welcome to my webshrine for Predator :)

project: read all the comics (all of them)

ambitious? yes, but I am nothing if not hubristic.

below is a list of all the comics in order. perhaps I'll add reviews for some of them at a later date, but for now I just have the list. I've read almost 30 out of the 66 on this list so far. when I'm done, I might make a little "recommended reading" section or something, in case you want to check out the comics and don't want to wade through the slop.

reading list

• predator 1989
• Aliens vs. Predator (1989-1990) 1989
• predator 2 1990
• big game 1991
• cold war 1991
• bloody sands of time 1992
• batman vs 1 1992
• vs magnus robot fighter 1992
• Aliens: Space Marines (1992) 1992
• Illegal Aliens (1992, Eclipse Comics) 1992
• Aliens vs. Predator 2 (1992-1993) 1992
• race war 1993
• bad blood 1993
• Aliens vs. Predator: Deadliest of the Species (1993-1995) 1993
• batman vs 2 1994
• invaders from the forth dimension 1994
• Aliens vs. Predator: Blood Time (1994) 1994
• jungle tales 1995
• Aliens vs. Predator: Booty (1995-1996) 1995
• Aliens vs. Predator: Duel (1995) 1995
• Aliens vs. Predator: War (1995) 1995
• vs tarzan at the earths core 1996
• dark river 1996
• strange roux 1996
• kindred 1996
• hell and hot water 1997
• primal 1997
• vs judge dredd 1997
• vs batman 3 1997
• nemesis 1997
• Dark Horse Classics - Aliens versus Predator (1997) 1997
• hell come awalkin 1998
• captive 1998
• Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal (1998) 1998
• homeworld march 1999
• xenogenesis 1999
• Aliens vs. Predator: Annual — Contains Hell-Bent, Pursuit, Lefty's Revenge, Chained to Life and Death and Old Secrets. 1999
• Aliens vs. Predator: The Web (1999) 1999
• Aliens vs. Predator: Xenogenesis (1999-2000) 1999
• aliens vs predator vs terminator 2000
• superman vs predator 2000
• Alien vs. Predator: Thrill of the Hunt 2004
• Alien vs. Predator: Whoever Wins... We Lose (2005) 2005
• superman and batman vs aliens and predator 2007
• Alien vs. Predator: Sand Trap (2007) 2007
• Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus: Volume 1 (2007) 2007
• Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus: Volume 2 (2007) 2007
• Aliens vs. Predator: Deadspace (2008) 2008
• Alien vs. Predator: Civilized Beasts (2008) 2008
• predator prey to the heavens 2009
• predators prequel 2010
• predators adaptation 2010
• predators preserve the game 2010
• Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War (2010) 2010
• Aliens vs. Predator: Special Collector's Edition (2010) 2010
• fire and stone 2014
• Alien vs. Predator: Fire and Stone (2014-2015) 2014
• vs archie 2015
• life and death 2016
• Alien vs. Predator: Life and Death (2016-2017) 2016
• hunters 2017
• hunters 2 2018
• vs archie 2 2019
• Alien vs. Predator: Thicker Than Blood (2019-2020) 2019
• hunters 3 2020

yautja language studies

obviously ever since finding out that they hired a linguist to make a whole conlang for the last few movies, everyone's accepted the challenge of trying to learn that language. here's where I'll put my notes from my obsessive rewatching.

a few interviews with Britton Watkins have confirmed some of my findings, and clarified others. this interview goes over word order, (OVS), the different "you"s, and ngai. it also says that "nga" is in a lot of words that have negatives or negating elements, and that since they don't have lips, yautja can't really make P, B, TH, F, V, or M sounds. (so Dek shouldn't be able to say "Bud"... and whats that P doing in "yaupee?")

this clip of an interview with Dimitrius and Elle also gifted us with a yautja swear, "nga cho twish". all we are offered for a translation is "thats the bad word" and "if you're cut off in traffic you can yell this out the window." the only bit of analysis for this I can offer is the presence of the negating "nga." so maybe its got some element of "worthless" or "goodfornothing" in there.

this interview with Watkins confirms yet more of my thoughts, (specifically the respectful/disrespectful "he" situation going on in kwei and dad's conversation) as well as giving us a bunch of structural details!

dictionary

all the words I've got and their meanings, as far as I understand it. see notes below for explainations of my process.

roots

• yau = person
• gna = negative

pronouns

• chish = me, I
• kai = you (casual)
• wol = you (rude)
• dau = you (respectful)
• gwul = he (disrespectful)
• ah = he (respectful)
• nux = it (creature)
• ye = it (object)

family

• ndoi = brother
• njohrr = father
• njlais = sister
• nethlinga = mother

misc nouns

• eetjley = tool
• wurr = device
• idok = trophy
• yaupee = runt (spelling is probably incorrect bc they shouldnt have a P sound)
• yateis = weakness
• chogh = strength
• aslan = death
• ya'eh = honour, as in "it is an honour"
• den = star, sun
• aelek = friend
• yaungak = nobody
• yauloi = everybody
• yauwul = person

verbs

• tjley = use
• hrr = to be, is. hurrei is respectful, hurrun is disrespectful
• jit = fail (ijit = failure, the act of failing)
• jai = show, display (ijai = to show, the act of showing)
• chtai = to have or possess
• qe = free/release mayhaps
• ahwoq = kill
• titek = call, is called
• yas = sleep

