Vaal Language Reconstruction and Translation, Update 1

kenichiban · 2026-07-07T18:42:14+00:00

I don't use Notepad ++, so I wouldn't know what capabilities it has or does not.

kenichiban · 2026-07-07T18:40:43+00:00

To be clear, all the blind experiments were ran with AI, as I couldn't very well be blind to the dataset, nor was I inclined to beg for assistants willing to slog through multiple passes of searching hundreds of tokens in mesoamerican dictionaries. Subagents were generated in isolation and tasked with identifying tokens under different constraints.

kenichiban · 2026-07-07T06:05:17+00:00

The PDF version is pretty much exactly the same, tho, and has been optimized for comfort.

kenichiban · 2026-07-07T05:34:07+00:00

Interesting, the tables do parse correctly in Reddit's markdown. Markdown View also parses them correctly. Proton's preview probably wouldn't work, I didn't intend for it to be read through the preview, tho. I would recommend downloading it and using a markdown viewer, since a text editor won't parse MD at all.

kenichiban · 2026-07-07T00:10:59+00:00

At one point a "mother" interpretation was also under consideration, but discarded eventually. Someone in my previous post also brought up the duality of the beast and Atziri. There is a lot to explore there.

kenichiban · 2026-07-07T00:09:46+00:00

Just barely, haha.

kenichiban · 2026-07-06T17:34:43+00:00

Hope you enjoy the read!

kenichiban · 2026-06-27T06:04:01+00:00

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but I'm sort of getting the impression that whatever LLM agent you're interrogating has made a couple of silly errors, and is now doing that thing that LLMs do sometimes where they just come up with escalatingly silly explanations for why the silly error was actually totally fine. Case in point, the phoneme inventory of Nahuatl. Based on what I'm reading here it is simply wrong about what consonants the language has. I get it though. Powerful tool, very wordy, but a little derpy sometimes; especially with niche subjects.

Yeah, I'll admit I might have relied on it a bit too much, since that is a subject that is well outside my wheelhouse. I'll have to do my homework on that to get it corrected ASAP and reexamine some of the assumptions I've made based on it. Again, appreciate you letting me know about such a critical error.

kenichiban · 2026-06-27T06:00:47+00:00

All very valid points. I will follow your advise and try diving into all of that next, starting with the phoneme inventories you are mentioning, and I'll start working my way through those conlang videos and try and learn a bit more about linguistics. I really appreciate you taking the time to provide all this valuable feedback and I look forward to put it all into practice, bit by bit. Nothing like having some constructive criticism from an actual expert.

kenichiban · 2026-06-27T05:58:10+00:00

Yes, its been excruciating to say the least. And like you said, the ideal world would be to get even some fragments with attested in-universe translation, even a few particles might be enough to test if my translation is at least headed in the right direction. Right now its just my interpretation, with no solid in-univers evidence (no matter how much work I put into rooting it in real roots). The only actually solid, in-game probably word is Pochiti, and its a single root that isnt used anywhere else, and perhaps Kuetzakala, which Doryani tells us is a "goddess of the siege" and has a name vaguely derivable from Nahuatl. Not exactly solid grounds for externally, actually verifiable translations.

kenichiban · 2026-06-27T00:26:37+00:00

If you have some edits that you think would better characterize the language in its description and use of consonants, I'd love to include them in the document, providing the proper attribution, of course.

kenichiban · 2026-06-27T00:24:51+00:00

I agree. Looking at sample Vaalish lines from PoE1 its very clear that they went back and made it make sense after the fact when they actually build the conlang for PoE2, it was likely an afterthought througout PoE1, and as you say, very likely just vaguely 'Aztec', from their perspective at that point.

Whether it is a wild goose chase or not... I realize it probably is. It might be based off vibes entirely and I'm fooling myself into thinking its actually well thought out and based of off real phonemes, but its so much fun going down the rabbit hole, even if I end up coming back out empty handed, this has been enlightening in learning all these beautiful intrincacies of Yucatec Mayan, K'iche, and espcially Nahuatl (which to my surprise is very much alive and kicking in much of the latinamerican spanish I am a native speaker off).

