Corpus Language — warframe

Earlier concepts for the Corpus print were based on the shapes and general outline of late Nineteenth Century print advertisements. We can see the first few drafts were a little more rounded, then blocky, as the refinement of Corpus shapes come together over time. [...]

Over time the lettering became colder and less emotionally complex. Each icon becomes a Lettermark in its own way -- a symbol used for a definitive and effective purpose, compared to the elegant and visually pleasing, if excessive, Tennobet. The industrial packaging of Corpus print has all the individuality and personality of a die-cast metal stamp -- simple and direct, to be used as needed.

—WARFRAME blog post on creation of the language^[1]

The Corpus uses their own script with an alphabet of modified Roman numeral like letters with varied distinct shapes for an industrial look. The spoken language heavily relies on consonants, using only a small subset of the phonetic sounds produced in the English language.

Most high-ranking Corpus are bilingual and are capable of understanding both the Corpus language and English, as in the case of Alad V and Frohd Bek.

Speech

Because of the Corpus having a relatively new language, the amount of audio heard in-game is limited. Lines heard in-game are sometimes heard when idle, but there is a notable difference between in-battle and idle sounds. Speech and translations of Crewmen, Combas, and Scrambus, can be found here.

Pronunciation is based on English with an altered alphabet as shown below.^[2] Because of this, it is possible to directly translate any word using the altered alphabet (for example: attack = appayk: a = a, t = p, c = y, k = k). This rule is applied to the spoken language also.

Only the vowels and the letters "K" and "Y" retain the same sound from the English language. Corpus consonants will either be pronounced with the English "B", "J", "K", "P", "R", "S", "T", or "Y" sound.

(A) = A
(B) = T
(Ch) = Y
(D) = P
(E) = E
(F) = T
(G) = J
(H) = K

(I) = I
(J) = T
(K) = see below
(L) = P
(M) = S
(N) = T
(O) = O
(P) = K

(R) = T
(S) = Y
(T) = P
(U) = U
(V) = T
(W) = J
(Y) = Y
(Z) = B

The Corpus (K) is the only character with three possible sounds.

When used normally, it uses the English "K" sound (as in cow)
- ("Strike"): "Yptike!" - "Strike!" (download, history)
When used in place of the English letter "Q" (since there is no Corpus letter for "Q"), it uses the English "R" sound (as in road)
- ("Rekuire backup"): Teruite taykuk!" - "Require backup!" (download, history)
When used in place of the English letter "C", it uses the English "Y" sound (as in you)
- ("We are the Korpus"): "Je ate pke Yotkuy" - "We are the Corpus" (download, history)

Dialects

Some dialects of Corpus pronounce words differently in the presence of a silent e, converting short vowel sounds heard in normal Corpus to long vowel sounds. For example, "Teapitjy ate tejapite" - "Readings are negative" may be spoken as such:

"Normal"	Not pronouncing the "e" at the end
(download, history)	(download, history)

Audio examples

Main article: Corpus/Quotes

Writing

All writing in the Corpus font alphabet is written in either correct American English or phonetically in the English language (rules may be inconsistent with the presence of the silent e), with some substitutions due to missing characters.

"C" ("K" sound as in cat) is converted to (Ch) or (K) (may be used interchangablely, see Media section with the spelling of "Corpus")
"C" ("S" sound as in dance) is converted to (S)
"X" is converted to (S), (K), or (KS)
"Ch" is converted to (Ch) or (CH)
"Q" is converted to (K)

There are no such digits from two (2) to nine (9) in the Corpus script. The only digits that they use are zero (0) and one (1), denoted by and respectively. Numbers are rarely used in Corpus writing, but when they appear, they are written in binary.

Examples

Corpus is often times written as ("Korpus"), but rarely as ("Chorpus")
Luxor is a common proper noun seen around Corpus environments and is spelled like ("Luksor")
Beecloud is another common proper noun, written as ("Beekloud")
Nanocomposites is spelled like ("Nanokomposites")
- Notice how the letter "c" is phonetically spelled out with the Corpus "K" (), yet the letter "e" is still present in the actual spelling despite being silent.
Certified is written as ("Sertified")
Volunteer is spelled like ("Volenteer") or ("Volunteer")
Merchant is written as ("Merchant")
- Notice how "ch" is replaced by the character

Proper Nouns

List of proper nouns and names of Corpus origin.

Names (Orokin-era Corpus)

These names have Latin roots.

Cladius^[3]
Parvos Granum

Names (modern-day Corpus)

Armis Ulta
Alad V
Azoth
Bak Vondu
Darvo
Derim Zahn
Dr. Intehb
Dru Pesfor
Ergo Glast
Frohd Bek
Holsom Yurr^[4]
Jad Teran
Jen Dro
Jena Xasparin^[5]
Jubb Lott^[6]
Nako Xol
Nef Anyo
Olvar D
Pelna Cade
Rana Del
Regus^[7]
Sigor Savah
Teko
Tia Mayn
Umpal^[8]
Vala Glarios
Ved Xol
Veko
Veso
Xeto
Zanuka
Zyl^[9]
Any Sister of Parvos name
Any Railjack Crewmember from The Perrin Sequence
Any rescued Corpus during Break Narmer missions.

Proper nouns

Many of these proper nouns have Latin roots.

