Below are two term projects from the Fall 2021 edition of the course! They should give you ideas about what past students learned from the course.
Gaisl Asln (Gail Allen of Ravenclaw)
I think there are several loan words – as the lessons have also sometimes explicitly pointed out. This is only natural since the snakes we communicate with are snakes that live here. I wonder if it would be different in other parts of the world; if the snakes there may have a different 'dialect'. Of course a large part of language comes from the physical attributes the person or creature speaking it has. For instance it would be impossible for a dog to speak human language simply because it's vocal chords will not support that kind of speech and similarly it is impossible for humans to accurately bark and use the other vocal expressions a dog has access to. Likewise it is with snakes; they speak the way they speak because their physical build is optimized to speak this way; indeed sometimes entirely unable to speak any other way. And it is why some humans are innately better suited to speak parseltongue than others. This obviously limits what words can become loan words; they must be words that can be spoken reasonably well with the 'biological hardware' that the species has. But that does not mean we can neglect the influence of the society surrounding the language-user. If you are constantly influenced by English, you will inevitably incorporate english words into your vocabulary. Especially if these words express concepts or object you only learned off in the context in which the influence was being exerted. An example of this can be seen in words like Window: vindovth. This is clearly not something that snakes come into contact with without human contact, so it stands to reason that they would adopt something similar to our word for it. I think however that english is not the only language that has provided loan-words for parseltongue: horse being ʃevau in parseltongue strikes me as something distinctly french in origin. In french the word for horse is cheval and the 'ch' sound is even very similar to the ʃ sound of parseltongue. I think this makes a lot of sense; after all there has been quite a lot of exchange across Europe and the European languages have influenced each other tremendously. It would almost be strange if the same wasn't the case for snakes.
Ni'a Fauntin (Mia Fountain of Ravenclaw - note that Ni'a chose the "More Parseltongue!" option so her project is in two parts):
Part 1:
Reading between the lines is important in Parseltongue as well as in English. Parseltongue doesn't use certain "filler" words such as "is, the, an, or a" which means when you are trying to refer to an object or being you will need to find another way to refer to what you are speaking or writing about. In English and other languages reading between the lines is helpful to figure out what the person might be saying without actually saying it. Which is similar to what you are doing when reading a Parseltongue sentence.
To read between the lines you need to be able to listen to what the person or snake is saying, then use their body movements and/or their tone of voice to figure out what it is they meant to say. Once you have gathered all of the information, you will need to use your imagination and cunning to interpret what the person or snake is saying.
Part 2:
Tasi snek gara fasi girou kroʃe. Tasi hapaun tina kuraʃira akaʃe sine. Tasi snek hungri. Tasi hapaun fasi riʃan akaʃe harne. Tasi hapaun kapi akaʃe ʃine harne. Tasi snek fasi kapi kroʃe. Tasi snek hungri korna fasi rok firna. Tasi snek fasi rok sliʃe sobne. Fasi rok firna tasi snek slifai bov agiro harne.
Gaisl Asln (Gail Allen of Ravenclaw)
I think there are several loan words – as the lessons have also sometimes explicitly pointed out. This is only natural since the snakes we communicate with are snakes that live here. I wonder if it would be different in other parts of the world; if the snakes there may have a different 'dialect'. Of course a large part of language comes from the physical attributes the person or creature speaking it has. For instance it would be impossible for a dog to speak human language simply because it's vocal chords will not support that kind of speech and similarly it is impossible for humans to accurately bark and use the other vocal expressions a dog has access to. Likewise it is with snakes; they speak the way they speak because their physical build is optimized to speak this way; indeed sometimes entirely unable to speak any other way. And it is why some humans are innately better suited to speak parseltongue than others. This obviously limits what words can become loan words; they must be words that can be spoken reasonably well with the 'biological hardware' that the species has. But that does not mean we can neglect the influence of the society surrounding the language-user. If you are constantly influenced by English, you will inevitably incorporate english words into your vocabulary. Especially if these words express concepts or object you only learned off in the context in which the influence was being exerted. An example of this can be seen in words like Window: vindovth. This is clearly not something that snakes come into contact with without human contact, so it stands to reason that they would adopt something similar to our word for it. I think however that english is not the only language that has provided loan-words for parseltongue: horse being ʃevau in parseltongue strikes me as something distinctly french in origin. In french the word for horse is cheval and the 'ch' sound is even very similar to the ʃ sound of parseltongue. I think this makes a lot of sense; after all there has been quite a lot of exchange across Europe and the European languages have influenced each other tremendously. It would almost be strange if the same wasn't the case for snakes.
Ni'a Fauntin (Mia Fountain of Ravenclaw - note that Ni'a chose the "More Parseltongue!" option so her project is in two parts):
Part 1:
Reading between the lines is important in Parseltongue as well as in English. Parseltongue doesn't use certain "filler" words such as "is, the, an, or a" which means when you are trying to refer to an object or being you will need to find another way to refer to what you are speaking or writing about. In English and other languages reading between the lines is helpful to figure out what the person might be saying without actually saying it. Which is similar to what you are doing when reading a Parseltongue sentence.
To read between the lines you need to be able to listen to what the person or snake is saying, then use their body movements and/or their tone of voice to figure out what it is they meant to say. Once you have gathered all of the information, you will need to use your imagination and cunning to interpret what the person or snake is saying.
Part 2:
Tasi snek gara fasi girou kroʃe. Tasi hapaun tina kuraʃira akaʃe sine. Tasi snek hungri. Tasi hapaun fasi riʃan akaʃe harne. Tasi hapaun kapi akaʃe ʃine harne. Tasi snek fasi kapi kroʃe. Tasi snek hungri korna fasi rok firna. Tasi snek fasi rok sliʃe sobne. Fasi rok firna tasi snek slifai bov agiro harne.