zompist bboard

Since no one other than Pentekonter has commented on the original question: It's true that Mark sometimes borrows words from Earthly languages into the vocabulary of his conlangs (for example, he noted that part of the vocabulary of Flaidish comes from Hungarian, albeit suitably altered), although a...

Oh, that makes me wonder if Almean medicine still, or ever, makes use of examining urine. Don't they still (on earth)? I had my urine examined before a blood test, IIRC Well, today they analyze urine specimens for the presence of different chemical compounds, infectious organisms, etc., but as Jay ...

Thanks, Maknas! A great deal of historical linguistics is still over my head, but that article will be helpful--both the phonologies at the various stages, and the examples of the changes that took place.

Спасибо!

p@,
Glenn

I hate to revive this thread just to ask a question, but: Does anyone know any easily accessible sources that would provide a summary of the (hypothetical) phonology and phonological constraints of any of the proto-languages mentioned above (that is, a chart of the consonant and vowel phonemes belie...

Mark also said once or twice--on the old VV board, I think--that he imagined the ktuvok language as "percussive" (probably involving clicks and thumps that would carry well underwater), as opposed to Eteodaole, the language of the ilii, which sounds like music to human ears. Both species need to be ...

While I can sympathize with Spacey's prediction :) , I don't entirely agree; Mark has been willing to answer questions and discuss different aspects of Almea and its languages, and I've definitely seen specific cases--notably with regard to Elkaril--where he has listened to and followed up on people...

My Kazakh grammar (by Bekturov & Bekturova), in addition to active and passive, lists the causative ("impelling"), reflexive, and co-reciprocal as voices (the latter can refer either to two actors peforming an action to each other, or helping each other do something), but I don't think the latter th...

Yes, we normal and healthy people just invent elaborately detailed fantasy worlds that are just as distasteful as the real one. Leaving behind one imperfect world, we expend our energies creating other imperfect worlds. That far more rational than escapism, and infinitely more rational than attempt...

You need to make it Sword-and-Sorcery. That's what the market wants. Alas, this is quite true... :roll: I like Sword & Sorcery just fine, but these days I'm happy to find something just a bit different. (I think I've mentioned my liking for Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic books; while these have...

Would the Verdurians' sexism be a turn off for the average reader? Before the replies start flowing in... Eddy, if you ever actually took a look at Verduria in depth, you would find that it is actually less sexist than the majority of stereotypical fantasy settings on the market, less sexist than t...

If that doesn't work, I may consider self-publishing. You all want to buy dead-trees books, right? :) Absolutely! I, for one, am a big dead-trees guy. :) (Although I do feel a bit sorry for the trees... In addition to my own reading and writing, my day job as a clerical employee at a hospital chews...

I started learning Russian after four years of high-school French, so my Russian pronunciation was initially rather French-flavored. (Incidentally,a friend of mine who came to work in Russia after receiving a college degree in Spanish reports that she "mixes" Spanish and Russian in a manner similar ...

Well...I'm not the expert--that's Mark, of course :wink:--but until he answers himself... 1. I don't think Ervea knew right away about Attafei's invasion, but since they both fought against Munkhash for a number of years, I'm sure that he learned of it soon enough--long before the two of them finall...

Not really: why be a mad scientist (and inevitably fail due to incompetent hunchbacks and interfering heroes) when you can have grand success as an evil wizard? They've taken over Verduria more than once, and not too far away from the city is the rhuk 17e cheltei shrayomei . What happened to the ot...

Inflections are intimidating to English speakers, but it's misleading. The good and the bad news is that learning the inflections is dwarfed by the problem of learning the vocabulary. I fully agree with this--it was certainly my experience in learning Russian, which has an inflectional system simil...

A side note...good luck to Ghost and Whimemsz in learning Ismain. 8) In the past, I've taught myself enough Verdurian and Elkaril to write a post or two in both languages (and had fun both times), but not enough to actually function in them, alas. I wouldn't mind taking the time someday to learn one...

Here is a link to my very first post ever on the Virtual Verduria board :) , where I asked a related question on the number of Verdurian-speakers vs. the population of Verduria itself; Mark, in replying, mulled over a revision of the figure in the Verdurian grammar and gave an estimate of the total...

The current kings of Zh?sifo style themselves eloroi rather than ataboi 'emperors' I know that the accent in ataboi is on the second syllable, but I can't help looking at the word and its meaning and thinking, "Attaboy!" :) He's writing in English, though. Borrowed words normally don't take their d...

The last emperor of Cadhinor was Ertala, according to the Historical Atlas and the Secret History of Verduria; he was indeed young and ambitious, but not that pleasant a character (and he was defeated and killed himself to boot). Maybe something different... I seem to remember that Ertala was part ...

zompist wrote:Nice to see people interested in Obenzayet...

I, too, am still interested in Obenzayet--the language, but especially the culture of its speakers, as a nation of (semi-)former steppe nomads...

p@,
Glenn

I?d call it after the last teenage emperor of Cadhinor but I can?t find the old board where his name was revealed. I think it would be the Medhroric III Award. The last emperor of Cadhinor was Ertala, according to the Historical Atlas and the Secret History of Verduria; he was indeed young and ambi...

(ai) is always /?/ and (au) is always /o/. ... ... Flaid /fl?d/ rhymes with 'plaid', not 'played'. Well, in that case, it's Mark's fault for choosing such a silly example word. I'd never heard it used once in my life. As one who, like Mark, survived the 70s (the period when the flaids were created)...

Shm Jay wrote:

Glenn Kempf wrote:First Shm Churmey, now Vlaran of Verduria...it's the Almean Invasion!

I was the original Shm.

Complete with s?pa, as I recall.

p@,
Glenn

First Shm Churmey, now Vlaran of Verduria...it's the Almean Invasion!

Welcome aboard, Vlaran!

p@,
Glenn

I just wanted to revive Jeerio for a moment; I was re-reading the story, and was impressed once again by the sharpness of Mark's wit, even back then. [T]he sun was setting, as it so often does, and the birds were singing in the trees?polkas and waltzes, mostly. I love that line. :) ?I could look for...