealed in the daily beast tribe quests, sylphs are “grown” from seeds known as “podlings.” These seeds are formed from the flowers which grow on the heads of adult sylphs. Not all adults, however, can produce seeds.

Sylphs whose flowers bloom only at specific times during the pollinating seasons are capable of producing podlings. These sylphs have forenames ending in ~xio.
Sylphs whose flowers bloom at irregular times throughout the seasonal cycle are (for the most part) incapable of producing podlings. These sylphs have forenames ending in ~xia. As they do not need to expend their physical and spiritual energies forming a seed, the ~xia sylphs tend to be more adept at wielding magicks.

— “Beast Tribe Naming Conventions I” posted by Fernehalwes

Old High Sylphic

Alright, so to start off, Old High Sylphic is quite different from the language spoken by the Five Races in not only sound, but in structure. I’m not going to go into the fine grammatical details here because that would take a far too long and I have far too much unfinished patch translation waiting for me (another ulp), but I will do a quick walk through the lyrics:

1 Ula menida tula oh (Hoary Arbor, Lord of Light)

2 Tela omnida tula ei (Thine advent quelleth creeping night)

3 Ona ramuhda deme os (The wicked burn, their pyres bright)

4 Nola tulama tela ei (Smote by Levin's blinding might)

Remember, the Eorzean (English) translation to the right here is actually a “localization” made so that the lyrics would fit the melody/available syllable count, as well as rhyme. A far more literal translation of the OHS would look more like this:

1 The burning of (ula) fire (meni) is (-da) bright (tula) because (oh)

2 The quelling of (tela) the wicked (omni) is (-da) lightning (tula) the reason (ei)

- (tula ei -caused by lightning)

3 The coming/arrival of (ona) Levinlord (ramuh) who is (-da) old tree (deme) also (os)

4 The slow moving of (nola) light (tula)'s opposite is (-ma) quelling of (tela)'s reason (ei)

- (tulama -night)

- (tela ei -is quelled because of the coming of the Levinlord)

So:

The fires burn bright because

The wicked have been smote by lightning

The Lord of Levin’s─the old tree’s─arrival

Is the reason that the creeping night is quelled

As you may have noted, “tula” is translated as light (dark=night), bright, and lightning in the lyrics. Context plays a major role in Old High Sylphic with a single word able to possess multiple meanings depending on how and where it is used.

Again, I’m not going to get too deep into the language, but here’s a little more on the verb situation:

The be verb (am/is/are) ‘DA’ is always attached to the end of the noun acting as the sentence’s subject:

-da (be verb = is/are) [-dan -negative]

omnida = the wicked are

menidan = Fire isn’t

’MA' also works as the be verb, but it changes the attached noun to its antonym (opposite)

-ma (be verb + changes the preceding noun to its antonym) [-man -negative]

tulama = dark is (tula = light)

meniman = water isn’t (meni = fire)

Most other verbs are always presented as gerunds (the noun form of a verb -arrive=arriving) paired with the be verb.

on (arrival/arriving)

tel (quelling/smiting)

ul (burning/smoldering)

nol (moving slow) <-nor (moving quickly)

An ‘a’ added to a gerund serves as an ‘of’

On = arriving -Ona = the arriving of

Articles are non-existent, and verb tense and pronouns are not represented by words, but rather by the pitch with which words are spoken. These pitch changes cannot be represented in any font that Microsoft provides, so I am unable to post them here today, but they involve curved lines above and below the words. Finally, rhyme in Old High Sylphic was not achieved by pairing the sounds of words, but by pairing the timbre with which they were sung (this is why the ‘localized’ version rhymes when, on paper, the Old High Sylphic seemingly doesn’t).

Finally, I seem to recall a few weeks ago there was a post asking for the translation of “Ona Ramuhda,” as it appeared as the title for an in-game tome. “Advent of the Lord of Levin” is probably pretty close.

— “Beast Tribe Naming Conventions I” posted by Fernehalwes