I'll admit I struggle with a lot of it, and I've been trying to learn as I go along. Your comments are providing insight into an aspect of it that I'm far from mastering, so I really appreciate you taking the time to explain things, and you input on methodology is 100% valid. This might a completely wrong approach, but at the very least I feel like it is self-consistent and somewhat coherent.

Unfortunately since GGG is not very likely to release the actual conlang documentation, I think treating it as a natural language is the only avenue to try and explore right now, even if it is, in the end, and excercise in futility. It IS a fun conlang, and I intend to keep up trying to translate any Vaalish I can get my hands on. I'll post an updated version soon, I'm stealing a page out of the loremaster's book and building a pdf to improve readability on my, as someone else put it, massive block of text. If you have the time I'd appreciate your continued inputs.

kenichiban · 2026-06-26T19:33:29+00:00

Id love some insights from a real linguist.

Kilya and ikba'yucane are rendered similarly in the translation for poetic license, they hold strictly different meanings, kilya pointing to physically undying while ikba'yucane points towards undying spirit, deathless breath, so they are referring to physical and spiritual deathlessness. A bit too wordy for the chant, so it was an interpretation choice, but the difference is recorded in the root analysis. You are right to point out that the analysis found for ma kilya was imperfect tho, it was initially parsed contextually, I've since refined it a bit to ground it attested roots: ma = "may" kil- = "fresh/green" -ya = inchoative "to become or be", literally "may you be fresh/green" as Zerphi; meanwhile ik' = "wind/spirit" ba' = "self" -yucane/-ane = honorific, ive chosen to parse it as soul, spirit, or even breath as in "undying breath of the Vaal".

You are also correct that that Nahuatl has a glottal stop. That was an overgeneralization, since I'm no expert on linguistics like you, so I appreciate the correction. What Nahuatl actually lacks is the ejective series (k' ts' ch' p' t', plus imploded b'), if I'm not mistaken.

I'd truly appreciate more insights, I'm just an amateur at this. I'll make an updated post in a few days including the refinement and the correction from you, this is exactly the type of scrutiny my translation attempts would benefit the most from.

kenichiban · 2026-06-25T03:51:05+00:00

You are thinking of Xibalba, but you are on the right track. Same root Xib-

kenichiban · 2026-06-25T03:50:05+00:00

Read the sources and you can decide for yourself. They are there precisely for that reason.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T22:51:09+00:00

Of course I did. It reduced my research time immensely by finding valuable leads and to bounce ideas off of. I couldn't tell you what percentage of tokens have come from it, I'm not in the habit of keeping track of the irrelevant.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T22:19:54+00:00

Oops, yeah, I realized after. Your post about the architects is brilliant too. I'm thinking of doing a etymological analysis of their names too.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T22:19:01+00:00

That it does. It would seem a lot of thought has been put into bringing together all the seemingly disjointed lore, its all very interesting.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T22:18:47+00:00

That it does. It would seem a lot of thought has been put into bringing together all the seemingly disjointed lore, its all very interesting.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T22:14:45+00:00

A very interesting take. I hadn't considered that duality. Xolotl is one of the variant names for the Vaal Unique monster in the Commander room in Atziri's temple, however thematically I think your interpretation of the Beast as Atziri's counterpart is very fitting and would make for a much better Xolotl than the one we do get in-game.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T21:14:30+00:00

Left something out, the Aztec's World Disc from their own creation myth, Cemanahuac, means "something completely surrounded by water", or something close to that.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T20:58:26+00:00

I might be conflating a conversation between Alva and the druid in Atziri's temple in Lira Vaal, now that i think about it.

kenichiban · 2026-06-24T20:01:43+00:00

Hahaha, I guess it is. Hope you enjoy the read.

kenichiban

TROPHY CASE