I love this gag. 
It’s the kind of thing that only works in comics.
In case you missed last week’s announcement, Galaxion is on the short list for two (two!) Friends of Lulu comic awards, and you can add your vote! Yay! From Valerie D’Orazio’s Occasional Superheroine blog post (where you can find a list of all the nominees): “The Lulu Awards recognizes the people and projects that helped to open eyes and minds to the amazing comic and cartooning work by and/or about women.” This year I’ve been nominated for a Lulu of the Year award, and Fusella is on the ballot for Best Female Character! I know, I know, Fusella will probably be insufferable if she wins, but she still deserves your vote! Go here to make your voice heard. Polls are open until September 27th.
Also, for any fellow artists out there, you may be interested in this week’s blog post about a few of my favourite new comic tools. 
Great gag! And of course Vessa, being the linguist, gets it immediately…
I am outraged, and must vent my anger by doing the following:
The name of the native population on the planet must be pronounced like “Ore Who”. The alternative is linguistic war!
>:-P
I don’t know about Fenella, but when the Foglios got their first Hugo for Girl Genius, Agatha Heterodyne (their title character) was certain there was some kind of mind control…
Haha– I remember seeing that one. And they snagged another Hugo this year! Well earned.
Apologies for the spelling error, Fusella. Handwriting recognition on Tablet PC’s can often be iffy, especially if it thinks the image it sees is close to a word it thinks it knows.
Carl is padding- he even has a smile on his face !
He answered a direct question with an explanation of how to say the native’s name for themselves.
Has he been brainwashed to avoid telling what happened, or did his head injury leave him incapable of understanding?
No, he’s providing additional context to preface his answer. He’ll get to the point.
I hope he gets to the point soon or I shall leap through my monitor and strangle him.
That probably makes several thousand of us, so you may have to stand in line ! ! !
Sigh. No love for Carl.
There is no love for Carl because he has managed to delay the answer to our questions for yet ANOTHER WEEK! Ahhhhhhh!
I have no doubt that we would be more forgiving of him in the book since we’d be able to read through this in no time, but it is frustrating for us to be delayed our answers yet again.
On a completely different note, I wonder if it was comic bits like this that gave Prince the idea to change his name to that symbol.
In the book, this page will be an excellent gag that is much appreciated after several pages of serious exposition. But on the web, I can’t wait to see what happens next and I’ve got to wait a whole week! I think Tara should be applauded for having us all on the edge of our seats…
You all have my humble gratitude for continuing to be so patient! I’m doing what I can to move things along, but Carl isn’t helping.
Bah, *I* like Carl. He knows how to tell a story at the right base.
Who would leap right in with “we crashed on the planet and most of us survived but then they got abducted by mind-altering butterflies and that’s everything really.”
This guy hasn’t seen anyone new from home in 10 years. He can be excused for drawing out the conversation a bit!
Now…what do they call their language in their own tongue?
(Minding the example of “Japanese” actually being “Nihongo” to those who call it their mother tongue…)
I… haven’t worked that one out yet! But their language is inspired by/based on the Maori language, so it would be something similar to that.
Do you have a printed pronunciation guide for their character set that you can share? I have an interest in that sort of thing, and I’d like to think I’m not the only one…
I absolutely love this. Poor Zan is struggling with the pronunciation and it’s driving poor linguist Vanessa crazy. Ahh, I can feel for Zan …. it’s a lot like me miserably trying to pronounce the names of some of my Ethiopian coworkers. >_<.
Hahaha, I love Zan’s expression.
Incidentally, one of the words for “Japanese” in Japanese is 国語 (kokugo), which is the character for “country” and then the one for “language”. Nihongo (Japan + language) is more common, but kokugo also exists.
Did not know this. Thanks much!
They use it (kokugo) for example to refer to Japanese lessons at school (analogous to how we have English lessons). The national flag is kokki 国旗 (country + flag) , and the national anthem is kokka 国歌 (country + song).
Great comic. Just found it via a link from dressed for Success and read the archives. Really great work. Looking forward to the next installment.
Thank you, and welcome! I’m sure Chris and Jeff will be sending me a bill for the referral.
For some reason, I’m reminded of the bit with Thrakazog vs. the Tick…
Hm… I don’t remember that! I’ll have to go looking through my Tick books…
That exchange was in the Tick animated series, if I’m thinking of the same thing (Tick getting Thrakkorzog’s name wrong).
Oh! Y’know, I haven’t seen nearly enough of the animated series. Must look into correcting that…
There’s a line from the live-action series, which sadly didn’t make it into the IMDB quotes, bat which is quite appropriate here. At the funeral for TheImmortal, the Tick is at the lectern, babbling off a “eulogy”. One of the Army officers approaches the general sitting in the audience and says the has troops in place to remove the Tick from the stage. The general responds with something to the effect of, “Belay that. I like the bent of this man’s gibberish.”
Kia ora, Tara, I remember from your previous run of Galaxion comics where the story action is currently happening, although I don’t recall that you have mentioned it this web run. I hope this run continues until your planned end, cos I’ve been waiting a long time to find out the mystery behind this world and the Hiawatha… I’m learning Maori at the moment and they call their language “te reo” which simply means “the language”. This site here http://kupu.maori.nz/ is one of the best grammar resources for Te Reo learners that I’ve found so far.
arohanui.
I often think I know where things are going, since I’ve read the old Galaxion comics. However, Tara has already changed one very significant plot point from that series, so who knows what else might change.
I think the proper response here is, “Heh heh heh.”
John, that is awesome! I’m not anything like an actual student of the language– I’m not even sure I’m pronouncing “Maori” correctly. I didn’t bother making a point of the fact that they land in some version of New Zealand this time around because now that the Lord of the Rings movies have turned that part of the world into a must-visit destination for geeks everywhere, I didn’t want to seem like I was jumping on some sort of bandwagon. (Although I still want to visit someday!) But there are still enough clues, I think, for people to figure it out.
Actually, I think you did reference New Zealand, at least a bit: http://galaxioncomics.com/1-comic/book-2/chapter-4/chapter-4-p-96/
Hi Tara,
here is a site with a basic audio pronunciation guide: http://www.korero.maori.nz/forlearners/basics/pronunciation.html
there are five vowels, which each have a short (a, e, i, o , u) and a long (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū) sound (much like English in that respect), then there are blends of two vowels together eg: ae, ai, ao, au, etc.. and there are the 10 consonants. The difference here is that Te Reo has an initial ng (as in the English sing, song, sung end sound) and a kind of “rolled” r. Once you have a good idea of the sounds, then the writing is pretty much phonetic,eg you see it you can say it, you hear it you can write it.
Anyhow, it is fun to see a Te Reo influence pop up in this context (and as you say the “Orehu”are only influenced by Maori,and this is a parallel universe anyway – at least I think it is…). BTW, as far as I can tell, based on permissible sound combinations, “Orehu”is a possible Te Reo word, although it isn’t in actual fact. At first glance I thought that name had been influenced by the Te Reo word “mōrehu” which means “survivors/remnants”.
arohanui, John
That is a funny gag. I’ve read it before somewhere, but not this developed. I like the touch of the linguist getting it instantly.
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Out of interest, I believe Maori is pronounced in three syllables Ma-o-ri, with the stess on the middle vowel. But I can’t be sure. I only spent my last school years here, so I never got the typical prep lessons for the language, and I’ve not considered learning it.
Hey, it’s me from the past! 8 years past… how time flies! Surprised to find I actually dropped a comment or two here – I wasn’t so communicative online in those days!