zompist bboard

I think Eretald will start yo unify further, if only in fear of Dheknam, but probably in a few groups. I think a lot of the really small states are just not viable, and as trade further binds Eretald together, I doubt they will survive. Also, once the barbarians of the plain are finally defeated, as...

Well, we know submarines can cross the Zone of Fire. Presumably, if one flew high enough, so could planes. But those seem difficult to transport large amounts of material across. For me, I think the main question is whether Nationalism and reunification movements we saw in our world are likely to oc...

Well... Sarroc is still upcoming. Mark still needs to invent dekhnami because sarroc is spoken in a conquered area north west of dekhnam. So you'll just need to wait... As far as I know, Dhekhnami has been ready for about four months, Zompist is just keeping it secret. I mean, some time ago there w...

Torco wrote:an attempt for the element to be added was made by me ?

I find that grammatical, and I sue constructions like it all the time.

Salmoneus wrote:Is there such a thing as useful competence in Sanskrit?

The aim of studying dead prestige languages has very little to do with being able to speak them.

Well, I guess, could they read old documents in Sanskrit? That seems to be a pretty good baseline for dead-language competency.

Did you also read the New Yorker this week?

(The grassy strip, by the way).

Yaḳato is a dying language spoken by the original inhabitants of the Kyesulalf, the islands where the Alakan (another language I work that I've posted a little bit about here) live. The situation is somewhat similar to that of the Ainu and Ethnic Japanese, in that the Alakan have slowly spread north...

I like French sung, but not spoken. I also have a terrible fondness for Russian and Yiddish, but in both cases I don't think they sound good, but endearing.

No, don't point out the errors, this way it's more realistic! [it's not realistic that we have no Tzuro/etc or Mei/Fei/etc data to work with, though -- better get on that, man!] We have some Tzuro data, which i think is likely to be important. For instance, the maki/mai/mahi (67) and mand/bogu/man ...

No, don't point out the errors, this way it's more realistic! [it's not realistic that we have no Tzuro/etc or Mei/Fei/etc data to work with, though -- better get on that, man!] We have some Tzuro data, which i think is likely to be important. For instance, the maki/mai/mahi (67) and mand/bogu/man ...

Yes, I recall that Zompist has said that he believes it's possible to reconstruct the movement of Almean tectonics to some extent with the information provided.

How would one expect aspirate fricatives to arise? I'm asking because the way I made them (sF => F: => F h ) seems a bit... meh and lame. In Burmese, what happened was /ts( h )/ -> /s( h )/. Some languages in Tibet did a lot of consonant cluster simplification. Also, they're very rare, especially m...

It is both the latter and neither. For the problem you describe, the confusion actually arises from the fact that I've given the pronunciation of the language in its modern form. The MdlD form would be /dɛəβɪə/. That said, there's another mistake: just as the MdlD transcription has /β/, so too shou...

Both Dixon and Aikhenvald (who work together a lot) do tend to write good grammars. I can also recommend Aikhenvald's grammar of Manambu (an Ndu language) and Dixon's grammar of Jarawara (a Madi language). Jarawara has a simple direct/indirect evidentiality system if you're interested. If you're in...

Pretty cool. You're graphics are very detailed.

Basically just this , as far as I know Ah! Thank you. NO! The google books preview cuts out just before getting into the meat of the evidentiality system! I've been looking for a really good analysis of a natlang evidentiality system for a while. Bother. I must go to the University to find this. Al...

Whimemsz wrote:Basically just this, as far as I know

Ah! Thank you.

The discussion of Tariana is fascinating. What are good sources to learn more about it?

Just chiming in to say this is great, and I too have had trouble finding stuff about Ladino. Depressing.

All are fine. 2 is a bit formal, or it could be in response to the question "what's the reason we keep that door closed" followed by an action which explains it. 1 I feel would be likely in a list of doors and why they're kept closed.

In Seattle, things are generally grid-like, but there are lots of separate grids which come into each other at separate angles. So things can get a bit funny. More than that, the city is built like an isthmus, and all the major streets run north-south so getting east-west can become frustrating. And...

Theta wrote:And Arabic palatalizing it too
Man g is just not a popular guy

I think it's what he did to c at that one part, y'know?

Maybe we could set it in a hypothetical future? Where something like our nationalism happened, and we get equivalent mergers to the German and Italian ones? So it's like Eralea with more 1900s technology. Something like a Verduria ( + Other Cadhinor states), Dheknam (same as 3480), Xurno (same), Uni...

Saw the link on Boing Boing. Exactly what it says, an audio recording of a Tok Pisin version of the three little pigs story. It's really interesting, because if you're an English speaker, you can get a lot of the story from it.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/200 ... 036578.htm

Definitely going to buy this. I'm really excited by Zomp's statement of a map of Neinuoi. Is that going to be just a political map, or a little more complicated? Also, if you were going to offer any other extra maps, I think a lot of us would appreciate some more non-political maps, about economics,...