zompist bboard

GreenBowTie wrote:Would San Diego just be "San Diego" or "San Dëgo" or something?

Probably San Dëgo, since the /e/ is stressed. Or maybe the first part would be replaced with Verdurian word for "saint" - nëron. New Mexico would be Lebe Mécsico, etc.

zompist wrote:As for gods or God, I like Neil Gaiman's observation: the universe rewards belief systems. Believe in omnipotent teddy bears, and you'll soon start finding evidence for omnipotent teddy bears.

Are you an atheist

The Almean project is the same sort of thing as "The Encyclopedia of Tlon" described by J.L. Borges in "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". Only that was created by a big team of anonymous contributors... Perhaps Almea would be more detailed if some people were engaged to "fill in the gaps". For example to...

It's entirely possible to maintain a strong belief in God while having a good deal of scientific knowledge. A think our civilization's secular orientation has nothing to do with our technological advancement. Communism and the hippie ideology have quickly fallen out of fashion :D. And they liked to ...

I am curious what kind of clothes do inhabitants of Almea wear.

Does any Almean religion force women to cover their faces? (I'd suspect Gelalhat or Jippirasti)

Since Verdurian uses -át to form names of religions from main god or founders, I am inclined to ask what is Verdurian for Jippirasti?

Jippirát or Baburát seem likely. Maybe Baburát is an abusive term like our Mohammedan for Muslim

If Dhekhnam is Russia and the Tzhuro are Arabs, then your identification of the Lenani is perfectly valid.

Best parallel for ktuvok empires is however not Russia or any real nation, but Tolkien's Mordor, or Augustine of Hippo's civitas diaboli.

Probably most Gelalh-worshipers obey their local priests who tell them what the will of the ktuvoks is.

Another possibility, given that ktuvoks are demons, is that their will can be directly transmitted into the cultists' minds. It may be described as a sort of demonic possession.

The main central tenet of Gelalhat is, apparently, obedience to the ktuvok rulers- what shape does that take in areas that aren't actually ruled by ktuvoks? Do you think this is a problem for a religion? How may Catholics have actually seen the pope? (Not that I am comparing pope to a demon ) :wink:

They are probably accepted as humans. Premodern European believed in people without heads or dog-people. They were described as humans, not as animals. And flaids are pretty similar to us.

Since they have their own language, most natural thing to do is to count them as a nationality.

So where does "Ctelm" come from? It doesn't look anyway related to Cad'inor Caeťmene.

I think the "secret connection" is exemplified by Wede:i we: and Beic bé - both meaning "mighty". Both languages have similar syllable structure.

A couple of questions to Zompist:

Do you have any idea about the Eynleyni languages in terms of their grammatical structure and sound system?

Also, what is meaning of the name "Eynleyni" itself?

Are there other lgs than Demoshi and Tyellakhi?

Demoshi is like a Celtic/Slavic/Turkic hybrid to me.
Beic would be Chinese and Old Skourene Akkadian. I am not sure about Naviu - maybe Germanic if Cad'inas is Rome

Jippirasti - Islam
Cadhinas - Rome
Dhekhnam - Russia
Arcel - Pre-Columbian America

Zompist's grammars usually describe /r/'s in most Almean languages (Cadhinor, Cuezi, Axuna :sh in) as an approximant just like in English. Yet in his audio examples I hear mostly trilled or tapped /r/. Is that on purpose? Also, what is the meaning of Lesdurdagram (name of the Gurdago's great tower)?