The works of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and his proteges, collectively known as the "Cthulhu Mythos," often contain fragments of an alien language. HPL himself never gave this language a name, but fan consensus has settled on "R'lyehian" or "Cthuvian"; for the purposes of this article, we will focus on the former.
R'lyehian is a fictional language created by H.P. Lovecraft. It is spoken in a fictional universe called Cthulhu Mythos. HPL also provided translations of several fragments. Intrigued, I set out to learn more about R'lyehian, woefully unprepared for the sanity-blasting ordeal I faced.
Fortune smiled, however, and the small lexicon below is the fruit of my efforts. For more information about the Mythos, please visit the newsgroup alt.horror.cthulhu, or search for "Cthulhu Mythos" on the Web. You'll find more and better information than I can provide here.
Cthuvian, which is also called R'lyehian, is described as sounding strange and guttural and is supposedly impossible for the human mouth to speak or pronounce. This language has an unfamiliar phonology compared to Human Language. Feeling excited, right? Since R'lyehian is an alien language, it has a weird syllable structure, CCCCVCC. Terrible, right?
An unofficial guide to R'lyehian (sometimes called Cthuvian). Included is community character sets and a guide to understanding how the language functions. I'm quite impatient too and want to crack the game's character set to understand, but it'll take us all a while.
Read also: Call of Cthulhu: A Must-Play for Horror Fans?
Call of Cthulhu - All R'lyehian Responses (Fluent in R'lyenhian) Trophy / Achievement
The Grammar and Structure of R'lyehian
A Note about Grammar: Unlike Earthly languages, R'lyehian makes no distinction between nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech. Pronouns may or may not appear. Verbs have only two tenses: present and not-present, since the Old Ones experience time in a non-linear fashion. Taken out of context, any fragment's translation is nothing more than guesswork.
R'lyehian is highly agglutinative and possesses free word order; it makes extensive use of prefixes and suffixes to alter and derive meaning from pre-existing words. This language is a fusional language, means prefix+noun+suffix construction are common.
H also exists as a modifier character; when it follows a consonant, it softens its pronunciation. In addition to standing on its own as a consonant, it can also soften the preceding consonant.
Pluralization and Tense
Plurals are formed within R'lyehian via reduplication of the final syllable. The last repeated syllable changes the noun from singular to plural. The past tense is made by adding the prefix "nafl-" to the verb.
Linguist Paul Tuttle believed that the prefix nafl- denoted a negative construction. For instance, if "Cthulhu fhtagn" can be translated as "Cthulhu waits dreaming", the phrase "Cthulhu naflfhtagn" means "Cthulhu no longer waits dreaming" (i.e. has awakened).
Read also: Descent into Madness
Prefixes and Prepositions
Prepositions are also prefixed, "ph-" is a prefix for "beyond". "ph'shugg" means "beyond the earth".
Dagon, a deity often associated with R'lyehian in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Deciphering the Alphabet
Reddit/u/TheMintyPoo from Reddit and our comments section has tried their hand at deciphering the alphabet and given us this characterset. Thanks to you <3
"Utility Cthuvian Dictionary" for understanding R'lyehian.
Translation is unknown for the above text.
Read also: Description of Cthulhu
R'lyehian Expression Examples:
| Expression | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ah | word | generic action, e.g. |