"Archerwhovexesandbuildsandspeaksstandingwithaidguardianofcatandboundtoresistor!" an allay whizzed past Scar's head, yelling his full name in their tongue. "Look what I stole!" They presented him with a handful of redstone, now twinkling with shards of Vex magic (well, calling it 'Vex magic was a bit of a misnomer, these days. Fae magic. Whatever).

"And who did you steal it from, um... sorry, I'm really bad at telling you all apart."

"Speakerwhoallaysandcarriesandknowsbringerofmischiefthiefathearthomeinsorting." The allay supplied.

"And who did you steal it from, allays-carries-mischief?" Scar could never get his mouth to work right on full names in the Allay tongue, so he tended to stick to the shortened version, even if it was a bit of a faux pas in some cases. The allays didn't mind, they knew his first language was Vex, so he had difficulty switching between the two.

"Well, Worldeaterwhocreepersandgoatsandcyborgsandwiresandbreaksvinesbelowskinguardianofdragonseeshermatrix put it into the storage system, but the storage system belonged to Missedwhochangesandwireswielderofcrystalfollyofspoonstolenthinkingmoustacheandboundtoresistor."

"Don't you live in changes-wires-spoon's storage system?" Scar asked.

"Yes, but consider. It was shiny."

"At this rate, you're gonna get eyeofcrow added to your name."

"I don't think I would be opposed to that, actually." Allays-Carries-Mischief looked thoughtful.

"You should give the redstone back, though." Scar admonished.

"Fine, I'll do it next time I see Missedwhochangesandwireswielderofcrystalfollyofspoonstolenthinkingmoustacheandboundtoresistor." the allay sighed, folding their tiny arms.

"Good, because he's coming over here right now!"

"Scar! Hi!" Mumbo waved. "Sorry if this guy is bothering you!"

"No, no, it's fine. We were just discussing where they got a certain something," Scar replied, giving Allays-Carries-Mischief a glare out of the corner of his eye. They hrumphed, and handed over the pile of redstone.

"I am going to subtly move every block in your next build one to the left," they grumbled at Scar. Scar laughed.

"Thank you. Doc and I went to a lot of trouble to get even one magic-charged pile of redstone."

"Yeah, that stuff's annoying to get," Scar agreed. "And you," Scar turned to Allays-Carries-Mischief. "No more stealing that stuff. We were just talking about how much effort it took changes-wires-spoon and creepers-breaks-guardian to get it."

"Okay. Fine."

"Thank you."

With that, Mumbo left, and Allays-Carries-Mischief floated along behind him, only to turn around and stick their tongue out at Scar. Scar responded by flashing a sharp-toothed smile back at them, before going back to his terraforming.

✓✷✪❀✪✷✓

The thing is, as illustrated in the scenario above, the languages of the Vex and Allays are remarkably similar – about as similar as the Spanish and Italian of our reality. It makes sense, given that both languages stem from the same ancient fae tongue, now only spoken by a handful of nearly-forgotten immortal figures. However, there is one point on which both languages differ wildly: the matter of naming.

Let's use a fairly basic example to illustrate the issue, shall we? Enter Tango (of the Tek variety). He's not listening to us, so we will call to him: "Tango! Listen!"

In the tongue of the Vex, this would translate as: "Tangel! Tinam ve!" (see The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Thyme et. al., 2020-21, for an example of this phrase and others in use).

However, in Allay, this translates slightly differently: "⊣ᔑᒲᒷᒲᔑᓭℸ ̣ ᒷ∷∴⍑𝙹ʖꖎᔑ⨅ᒷᓭᔑリ↸∴╎∷ᒷᓭ⎓ꖎᔑᒲᒷᓭℸ ̣ ⚍∷リᒷ↸ᓭ𝙹⚍ꖎꖎ𝙹ᓭℸ ̣ ╎リᓭ!¡ᔑᓵᒷᔑリ↸ʖ𝙹⚍リ↸ℸ ̣ 𝙹𝙹ᒲᒷリ! Tinara!" or, for those in more of a hurry, as long as they had the appropriate social permissions: "ʖꖎᔑ⨅ᒷᓭ-∴╎∷ᒷᓭ-ᓭ𝙹⚍ꖎ! Tinara!"

