Harpy Phrasebook

In the chat the subject came up of the difficultly of writing harpy speech. Zoekin and I discussed it some, and we figured that a "nice English" to "Harpy" phrase book might be useful, at least for inspiration. Please feel free to post your own suggestions, and if you get them from some story or artwork, please post a link to that too.

The Felaryan Wiki wrote:

"Most harpies have the curious habit of punctuating their sentences with threats and insults. The curious part is that they normally don't mean it at all, it's just traditional for them to use insults, and it would seem odd or even impolite if they didn't. The only time they skip this custom is if they are in a hurry or if they have something very important to say.

For example, if a harpy wanted to say: "I wish to speak to your sister", she would add a threat, like: "Let me see your sister or face my wrath!" If the other harpy wanted to reply: "She's not here." then she might actually say: "Insolent fool! My sister has more important matters to deal with than speaking to the likes of you!"

Upon hearing that exchange you might conclude that the two harpies are on the verge of killing each other, but that's not the case at all. The tone of the sentence gives subtle information about its real meaning. Some harpies are known to use extremely sophisticated insults with almost all the real information being in the tone of the insult rather than the actual words."

From the wiki:

Nice English	Harpy
"I wish to speak to your sister."	"Let me see your sister or face my wrath!"
"She's not here."	"Insolent fool! My sister has more important matters to deal with than speaking to the likes of you!"

(Suggested translations) from the Garnet comic:

Nice English	Harpy
"Hey you!"	"Oi slimeball!"
"Happy to see me?"	"Wet yourself? You should! 'Cause I'm going to rip yer sissy head off and spit down ya neck!"
"I'm happy to see you too."	"Then... yeah! I'm gonna pull your @!#& tongue out and use it as a zipper!"
"Have a nice day."	"Have a nice day and don't let the door hit you on teh way out, you sorry waste of space!"

Suggested by /Fish/:

Nice English	Harpy
"I have a favor to ask, can you lend me some help?"	"Move your lazy, good-for-nothing wings over here and do something useful."
"Sure, I'd be glad to help you."	"You can't do anything yourself perma-chick. I lend you my assistance out of pity!"
"I have leftovers, do you want some?"	"Eat this weakling, maybe someday you'll be as great a hunter as I."
"Thank you, that was delicious."	"I expected a more filling offering. Bring me more next time."

Suggested by Reptillian:

Nice English	Harpy
"My, what shiny feathers you have."	"Your messy feathers aren't half as ugly as her's."

that's a great idea !
Inded writting in harpy language is not easy at all.. I'm learning that in the manga right now XD

wow. XD. so you must have some samples then?
care posting them? or do you want to wait 'till after the manga's finished?

I'm not quite sure if I have a good grasp on harpy translation. Here's my go at a few things.

Nice English:
"I have a favor to ask, can you lend me some help?"
Harpy talk:
"Move your lazy, good-for-nothing wings over here and do something useful."

Nice English:
"Sure, I'd be glad to help you."
Harpy talk:
"You can't do anything yourself perma-chick. I lend you my assistance out of pity!"

Nice English:
"I have leftovers, do you want some?"
Harpy talk:
"Eat this weakling, maybe someday you'll be as great a hunter as I."

Nice English:
"Thank you, that was delicious."
Harpy talk:
"I expected a more filling offering. Bring me more next time."

I like the last line

haha great ones !

Ok I added the idea. I think it can be a great fun to find such phrases, and maybe even establish a grammar based on insult variations XD

Mind if I ask on how compliments would work out?

xlrp wrote:

Mind if I ask on how compliments would work out?

nice english:
"my, what shiny feathers you have"

harpy:
"your messy feathers aren't half as ugly as her's"

something like that^^

lol. man it would be stressful being a harpy's mate. @_@

xlrp wrote:

Mind if I ask on how compliments would work out?

Harpies can "compliment"?

Archmage_Bael wrote:

lol. man it would be stressful being a harpy's mate. @_@

Yeah, you probably wouldn't even be able to insult them. For example:
You: "I'm tired of living in this fucking nest seventy fucking stories above the ground! I hate you and your entire species, and if I ever get out of here I will make it my personal mission to create a chain store that sells nothing but Felaryan Fried Harpy!"
Her, with tears of happiness in her eyes: "Sweetie, that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me!" "Well at least you can make an okay fucking compliment."




