Bolar is a language spoken in the Bolar Federation. The language has many differences in pronounciation, born out of the absorption of other languages.
History[]
The Bolar language has a complex history of development.[2] As it evolved by absorbing elements from various planetary civilizations, its pronunciation became diverse due to the blending of different languages. This phenomenon is similar to how Old English on Earth incorporated influences from Romance languages, resulting in a more intricate linguistic structure.[2]
The language further changed during the Bolar imperial regime's period and after the revolutionary struggle[3] led by Belm von Bemlarze, which led to the founding of the Bolar Federation.[4]
Phonology[]
The Bolar language does not include certain sounds that are found in other languages, such as the Earth language English. For example, the "th" sound does not exist in Bolar, and there is little distinction between the sounds represented by "L" and "R," as well as "V" and "B," which are written with the same characters in Bolar.[5]
The pronunciation has evolved due to the integration of various planetary civilizations into Bolar.[2] While this has led to several differences in pronunciation, it is said that Bolar's pronunciation resembles the Earth language Lithuanian.[6]
Writing system[]
The Bolar script
The Bolar script is made out of various characters composed of a combination of 5 vowels and 8 consonants.[7] Other glyphs also exist, such as "◉" which is used as a word separator and is equivalent to a blank space.[8] Certain sounds do not have a corresponding character, so two characters are used to form a single sound.[9][N 1]
Bolar has two written forms, "People's Writing" and "Teaching Writing". The former is written horizontally and favors readability, while the latter is written in a unique "crossword" way and is used in official documents.[8]
People's Writing can be written from left to right[10] or from right to left.[11]
Vocabulary[]
Bolar often creates new words by combining roots.[12] The root "go" is used for negation, similarly to the particles fu and hi in classical Chinese.[13]
Example text[]
- "Vieshuna Bemlarze",[14][N 2] lit.: "May you prosper for a long time, Bemlarze" or more loosely "Be Eternal, Bemlarze." A typical Bolar Federation salute, comes from the amalgamation of the roots "Vi," "Eshu," and "Na".[15]
- "Kogdal Anasur," lit: Kogdal Engine. The word "Kogdal" comes from the amalgamation of "Kogu"+"Daru"+[ra]+"Iru"; lit.: dimension + palm + using + being in a state of.[16]
- "Amanga," lit: great destruction.[17]
- "Krotoga," lit: heroic action.[17]
- "Ganonda," lit: patriotism.[17]
- "Labrokov," lit: ship of honor.[17]
Behind the scenes[]
Bolar was first mentioned in the mecha entries for the Bolar Federation's ships included in the starblazers-yamato.net official website's update for chapter 2 of Star Blazers REBEL 3199.[17]
The language's script was included in the Concept Design Reader for chapter 3 of the same series.[7] Many additional details were provided by Yuka Minagawa on her personal X.com account.[16]
While the Garmillas alphabet correspond exactly to the Latin alphabet,[18] the Bolar script corresponds to the Japanese alphabet.[7] It's important to note that while the Bolar script can easily transliterate words and names from their Japanese pronunciations, certain official transliterations of Bolar names and words in the Latin alphabet (such as the word "Bolar" itself) cannot be represented in a one-to-one manner in the Bolar script.
Creation process[]
The Bolar language was not based on Slavic languages, according to Minagawa, because those languages had already served as inspiration for the Garmillas language.[19] The language's structure was created with by Minagawa using knowledge of classical Chinese.[20]
References[]
- ↑ Picture from X account: @Labo_Aquarius
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 @minakawayuka on X.com May 9, 2025
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com February 22, 2025 2:12 PM
- ↑ starblazers-yamato.net CHARACTERS entry for Belm von Bemlarze
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com May 8, 2025
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com February 22, 2025
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Concept Design Reader included in the Blu-ray box for Chapter 3 of Be Forever Yamato: REBEL 3199
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 @minakawayuka on X.com May 12, 2025
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com May 9, 2025
- ↑ Concept Design Reader included in the Blu-ray box for Chapter 3 of Be Forever Yamato: REBEL 3199. The text spelling out "Damage Control"
- ↑ On screen writing with the word "Ganonda" in "Begin the Secret Operation! Head for the New Yamato!"
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com February 22, 2025, 1:42 PM
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com February 22, 2025, 12:52 PM
- ↑ "Shocking! The Dezarium's Dark Millennium of History!"
- ↑ Kiyoto Yoshikai's blog 2024/11/23
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 @minakawayuka on X.com February 22, 2025, 1:09 PM
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 starblazers-yamato.net MECHANICS entry for the Bolar Federation
- ↑ Ghale Garmillon! The language system of Garmillas taken from Space Battleship Yamato 2199 Model Sheet Design Collection GARMILLAS p.260
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com February 22, 2025 2:01 PM
- ↑ @minakawayuka on X.com February 20, 2025
- ↑ This is identical to how Japanese uses small Kana to form complete sounds. However, in Bolar, both characters have the same size, like in Old Japanese
- ↑ The official English subtitles spell the salute "Beshna Bemlarze." However the romanization used here is closer to the official Katakana spelling "ヴィ エシュ ナ ベムラーゼ"
Japanese language information[]
ボラー語, Borā-go