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Girl Genius

The Geisterdamen speak a language that one might term "Geisterspeak" or "Geisterese." It is distinct from the common language of Europa and incomprehensible to run-of-the-mill Europans.

The language is spoken by Lucrezia (while she posesses Agatha's body). At least one version of Anevka also speaks it with some degree of fluency, and Tarvek understands it and speaks it.

Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer) is fluent in the language, thanks to his long association with Oslaka, if his Twitter adventures are accurate.

Uses of Geisterspeak[]

Decoding[]

No Rosetta Stone for Geisterspeak has been found, and no signifiant information has been obtained from un-translated Geisterspeak. It is believed that Eotain and Shurdlu are the names of two Geisters from two different uses of those words.

Any attempt to "decode" Geisterspeak[1] is probably pointless because footnote 21 of the second prose novel, Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess, states, "The language of the Geisterdamen, developing as it did without any Indo-European influences, has always been a thing of unfamiliar cadences and bizarre word structure. To recreate the sense of confusion and unfamiliarity that the linguistically cosmopolitan Lady Heterodyne must have experienced the first time she heard it, we have helpfully rendered all of the Geisterdamen’s dialogue as gibberish." This means that the words were not thought out, but rather made up on the spot; that is, they are nonces.

References

  1. (despite some interesting similitudes with other languages)
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