Hmmmmm.... all of mine seem so tame. Insulting, but not bold like I think harpies are/should be.

"You're ugly." => "You look like your father." or maybe "You look male." (Since there are no male harpies except for Hector!)
"Want to hunt together?" => "Come hunting with me, I need to show you how it's done!"
"You're a slob."/"You're unhygienic." => "Your eggs rot in their nest!"
"You're not very smart." => "You're so stupid that your chicks fly into dridder webs!" (Anyone got a better idea for this one?)
"You aren't very good at flying." => "Clean off your scales, they're muddy." (IE: implying that they're a ground-bound naga.)

And a compliment?
"You have pretty eyes." => "The only part of you that doesn't fill me with revulsion is your eyes."

Oldman40k2003 wrote:

Her, with tears of happiness in her eyes: "Sweetie, that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me!"

It would probably be closer to: "Well at least you can make an okay fucking compliment".

You have to remember, Harpies are like the ultimate tsundere.

lol
yeah, arguing is like their way of life XD

Is there going to be a prey edition with auto translation and audio?

On a serious note writing "good" harpy speech is seriously frustrating. This should make many peoples lives easier and get some more harpy characters out there.

world_slayer wrote:

Is there going to be a prey edition with auto translation and audio?

On a serious note writing "good" harpy speech is seriously frustrating. This should make many peoples lives easier and get some more harpy characters out there.

I certainly hope that it will be helpful; that was the entire purpose of making it.

Haha... We could put together a series of important phrases in Harpy for those heading to Felarya.

"Where am I?" --> "Where in the goddam nine hells is this pathetic pukebucket place?"

"Please don't eat me!" --> "I'd hold off there - you're fat enough as is, lard-feathers."

"I am lost" --> "Looking at your ugly mug has screwed my brain beyond directions"

"I can offer you food" --> "Hey, sagtits, I think I can help your ugly stick frame."

"Have you seen others like me?" --> "Hey, has your plant mush grey matter got any memory of guys like me?"

From another thread:

Zoekin wrote:

^_^

I'm sorry but when I read this I had an image of how a highly-territorial flock of Harpies would react to a helicoptor gunship thumping along in their airspace.

Harpy-"GAH! That blender-winged, foul-farting, bug-eyed, naked ape packed bug-thing is back!"
(trans-"Look here Sisters-it's the Huey!")

I was just wondering.

What do actual harpy insults sound like? If they really want to actually burn you bad?

its probably a compliment (or what sounds like one to us)

So like...


Harpy Speak: Oh wow, your flying abilities are incredibly superb!

Translation: HEY! Feather brains, watch where you're going! You almost killed me!!!

So, um...here's one I had earlier.

Nice English:

"Have you seen my *insert object here*?"

Harpy:

"You stole my *insert object here*, didn't you?"

NovusWolf wrote:

So, um...here's one I had earlier.

Nice English:

"Have you seen my *insert object here*?"

Harpy:

"You stole my *insert object here*, didn't you?"

Eh, that seems more plain accusing than general insulting.

/Fish/ wrote:

NovusWolf wrote:

So, um...here's one I had earlier.

Nice English:

"Have you seen my *insert object here*?"

Harpy:

"You stole my *insert object here*, didn't you?"

Eh, that seems more plain accusing than general insulting.

Eh, it was worth a try. I'm not very good at this. Especially as i'm trying to keep it a bit PC rather than conjour up a Cluster F Bomb.

NovusWolf wrote:

Eh, it was worth a try. I'm not very good at this. Especially as i'm trying to keep it a bit PC rather than conjour up a Cluster F Bomb.

Ah yep, their slang is pretty tricky. Seeing how fluid Karbo had it appear in the manga, I feel that my suggestions were overly... Flowery?

And heh, F-bombs would just be lazy. : P

/Fish/ wrote:

NovusWolf wrote:

Eh, it was worth a try. I'm not very good at this. Especially as i'm trying to keep it a bit PC rather than conjour up a Cluster F Bomb.

Ah yep, their slang is pretty tricky. Seeing how fluid Karbo had it appear in the manga, I feel that my suggestions were overly... Flowery?

And heh, F-bombs would just be lazy. : P

More a case of we all know how Harpy syntax really sounds, but you have to draw a line somewhere.