zompist bboard

However, they do derive *conceptually* from other scripts. Someone saw writing in action and made up something similar. The same can probably said of hieroglyphs, which first turned up suspiciously soon after cuneiform and worked in the same way. Which leaves the early Sinitic script and Mesopotamia...

As Zhen Lin is clearly thinking about writing in another thread, I've had a thought. In Eurasia, writing was only invented independently something like twice or so, all other scripts derive from one of these two, either directly or in concept. Rather than us all inventing scripts willy-nilly, I sugg...

If no one else has claimed it, then I will request the challenge of deriving Gezoro (and Tjakori, too?) and then working on conhistory for those speakers. It's all yours. The only conditions attached to the challenge are: a) you take Gezoro *and* Tjakori (it's not impossible that Tjakori is actuall...

Cedh- if it's not too much trouble, would a map of the "whole world" as we know it be possible? One including the Western and Isles spheres as well?

Cedh, I only just noticed your maps. They're damn cool (they also show the need for some Hitatc loanwords in Adata and Gezoro- someone hurry up and make that language!). The rumours about me working on Proto-Western are true . The basics of the language are pretty much finalised, and once I've come ...

In particular, I don't think we can have them settling down in the hills and THEN being nomadic invaders. I dunno, it's not impossibly. While Rathedan is more fertile than the quasi-desert upper Aiwa valley, it's not incredibly fertile, and by the classical period a lot of that fertility was a resu...

Hm. Only a couple of things: "First Ndak Ta Empire" seems a little bit too grand, IMO. Initial vague conceptions of the Ndak takeover of Kasadgad didn't involve a united Ndak polity crushing a united Ngauro Empire. Rather, as I recall the Ndak expanded due to population pressures in Latsomo and kind...

Zhen Lin wrote:the proto-language

Proto-language for what, out of interest? I ask because I'm in the midst of proto-language fever myself

Salmoneus wrote:On the longer term: can we really say that three thousand years after a 'Roman' period (i.e. in the time of Erhadzy), they still aren't 'modern'? We may need some fairly large social, or even natural, calamities to slow them down.

Meteor impacts? Unstable climates? Mini Ice Ages?

Or give the current Latoka language a new name and stick it on an island to the south of Legion's Team 1 language, leaving the name "Latoka" for people to play with and not needing any re-drawing?

cedh audmanh wrote:Secondly, we know next to nothing about Hitatc and Xsali.

To my knowledge, Radius might be planning to do something with Xshali.

As promised, here is some derivational stuff for Adata.

I've also become somewhat caught up by toying with Proto-Western. If I get far with it, I'll post on it.

BBC upgrades Flap to Row , but have not ruled out the possibility of a "total f*cking pagger." What is it that has convinced most Americans that British slang consists solely of cockney rhyming slang? It doesn't. Most people never use it, and there is strong evidence to suggest that the whole thing...

Also, how about zedra for "family" (son + collective)? I'd really like it if we could make as much use of Adata's existing derivational processes rather than inventing new roots willy-nilly. It's you that left us with barely any derivational processes. And it's you that left us with only four deriv...

/me coughs. While I'm not averse to Zhen Lin's suggestion, I will however put my foot down about the Daiadak being matriarchal. There might well be traces of earlier (pre-Ndak) matrifocal tendencies, such as the main deity being female, but I've always conceived of the Daiadak as being pretty patria...

Radius Solis wrote:Mrs. Dash

I'm letting "Italian spices" go for the minute, but what the fuck? Mrs. Dash?

/me quietly acquiesces, puts on his fail hat and sits in the corner weeping.

IK RO UKĀPAZABE TĒBA! I ro sinan abureien eieien "ape" (sit) raphen "apāza" (fish) ādo. But either way you made a typo. :) I probably borked that syntax. DAMN YOU DEWRAD for not telling us how to form complement clauses. :o And who omitted discussion of them from Ndak Ta, then, eh? Also quit speaki...

This evening is the last of the three nights of Samonios, the most solemn and sacred festival of my religion, marking as it does the beginning of the new year (parenthetically then, Happy New Year guys). As such, it's an occasion of celebration. Normally I invite friends and relatives over and feed ...

Dew, I tried your bolognese recipe; but I'm sad to inform you it tasted like fail, because of the cinammon (I thought it look wierd, but I'm of the "don't knock it 'till you've tried it" school of thought") Then either a) you used too much cinammon and should exercise restraint or b) you will be sa...

aardwolf wrote:I've never heard of somebody detesting the smell of raw tomatoes.

You clearly haven't been paying attention, then, as linguoboy attested to the same antipathy a year ago in the same thread. Do keep up, aard.

Actually, the tomatoes are wholly optional. The dish works very well with them omitted or replaced by, say, peppers.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dewrad's "Oh fuck I forgot that there were vegetarians coming for dinner tonight" Emergency Italian Mushroom Feast . Those seeking authenticity can instead refer to it as "funghi trifolati", however. It's a dead simple yet really tasty and quick mushroom dish. Little...

An in-depth grammar of Proto-Germanic. Ideal for anyone considering doing an a posteriori language from Germanic.

Question: do these substrata (Gezoro, Faraghin) actually exist as conlangs? Gezoro did, briefly, have a somewhat evanescent existence as a conlang itself. All I recall of it was genders based on edibility and noun incorporation. I was discussing with Radius that eventually it might be fun to resurr...