Ambulas
Aquila
Arca^[10]
Bursa
Comba
Dendra^[10]
Flox^[11]
Geminix
Gox
Jactus
Juno
Malleus
Numo^[12]
Opulas^[11]
Quaro^[10]^[11]
Raknoid
Scrambus
Senta
Terra
Vapos
Vexillus^[11]
Any Corpus weapon with some exceptions (e.g. Snipetron)

Tabulated Ciphers

Matching Corpus alphabet to International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for English pronunciations.

English Consonsants
IPA	Corpus Alphabet Equivalent(s)	English Examples
p	, ,	pen, tip
b		but, web
t	, , , , ,	take, cut
d	No equilvalent	dad, do
tʃ	No equilvalent	chat, nature
dʒ	,	joy, giant, edge
k	, ,	cat, kite, queen
g	No equilvalent	go, get, gutter
f	No equilvalent	off, fate
v	No equilvalent	voice, of, favorite
θ	No equilvalent	thing, teeth
ð	No equilvalent	that, soothe
s		same, city, sass
z	No equilvalent	zoo, rose
ʃ	No equilvalent	she, sure, emotion
ʒ	No equilvalent	genre, seige, pleasure
h	No equilvalent	hat, heaven
m	No equilvalent	man, jam
n	No equilvalent	no, brain
ŋ	No equilvalent	ringer, sing, drink
l	No equilvalent	loss, please
r		run, very
w	No equilvalent	win, we
j	, ,	yes, yawn
hw	No equilvalent	what, when
x	No equilvalent	loch

English Vowels
IPA	Corpus Alphabet Equivalent(s)	English Examples
eɪ	No equilvalent	day, gate, date
ɒ	No equilvalent	blockade, pot
ɔ:	No equilvalent	paw, thought
æ		pat, bat
ɜ	No equilvalent	bird, curt
ɪ		pit, in, fish
ɛ		pet, bed
i	,	bee, need
ʌ		run
ʊ	No equilvalent	put
u	No equilvalent	food, dude, through
aɪ	No equilvalent	bye, night, my
o		tow, woe, dough
aʊ	No equilvalent	now, foul

Numbers and Punctuation
Symbols	Corpus Alphabet Equivalent
0
1
2	No equilvalent
3	No equilvalent
4	No equilvalent
5	No equilvalent
6	No equilvalent
7	No equilvalent
8	No equilvalent
9	No equilvalent
. (period)	.
? (question mark)	No equilvalent
! (exclamation mark)	No equilvalent
, (comma)	No equilvalent
: (colon)	No equilvalent
' (apostrophe)	No equilvalent
— (hyphen)	No equilvalent
@ (at sign)	No equilvalent
# (pound sign)	No equilvalent

Trivia

The Corpus did not have a language before Update 12.4 (2014-03-05) but rather a vocabulary of technological or mechanized sounds that were not pronounceable.
- The old 'language' was variously interpreted by players, with suggestions such as "goofsrababa00" or "who's the Vauban".
Both the Corpus and the Grineer use the word "Attaf". Both mean "Attack". "Attaf" is pronounced longer than it is currently being spelled, both by Corpus and Grineer.

It is reasonable to assume that " Luxor" is some sort of Corpus manufacturing corporation, while " Beecloud" is either a robotics programming group or software, as both symbols, the circle-in-triangle-in-circle, and the beehive respectively, are seen on many different items in-game. "Hivemind" appears next to the Beecloud logo on older objects.
- Other recurring symbols are a pair of crossed keys, a star (" Fortunate Dawn"), and a pair of snakes entwined over a diamond shape with the letters O, K, L and U at its points.
Many of the regular Corpus talk the same, but the Corpus Tech talks with, what could be considered, an accent. Normal pronunciations differ slightly from regular Crewmen. For example, Techs say "Pje", where regular Crewmen say: "Tje", or "Tekut" instead of "Takut". They still speak at the same tone height.
- This might be related to the Corpus Techs size, as they are notably taller than regular Crewmen.
The official Corpus cipher reveals that they don't have any use for the letter "X" (which is instead substituted with "KS", as in The Index) and only have two numbers (0 and 1).^[1]
- This may reference the Corpus' preference in using Binary when indicating numbers as seen in the Corpus Ship tileset.
So far, it is the only script in WARFRAME that uses two types of font.

Media

Official WARFRAME promotional media

Corpus Gas City tileset

Corpus Gas City (Old) tileset

Corpus Ship tileset

Corpus Ship (Old) tileset

Corpus Ice Planet tileset

Corpus Outpost tileset

Fortuna and Orb Vallis

Miscellaneous locations

Writing on the side of the old MK1-Braton model that reads LUKSOR FORGE

The Environments in Warframe - The Corpus Ship Remaster (The Deadlock Protocol)

External Links

TennoTyper, an English to Warframe text translator developed by Clarvel.^[13]

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Grineer and Corpus Cipher revealed
↑ Warframe Forums: That New Corpus Speech...
↑ Fragments/The Tenets
↑ Nova#Lore
↑ Nezha Leverian entry
↑ Little Duck's Fortuna Fragment
↑ Partnership Fragments
↑ Anti MOA Synthesis imprint
↑ "It doomed me. Zyl, the oxygen tech from Reclamation 3, had a previous career in psychological operations for some branch of the military." - Sigor Savah in the Encrypted Journal Fragments
↑ ^10.0 ^10.1 ^10.2 Name of Armor (Cosmetic)
↑ ^11.0 ^11.1 ^11.2 ^11.3 Name of Syandana
↑ Name of traps deployed by Armis Ulta, Dru Pesfor, and Rana Del
↑ Warframe Forums: Tennotyper - An English To Warframe Text Translator

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