Bordurian

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Bordurian is the national language of Borduria, a fictional Balkan dictatorship created by Hergé for the Tintin series. Little is known about Bordurian, as it is not extensively presented in the Tintin stories. The neighboring language Syldavian, for example, has been proven to be a Germanic language, but so few words of Bordurian are known that such an analysis for this language is impossible. There are several words with an apparent Germanic origin, though, hôitgang, (cf. Dutch uitgang), mänhir (cf. Dutch mijnheer), ointhfan (cf. Dutch ontvangst) sztôpp, tzhôl (cf. German Zoll, Dutch tol and English toll) and zsnôrr (cf. Dutch snor). The ultimate source for these words are uncertain, though. The language appears to use the same Latin orthography as Syldavian, but unlike Syldavian, which also uses Cyrillic, it is written only in the Latin alphabet.

As with other fictional languages and some personal and place names in the Tintin universe, Hergé modeled Bordurian on Marols, a dialect of Dutch spoken in and around Brussels.

Almost the complete corpus (except for Müsstler) is found in The Calculus Affair.

[edit] Known words

  • amaïh! - "hail!"
  • da - "of"
  • hôitgang - "exit"
  • mänhir - "mister"
  • ointhfan - "reception desk"
  • opernska - "opera"
  • platz - "square"
  • Pristzy! - "Darn!" (from French "sapristi!")
  • szonett - "bell" or "bell-push" (from French "sonnette")
  • sztôpp - "Stop!"
  • tzhôl - "customs"
  • zservis - "service"
  • zsnôrr - "moustache" or "snore"

[edit] Place names

  • Bakhine
  • Szohôd

[edit] Names of people

Languages