A Warlock's Quest to Understand the Spoken Language of the Fallen

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Hey everyone!

Two weeks ago, I shared a video entitled "Learn to Speak 87 Fallen Words", building upon previous attempts at translating the Fallen language. I was blown away by the response, and it was exciting to see people in the comments writing little messages in Englishified Eliksnian.

I created it as a primer response to an invitation from u/lordbiro to write a blogpost for the Ishtar Collective about my work translating the Fallen. Internally panicking, I realized if I was going to write anything, I needed to do the language justice, so I spent the next few weeks revising the work until I felt I was as close as I'd get without divine Bungie intervention.

My hope is that this write-up provides a framework for myself or others to do similar work in the future. Many people have asked about the process involved, and so I wanted to be as transparent as I could. It was a lot of fun gathering all the resources, as well as reading through old posts, to give the answer as much context as possible.

My second hope is that players will hear the Fallen barking at them during combat and actually be able to say, "Hey! He just called me fierce! Thanks, Rahndel!"

My last hope is that you enjoy the read! If you have any further questions, I'd be more than willing to answer them.

Cheers!