the rest

• ngai = no
• det = so, then, therefore
• joa = too, as well
• sheks = and
• sek = vow
• itja = hunt
• ich/ish means "my" and is placed after the noun its modifying
• agh = save? maybe?
• kus = pure, truly, emphasis
• ngen = collectively
• yax = general explative, like shit or damn or fuck
• gwoch = stupid

to start with, there are a few points when a character says a single word, which gives us an easy 1-to-1 translation. for that we've got "njorr" (the r is rolled, which im representing by doubling it.) which means "father," (I don't know why everyone seems to be treating it like a name, its very clearly just the word "father.") and "nai" (edit according to interviews it's ngi, with the same ng sound as at the end of words like "being") which means "no." and also "eetjlay" (same TJ sound as in yautja) which means "tool" and is the word that Dek uses for Thia.
brief aside on that, something I noticed from the scene where they initially meet, the word he uses that the subtitles translate as "use" (tjlay(?)) sounds very similar to the word for tool.
I find that same word when Kwei says "use the cave" during the sparring scene.

anyway, after that I tried to collect the most simple sentences. 2 or 3 words, ideally. a good example of this is Kwei's "chish inu kai," ("you protected me.") (helps that he says it slowly.) I find the sound "chish" and "kai" in a lot of other sentences, and "chish" always shows up when someone is talking about themself, (such as "I'm still alive, brother", "I lost my fang," "I am yautja") and "kai" shows up when Kwei and Dek talk about each other. ("you kept this toy?" "you remember what happened") so lets say chish means "I" and kai means "you." if we look back at that three word sentence, "chish inu kai," which we know is a simple sentence with a subject, object and verb, then we can see that the word order is OVS, the inverse of english. that also lines up with how "kai" has been showing up at the ends of sentences when the subtitles start with "you" and the same for chish and I.

interestingly, the word "kai" disappears once we reach Genna. Dek never seems to use it when talking to Thia. the sentences "you are tool" and "you give up too easily" both end in "wo", so maybe thats another second person pronoun. I wonder if its gender-specific? or maybe honour-based? the sentence "that's not yours" (directed at Tessa) also ends in wo.

UPDATE: I did some reading on various interviews and found that the "you" situation was explained at some point, and i was right, it is honour-based!! "kai" is casual/friendly, for people you're close to (crying...) and "wol" is disrespectful. another one, "dau", is honourific. its the one he uses to address his father in "I greet you with honour." looking back through my logs, he also switches to it for Thia in the end of the movie, starting with the line "I came to rescue you." (crying)

in Dek's little mantras, "grief is weakness." and "sensitivity is weakness," we hear a couple sounds repeated, namely, "hrrun" (again, rolled r,) and "yateis" ("yah-tay-us"). we hear "yateis" twice in their father's evil speech, "to forgive weakness is to show weakness," and also in "he is the clan's weakness." so I think it's safe to say it means weakness. we also hear "hrrun" in the sentence "this flesh is not sweet." so I think it's a verb that means to be, like "is." its not in EVERY sentence that contains "is," however. (for instance, "name is Dek" just has a short "oo" sound in the middle.) we also hear a shorter, similar sounding word, "hrr," in the sentences "Tessa is your sister" and "you are tool."

(also, "hrrun" also shows up in the scene when Dek and Thia first meet. the sentence the subtitles translate as "useful... like tool?" is "jleyshwy... itjleyt hrrun?" maybe something like "useful... (like a) tool is?")

oh, speaking of sisters! njlais. (n-j-lay-us) found in every sentence where Dek says sister. ndoi is "brother." and as previously established, njorr is "father." update: I checked the sentence "they have her mother" and then looked at the final scene again, and its definitely "nethlinga" that means mother!

looking over the confrontation with their father, I was on the lookout for pronouns and discovered something interesting when Kwei and their father were talking about Dek; they're using different pronouns. the sentences "he is a runt" and "he is the clan's weakness" are very simple structurally, allowing us to be certain the word being translated as 'he' in the subtitles is "gwo." meanwhile, Kwei's "he deserves a hunt" and "he will bring home the kalisk" both end in something like "rah" or "hah."
I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be a matter of respectful/disrespectful pronouns. EDIT: the Behind The Mandibles interview has confirmed me right once again babeyyyyy

back at it again, here's today's discovery; "titek" from the sentence "titek u Dek" appears in one other place; when Dek says "father calls me the weakest." so I think its calls/am called. that's why "name is Dek" doesn't have a hrr in it; it's more like "am called Dek" or "call (me) Dek."

so "ijit" is "failure" (noun) (subject of sentence) and "jit" is "fail" (verb). "ijai" is in the sentence "to forgive weakness is to show weakness", and "jai" is the verb in "I will show them strength." so I think jai means show, and adding the i before these two verbs at least turns it into a noun. "to show weakness" or "to fail."

transcripts

spoiler warning: spoilers for badlands, obviously

my goal here is to phonetically transcribe all of the yautja dialogue in badlands. (and also killer of killers and some bonus material) its presented alongside the translation given by the subtitles. there are definitely some parts that I'm not so confident in, (auditory processing disorder...) and some parts I have yet to transcribe I think, but I'm doing my best. please add comments if you have any thoughts, or corrections!

link to my google doc transcript