Kanka is built by just the two of us. Support our quest and enjoy an ad-free experience — for less than the cost of a fancy coffee. Subscribe now.

  1. Abilities

Pythean (Language)

Language

A language that arose as a natural amalgam of Esperanto with influences from the original spoken languages aboard Ark Pytheas, and later modified with additions from holy texts according to the syncretic belief systems and ecclesiastical structure that arose (See: Research Temple Pytheas). The final form is designed to make maximal use of Power Syllables and passive Wordspells.

Original spoken languages: Arabic, Esperanto, English, French, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish 

Added languages: Hebrew, Quranic Arabic, Sumerian, Tibetan, Vedic Sanskrit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Language_and_mysticism

Spoken Forms

Colloquial Pythean

Colloquial Pythean is a conventional language with a structure much like most Indo-European languages, and a very transparent etymology. This is used in casual conversation, particularly with outsiders. As new generations are raised with Ecclesiastical Pythean however, the Colloquial form is used less and less.

High Pythean

The words of Ecclesiastical Pythean are derived from the Colloquial spoken form, but its grammar is derived from the Glyphic written form. The Glyphic form is artificial and expresses logical relationships, often eschewing some mental constructs that feel natural to us.

Literal translations of Ecclesiastical Pythean can sound abstruse and overcomplicated to outsiders. E.g., "I think, therefore I am," might be literally translated to, "That I think is good evidence for that I exist;" and "Eggs for eating come in dozens," to "Being an egg for eating correlates with being in multiples of a unit of 3x2x2 for exchange." 1

It's not nearly as clunky as it sounds. But it is certainly alien at first glance, and many outsiders are skeptical that it came purely from human minds. To fully grok the language requires a mental refactoring of how logical concepts and cause-effect relationships are translated into language in general.

Written Forms

Phonetic Form

This is a conventional phonetic form derived from the Latin alphabet. It is straightforward and easy to learn, and can be applied to both Colloquial and Eccesiastical spoken forms (though the latter is generally only used in the teaching of Glyphic Form).

Glyphic Form

Based heavily on UNLWS: https://s.ai/nlws/

The Glyphic form of Pythean is a non-linear logical format that incorporates some passive elements of Hyperscription (Sigil Magick). It is entirely unrelated to natural phonetic alphabets.

Glyphic Form is preferred for all ecclesiastical, official, and confidential purposes. Many Pytheans express the sentiment that they think the most clearly when writing their thoughts out as glyphs, and that the phonetic form is an obsolete artifact of chaotic processes only necessary to communicate with those who haven't learned the glyphic form.

Bear in mind these ways in which [Glyphic Pythean] is unlike a typical linear language:
  1. [A glyphic] text has no defined reading order; you can start anywhere and proceed in any fashion about it.
  2. Relatedly, [it] does without definite noun phrases and doesn’t often need pronouns, because it can usually just directly connect an argument of “this clause” to an argument of a “previous clause”.
  3. It is pragmatically unnatural[...] to talk much about temporal sequence explicitly, since time is linear. 1