As you can see, there are two major differences between these two translations. Firstly, the two languages handle the imperative form differently. Vex conjugates the verb to the singular second person, followed by a pronoun for the speaker. Allay, on the other hand, simply leaves the verb in infinitive form, presumably to be spoken with emphasis.

The second difference, then, is the one of interest to us: the names. In Vex, Tango (who uses he/him pronouns) has his name translated to "Tangel". This is, of course, simply his name, with a gendered suffix tacked onto the end. There are as many gendered suffixes in Vex as there are vowel sounds, (read: infinite), and the names of those with no gender whatsoever have the suffix removed (eg. 'Entropy' translates directly to 'Entropy', as opposed to 'Entropyol'). However, there are three major suffixes that are attached to non-name nouns, and these are the ones that translate the most smoothly to gendered pronouns in English: "-el" (for he/him), "-ol" (for they/them), and "-ul" (for she/her).

On the other hand, we have Allay. Names in Allay are simplifications of why each person being referenced matters to Allay society, with the following format: [role in the story]who[species]and[1-2 skills][1-3 traits/life-changing events]and[role in the story of any soulbonds]. For example, our friend Tango's name would be as follows, if translated literally and then broken up by each category: "Gamemaster | whoblazes | andwires | flamesturnedsoul | lostinspace | andboundtoomen". Then, given enough social leeway, a name may be shortened to its most crucial components, in the format of [species]-[skill]-[single word from traits/events]. In Tango's case, this is "blazes-wires-soul". The shortened name is not capitalised in written Allay, and should not be capitalised in transcriptions of Allay speech. Capitalisation outside of that context is up to the translator's discretion.

The source of this difference is unknown, but scholars (Willowbranch et. al., 2023) have speculated that this may be a result of the divergence between Vex and Allay culture with regards to the power of names. The branches of Fae magic utilised by the Vex tend to lean heavily into the usage of names as things of power, so it makes sense that names are fundamentally modified away from their owner's true nature, thus reducing the risk of accidentally hexing someone. In contrast, Allays worship the power of names, so the practice of tying someone's name into their role in the universe, and only shortening it when familiar, would naturally develop.

In summary, the tongues of the Vex and Allay bear some similarities, but, due to some suspected cultural differences, have developed wildly different naming practices.

To further illustrate my point, I have included some more broken-down translations of Allay names for players on the Hermitcraft server below.

Scar – Archer | whovexes | andbuildsandspeaks | standingwithaid | guardianofcat | andboundtoresistor (vexes-builds-cat)

Cub – Gamemaster | whovexes | andwiresandspeaks | rediscoveringyouth (vexes-wires-youth)

Tango – Gamemaster | whoblazes | andwires | flamesturnedsoul | lostinspace | andboundtoomen (blazes-wires-soul)

Impulse – Guardian | whodemonsanddwarves | andwires | wieldsdwarfaxe | hungersforcrystal | andboundtokingmakerandsacrifice (demons-wires-axe)

Zedaph – Daredevil | whosheeps | andwiresandbreaks | halfofahero | shaperoftime | vesselofreaper (sheeps-wires-reaper)

BDubs – Kingmaker | whophantoms | andbuildsandsleeps | keeperoftime | vinesbelowskin | andboundtoguardian (phantoms-sleeps-time)

Beef – Cardmaster | whominotaurs | andbuildsandwires | vinesbelowskin | splittingintwo | eyesofyellow (minotaurs-builds-splitting)

Etho – Shadow | whoisoriginal | andbuildsandwires | vinesbelowskin | lostallpower | andboundtogod (original-wires-lost)

Doc – Worldeater | whocreepersandgoatsandcyborgs | andwiresandbreaks | vinesbelowskin | guardianofdragon | seeshermatrix (creepers-breaks-guardian)

✓✷✪❀✪✷✓

It's oops! all worldbuilding!

Some of this applies to my main fics. Not sure how much yet tbh.

I've been Entropy, peace out from the presenst!