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Chants of Sennaar: Warriors’ Language Analysis

So, this is a continuation of my language analysis. As usual, this post will spoil the whole language, so if you want to decipher it on your own first, you’ve been warned. This time I’ve got less to say, but this analysis helped me appreciate Warriors’ language far more than I did previously. After all,…

So, this is a continuation of my language analysis. As usual, this post will spoil the whole language, so if you want to decipher it on your own first, you’ve been warned.

This time I’ve got less to say, but this analysis helped me appreciate Warriors’ language far more than I did previously. After all, it’s unique in its own way and has got some profound philosophy behind it. At least, if my theory is proven correct.

Language features and Radicals

To begin with, just like the Devotees’ language before, Warriors’ language is SVO based. It means that it puts subject of the sentence first, then it’s followed by the main verb and after go the objects. It also uses grammatical prefixes in order to convey at least two ideas: plural number and negation. Since the pool of words in the game is rather small, I cannot say if prefixes are used for anything else in Warriors’ language.

To continue with, there are a few radicals that Warriors use to form glyphs, but this time the discernable number is much smaller and concepts carry less resemblance in their semantic group contrary to the Devotees’ language. This may happen due to the fact that many times the language uses a value silhouette of an object or concept rather than a certain semantic symbol. You shall see what i mean by it, when I describe some of the examples below. Needless to say, semantic radicals also carry symbolism but unlike with the Devotee’s language, this one lacks enough examples from the same semantic group for me to draw any certain conclusions on the matter.

I would like to add here, that only the “human” and the main “verb” radical can be verified with the in-game content. The other two that I mention come from analyzing that little which I was provided but I cannot be sure that my judgment is correct. These elements simply appear in the word that share some semantic meaning between each other but it’s not enough to claim my hypothesis to be right.

Another peculiarity of the Warriors’ language is that it lacks the pronouns for the first and the second person, which means that the only way for them to name each other is either by profession, physical features or by proper name. That is, if Warriors have got proper names. The game doesn’t provide any examples mostly to avoid contaminating puzzle-solving.

People Word Group

This is the beginning of the wonderful journey of a translation which is meant for the end of the game but some zealous linguistics enthusiasts (definitely not me) may start doing little translations between the different people of the Tower where the game takes place. This is when you realize how different concepts are translated in different languages and how the translation and the original text may have the same reference but use completely different sense in their respective languages. Please, don’t believe that this was done specifically for the game. the issue of either not having a correct referent or having a different meaning in translation is very common in real life translation.

Below I have introduces some ideas concerning the “human” radical:

The reason why I combine the diamond shape in “chosen” with the idea of “completeness, fullness or wholeness” comes from the fact that some other words below also use the diamond shape. On the other hand, it may simply look the same but mean something completely different. After all, later, in verbs, we will see a reversed human radical shape as well, but there i proposed it not to mean a human, but rather convey the idea of walking.

The reverse is possible as well, that is to say, that “the impure” lacks a human radical in any way and it simply looks similar.

Verb Word Group

As you can see above, all verbs have got a straight angle shape at the bottom, the rest can vary. Earlier I proposed for these other shapes to be variations of the “verb” radical, but it is also possible that they have to do more with the semantic representation of the concept rather than any particular radical.

Here is the list on peculiarities concerning the verbs of the Warrior language:

Just like i described in the picture, the verb “to love/to like” contains the diamond shape as well. It may be a stretch but the word “fear” and the “not” prefix also share the diamond shape and can fit rather soundly into my little theory.

Noun Word Group

Something I forgot to describe in the comments below is that the “musical instrument” looks a bit like a harp which is fitting because Bards, i.e. the Chosen Ones, play harps. On top of that, the idea of two parallel lines representing “music” as a radical came to me from the fact that both, the “music” glyph and the “musical instrument” glyph share this element.

Additionally, with some concrete objects you can see well what I meant when I said that Warriors’ language uses shapes to represent concepts. It makes is easier to understand and remember the meaning of the glyphs but the lack of semantic radicals does make it harder to decipher patterns in the language.

I don’t want to spoil the ending of the game too much, so I won’t comment on the “duty” glyph.

However, I want to develop a bit the idea behind “fear”. Since this is the language of Warriors who should not be afraid to go into battle, being afraid makes them unable to perform their duty well. And their duty is basically their concept of worship, so “fear” makes you stray away from “duty” and if “duty” is what fulfills Warrior’s life, than “fear” is what prevents the fulfillment of the duty.


Well, this one was definitely shorter but it doesn’t mean that it was a worse language to work with. Yes, it was difficult, but it was very rewarding to find some elements that felt like they were carefully thought of and inserted for a reason rather than for a cool shape which shall be discussed in the next post which shall delve into the Bards’ language. It was pure insanity to go through in the game and I wonder if I shall change my perception of it after my analysis.

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