zompist bboard

I can certainly believe this, given how few documents survive, and how much progress has been made in Mayan. I can't find anything about this online, though. Is there much on the Aztec situation in this Coe book? You know, I was sloppy here... I assumed that the Aztec script was based on the Maya. ...

The Aztecs didn't really have a complete writing system, though, did they? I gather they had numerical notation, calendrical glyphs and pictograms which could express some concepts, and names either directly or by rebus, but nothing that corresponded to speech. At least, that's my impression. Your ...

they have written records going back 15,000 years. Did they invent a featural system entirely on their own, or did the script evolve gradually? Given that they are elcari, it wouldn't surprise me if the script was created pretty much ex nihilo. Maybe Khemthu-Nor taught them that, too. I don't know ...

BUt in the Descend of the Les, uh... Lesuasi was it? the name escapes me. But anyway, in that dopcument it says that their existence is questionable. Why does it sya that if the Elcari at least know that they exist? It's more that they don't know that they don't exist. As with the Giants, there are...

A question: for Benecian and Beshbalicue, you state in the 2000 posts that they use a pre-reform orthography. Are you ever going to elaborate on this? Might this be jumpstarted into a study of Old Verdurian? Could be, for one day when I'm looking for something exceedingly pedantic to do. I've alway...

I'm pretty sure I answered this question fairly recently... anyway, the trolls appear in the Count of Years, but it's said that most of them were killed. There are a lot of unexplored nooks and crannies on the planet, however...

How can it be that Verduria, west of Ismahi, speaks Verdurian, Ismahi speaks a form of speach different enough to be considered a language of it's own, and Erenat, to the east of Ismahi, speaks something close enough to mazhtane to be considered Verdurian? I know that Ismahi is isolated by mountain...

S?k fozek'! Foli shpakh? 'Liant' kl?t. Et liant s? shpakh? shklel! Melhu mudr? kirez?l ma! Well, you know, poetry is not my strong suit. I can tell you the relevant beginning points (Cuzeian poetry was mostly by number of syllables in a line; Cadhinor poetry is discussed a bit in the material on Ve...

Olont? kokue? K?t ? Laint shk

You mention an Iliu referring to Kebri as Laiuen in the Historical Atlas somewhere. Yes; the ancient city of Laiwen (Kebren Laaven) comes from this word. It may well be some ancient Methaiun person's attempt to record an iliu word. The idea of having a great variety of different stylistic registers...

Well, if you see it like this, every language has male and female dialects. Sure, but Japanese (and Barakhinei) grammaticalize it to a greater extent than most other languages. Japanese has different personal pronouns and phatic particles; note also that the woman says o-niwa (garden + honorific) w...

The main mechanism for change in human language-- accumulated sound change-- doesn't operate the same way in iliu language. Changes do occur; but this simply creates new styles and registers. Old ways of speaking are maintained and revived; foreign ways of speaking are investigated and assimilated. ...

'Earth' z?th shpakh? Ikumen (ish ferediri rhui). A rhu ?lo k?shto ? tot Chibeno (Japanese). My favorite example: male and female versions of the same dialog. female: A: Maa, go-rippa na o-niwa de gozaamasu wa nee. Shibafu ga hirobiro to shite ite, kekkoo de gozaamasu wa nee. My, what a splendid gard...

P.S. ...On the other hand, nearly all of the PE words in the lexicon beginning with "f" begin with "sh" in Axunashin, in accordance with the regular sound change. Perhaps this is the real correspondence? Yes indeed; the f for Axunashin is just wrong. (Or perhaps just outdated. I wrote that part ver...

Nikolai wrote:?dhi esht?n. L? dan belhu. Tena kirez?l Zompista: Im k?t? rhu leli foli meta k? rhu im a hili, hon? im ?tr? shk??

I'm missing something in the middle here... you mean, which ones do this on Earth, or on Almea? Or something else entirely?

But on the subject of elcari, you mentioned that basically they operate co-operatively, rather than in competition, and they usually disband their group after they've finished the task. This is all fine, but what then is the impetus for developing specialisation? I know that elcari are extrodinaril...

The Cadhinor was Khenthunor, whose normal development is Hentunor (th dh only intervocalically). That was good enough for the medievals, but somebody seems to have felt it wasn't accurate enough, and insisted on k in Verdurian translations of the Adhivro.

Jaaaaaa wrote:whats eteodaole?

That's the name of the iliu language. (Originally it looked like it might actually be an iliu word, but this is now impossible. It may turn out to be a Cu?zi word.)

Sure, if I'm not hit by a bus. When I started on Verdurian, I kept word-lists for a few other languages, including Eteod?ole. I can't find the list, but I did find an old map with some typical names: Salanetar, Morusala?, Na?or, Laiu?n, Cotocueli?, Melasiu... typically, boringly mellifluous elven-st...

Drydic_guy wrote:Mark, when you write ny in Elkar?l, do you mean ?, or n?, or [nj]?

It's a typo for ?.

I updated the Elkar?l grammar and lexicon in a few minor areas, mostly to address things brought up here, e.g. adding suffixes to words that end in a vowel (add -q- first, or -m after -u). There's also a word for 'carpenter' ( nth?ngd ). I fixed the business about know/learn/teach, which was surpris...

Ah, I see. With what countries do they have good relations with? Do they have any close allies at all? It would be terribly difficult to make friends having such an evil reputation throughout all history. Both the Easterners and the Jippirasti fought against Munkh?sh, so I assume that they all stil...

Drydic_guy, the kh is listed in my notes as a velar fricative. Sorry this isn't a language-based question, but what is a Dhekhnami's perception of evil? It must be a lot different than a Verdurian's. What would a Dhekhnami do if he or she uncovered everything about his hor her empire? Try to get att...

So, here's a question to Z what did your world look like back then? What did Almea look like during the D&D days? Before the D&D days? What did it look like when you first thought up the word "Verduria"? Of course, how did you decide to call your country "vegetable"? :D It hasn't changed terribly m...

Iscun wrote:Why are the Demoshi the top humans if the Tyellakhi were the first to be absorbed by the ktuvoks?

Life's like that sometimes.

The Demoshi are a more dynamic culture-- probably because they were ruled by the Cadhinorians for a few centuries and learned a lot, while Tyellakh was a backwater.