zompist bboard

I'm interested in learning more about the process in which Xurnese went from prepositional to postpositional. There doesn't seem to be any information about it in the Xurnese page (also, under the Auxiliaries transformation, it says "prepositional phrase" instead of "postpositional phrase". I want t...

I once pondered making a logographic script for Old Albic (not polysynthetic, but rich in compunds and inflections) where diacritics express inflections. Perhaps that would be an idea to pursue. I don't know how realistic that is, though; after all, there is AFAIK no such system in the real world. ...

You could develop a syllabary from a logographic system and represent the clusters you described by compounding symbols. Some of the abugidas do that, especially Tibetan. I figure that Tibetan is a good approximation for representing crazy consonant clusters: SPYIR http://rishida.net/scripts/tibetan...

I was wandering around on Almeopedia and I noticed that in the page about attitudes towards Homosexuality , under the section on the Kebreni, it states that indeed, men and women dress and wear their hair almost identically Kebreni clothing isn't mentioned on the Clothing page, and I've only seen on...

I've always liked the idea of an asteroid like Ceres turned into a mini-Ecumenopolis.

I agree on desiring to avoid magic. With my own conworld, I've allowed myself a few conceits regarding flora, fauna, and technological development because of its origin story. While the present core cultures have a technological level equivalent to Tang Dynasty China, the planet was originally a ter...

The Toba Eruption is believed to have reduced the H. sapiens population to 15,000, and humanity turned out just fine.

Don't give them reasons to advance their technology. Technology advances to solve problems (just look at what fed into the steam engine! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOQATN2nTfk). Never introduce a resource or a key stepping-stone technology.