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Thursday, 28 Mar 2024, 1:32 PM
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The Gallifreyan Conlang Project
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You are on the website for The Gallifreyan Conlang Project.  You probably got here either from a Google search or from our Tumblr page.

We are TGCP, a lovely little cluster of people here in our corner of the Internet dedicated to filling out a major hole left in the TV show Doctor Who.  This is a conlang, meaning a constructed language.  We build the grammar and the vocabulary from scratch until it's a working language and we can have conversations in.  Actually, it is a working language.  Crude, but it works.  We're still polishing the edges.

If you want a list of our current members, check here.

Doctor Who is a British sci-fi show about a mad man with a box who can travel anywhere in time and space, and has all these great (and some not-so-great) misadventures.  Of course, that description hardly does it justice.  You just have to watch it.

The Doctor's home planet is called Gallifrey.  There have been many dialects over the years (Old High, Old Low, Omegabet) but the most prominent one in the TV series is called Circular, which is what we're developing.

The Project Notes on the Tumblr page has everything.  I must warn you, it can be a little disorganized at times, especially when we come up with something new and have to fit it in somewhere.  But that's where it all comes together.  Then it gets organized and packaged in a little bundle called "Gallifreyan Made Easy" which is available on the front page of this website.

The forum is here to encourage people to come and actually practice Gallifreyan instead of just reading about it on Tumblr.  It does require a separate sign-up, but it's worth it to acquire a new language, don't you think?  Even a fictional one? *coughElvishNa'vi*cough*

You mean like Sherman's Alphabet or BrittanyBeGood or even Szegedy's Prydonian?  They're lovely.  Don't get us wrong, we like them.  We just don't want to stop at merely transliterating (translating the sounds not the words).  We want to fully develop this language.

(Rihays: Personally, I am a huge fan of Szegedy's Prydonian and really wish he'd continue to develop it.)

Anyone can help, certainly. :)  If you want to help with grammar and mechanics and things, you can contact Rhiannon via Tumblr and she'll add you to the Project Notes.

If you want to help with word-building, the forum is always open.  (Or you can submit via Tumblr.)

A valid point, I'll give you that.  However, allow me to explain.

The earliest influential time the Doctor visited Sol III was approximately 100,000 BC (An Unearthly Child).  We'll skip the fact that the cavemen had totally developed language.  But, naturally, they didn't have a doctor.  Thus, they didn't have a word.

The Doctor's native language is likely Old High Gallifreyan, but the common language was Circular.  Now then, let's just pretend for a moment that the Doctor, when he went off by himself to collect plant samples, and happened to mutter vɛnɪç.  The Tardis can't translate this for the cavemen because they have no equal for it to be rendered. (And because the Tardis doesn't translate Gallifreyan.)  The Doctor helps heal the injured caveman (forget what his name was-Zog, I think) and so they associate the two.

The oldest language from which every language in the world derives in Proto-Indo-European.  You can check out the full web here.  From what researchers can discern, the word for doctor and similar words was "médodiks".

Vɛnɪç --> médodiks 

How?  Well, mɛdodɪç.  A little confusion, lost in translation. (And "dodag" is Gallifreyan for person. *wink wink*)

Proto-Indo-European slowly passes away as people spread out in the world and develop new words for new concepts and just evolve the language on their own.

Now then, on the one hand, we have Indo-Iranian that will eventually become Persian, Kurdish, and Sanskrit.  A remarkable number of words come from Sanskrit.  Unfortunately, doctor is not one of them.  However, the Sanskrit word for doctor is "vaidya".  Again, a little confusion down the language tree, but remarkable similarities, wouldn't you say?

 Vɛnɪç --> médodiks --> vaidya

On the other hand, we have Italic languages, which will eventually give rise to Latin and her child languages.

In old days, doctors and teachers were basically one and the same.  Some also had duties in the Church and thus derives a whole new set of words which we are not concerned with.  So, Latin, has docere (later: decent) and doctor.  But this doctor actually meant teacher, advisor, or scholar.

Doctor later became Old French doctour.  Doctor of medicine did not come around in common use until much later when it was combined with medicus or medicina.  Also in use was physica.

--> ??? --> vaidya

 Vɛnɪç --> médodiks --> medicus --> doctor medicus --> doctour --> doctor of phesike --> doctor

-> miege --> médicine --> médecin --> medicine

The third line is the evolution of medicine from Latin to French and then English.

 vɛnɪç --> mɛdodɪç --> mɛdɪç/mɛdɪkuç --> mɛjdʒ --> mɛdɪçis --> mɛdɪçɪn --> mɛdɪsɪn

So, as we can see, vɛnɪç actually later became "medicine" but the understanding and attribution became "Doctor".


You mean how do we decide which information is relevant?  Well, here is a rough order:

1. TV Shows ; The TV series is the first authority we use.  If there are conflicting accounts from different sources, TV trumps all. (Includes TV movie)
2. Novels ; Novels that have been written by BBC authors are the next source.
3. Audio Adventures ; This could be paired with novels, but for the sake of a coherent list, this is third.
4. The Infinity Doctors and deliberate alternate timelines ; What-if scenarios may not run with the series, but concepts and technologies and such probably aren't affected.
5. Licensed sources ; Technical manuals, cookbooks, and all those fun things approved by BBC but not necessarily part of the series
6. Unreliable and unofficial sources
7. Everything else

Why do we use 'licensed' and 'unreliable/unofficial' and even 'everything else'?  First of all, our job isn't to write the series, it's to develop the language.  If a bit in 'The Infinity Doctors' references a monster called a Gorgolian (and it doesn't, but if it did) and such a monster isn't referenced anywhere else, is there any reason not to include it?

As far as 'everything else', usually it's speculation and fandom.  Please note that extreme caution is taken with this.

Most information we get comes from here.  It is well-organized but the spelling needs a steam-roller.


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