Frequently Asked Questions ![]() ![]() What is Primal, who uses it? Primal is a written and spoken language with it's own unique alphabet and sentence structure.
Among humans, Primal is a common tongue for the "furry", "were" and "otherkin" communities.
In a more general sense, it is a language of therianthropes: part-human, part-animal creatures, such a gargoyles, centaurs and seraphim. I heard someone say that Primal was just a code. Is Primal really a language? Yes, Primal is actually a language. Primal has its own words, which, in many cases, do not translate directly to counterparts in any other language. Primal has a unique system of grammar, similar in structure to Chinese. It is a syntax-based language in subject-verb-object format. Primal has its own alphabet, which is nearly invariably phonetic. This makes Primal words easy to spell and pronounce once the alphabet is understood. What does Primal sound like? This depends largely on the accent of the speaker. I used to maintain sound files embedded in the tutorial, but this was distracting more than it was helping, so they were removed. If a "human" accent is used, as described in the Advanced section of the Tutorial, most native English speakers will find that Primal sounds similar to English. This is because Primal is spoken rather slowly, and all of its phonemes are English-familiar. What does Primal script look like? The following text in Primal says, "I can speak Primal fairly well." It is pronounced "wee lur-ma-mee wih k'lulf".
(This image was taken from the Primalfont characters "Wy ,Irmamy Wi kulUf." at 18 point.) Wy ,Irmamy Wi kulUf.
How does Primal compare to popular constructed languages, such as Klingon, Quenya, or Esperanto? Primal has a larger lexicon and a more complex system of grammatical construction than either Klingon or Quenya, allowing for a much broader variety of linguistic expression than either of these languages.
Esperanto is a more difficult comparison, because its extensive lexicon and development basis puts it on par with natural languages like English. However, despite its size, Primal stands up well next to other
natural languages. Although its lexicon is small for a natural language (around three thousand words), Primal's unique grammatical construction allows the same words to be combined in a wider variety of ways
than many natural languages. How hard is it for an English-speaker to learn Primal? Primal is easier to learn than most natural languages (like Spanish or Japanese), and harder to learn than most constructed languages (like Klingon or Esperanto). I've seen the first edition of the dictionary, and I can't understand the words. It looks like it's written with English letters, except it's mostly consonants. How is this pronounceable? I wrote the first book before I created the font. In an attempt to make the language familiar to people with experience in phonetics, I translated diphthong letters phonetically, and used
g, c, w, r and y as additional vowel markers. This was a mistake. In retrospect, I should have used extended letters with dialectic markings, like "รด", to represent
Primal's abundance of vowels. How many alphabet systems for writing in Primal are there, then? There are four ways the Primal language can be represented in writing. To learn the written language, you only need to know Primal script. To learn the spoken language, the pronounciation guide is a useful supplementary tool. The font codes are necessary if you want to type in Primal font. I wouldn't recommend that anyone bother to memorize the pidgin script, however. When looking up words in the first edition Primal dictionary, refer frequently to pp. 8-10 and 153 for information on translating pidgin script into spoken and written Primal.
Has Primal changed much since the first book was printed? Primal hasn't changed at all; I just find errors in the book on occasion. A few of the errors have been fairly large; one grammar word, two contractions, and several nouns were left out, one of the noun
prefixes was not defined correctly, and a couple "this is how you do it" examples are completely wrong. There are also some minor formatting errors. The first book was produced on a tight timetable, and
I didn't know Primal nearly as well back when I wrote it. May I use Primal in my story / artwork / game / etc? You may use Primal without express permission as long as the amount of Primal in your work is small, and is not copied verbatim from the manual or website. If you publish something with primal bits
included, please contact me as a courtesy to let me know. I like to stay informed. I'd be happy to do a link exchange with you on our Community page. Did you really write this language all by yourself? I produced and edited the book, and I maintain the tutorial. I also maintain copyright on everything connected to the language. I don't answer questions about where the language came from, though. I prefer to leave that to the imagination of Primal's fans. Can YOU speak Primal? Yes, though not nearly as well as I'd like. I'm a good grammarian, but still a novice speaker. I can readily understand most of a random conversation in spoken or written primal. Actually constructing Primal speech takes me a little more time, and I look up nouns frequently in the dictionary. ![]() |