zompist bboard

As for the Jippirasti-Islam thing, I myself never made that connection. They've always reminded me of the Mongols for some reason. :? Really? A monotheistic prophet appears among a nation of pagan nomads and ignites a major world religion that goes on to conquer major centres of civilization? Well,...

he might publish it over cafepress.com, though the number of zbbers with credit cards (of which I am not a member) is very small. I just use my mother's credit card and reimburse her in cash. My main credit card is my bank's Cash & Charge card, which acts essentially as an ATM and debit card--if I ...

Since Mark (i.e., Zomp), isn't here at the moment, I'll tell you what I know in the meantime. 1. What is this about? I'll cite Mark's own description, from his page The Secret History of Verduria : The second novel was written not long after this; it's called In the Land of Babblers . It's set in th...

(Morning here--Happy New Year's again, everyone!) That thread was probably pruned, but I have a fairly good recollection of what it said; since Mark's not around, I'll offer my shot. Mark's native language is English, of course; as I recall, he said that he had a good command of French, as well as S...

What the hell are you talking about? Don't you keep the zompist.com change log open all the time and refresh every 2 minutes?????? No; I don't, actually. :wink: Carsten: Mark recently converted the Web pages of his Verdurian grammar to Unicode, thus enabling him to use the Unicode characters he pre...

Wow! That happened a lot faster than I expected... In looking over the converted Verdurian grammar, my immediate reaction is a visual one: from my previous readings of the grammar, I have become so deeply accustomed to the digraphs you used previously in place of the preferred diacritics (i.e., Adhi...

alieneye wrote:FIREFOX

Interesting name...I've only seen that animal called a "red panda" or a "lesser panda" in English.

Regardless, they're one of my favorite animals--I love their color scheme.

p@,
Glenn

Ruby wrote:OTTER + OTTER + OTTER + OTTER + UFO

That is indeed exactly what it looks like; I note that the otter on the right is checking to make sure his offscreen colleagues with the UFO-watching equipment have their cameras ready...

p@,
Glenn

AppleRouge wrote:Wow. This thread is so... adorable...

It's not just chotto kawaii, but rather totemo kawaii.

I agree; I approached this thread with trepidation, but most of it is so...cute.

(With a couple of exceptions, perhaps...)

Anyone have more otters?

p@,
Glenn

In the Count of Years, the gdeoni are prtrayed as having the trees brush against there feet. Are they really that tall, or is that just an exageration on the Cuzeians' part? Are they twelve foot, as I imagine them? Or are they the hundred-footers described in the Count of Years? Curious. Thank you ...

What is Ele'de?(I think that's how it's spelled) I know it's a religion, I think, but what's it like? Why don't you have it in the belief systems section? Please, tell me, I'm intrigued. Eledh?t (or Eled'?t, although that doesn't represent the diacritic over the <d> properly) is an Almean Christian...

Their neighbors have been illuminated to varying extents: we've now seen Meshaism, with its Wede:i and Eastern (Ezicimi) roots (although not its sucessor, Endajue) Hey, it's described to some extent in the historical atlas. That it is--and the brief descriptions of Endajue beliefs, the Hermit Maste...

There is one: Thyrenacia -- http://www.thyrenacia.com/thyrenacia/index.html Alas, languages of the world are neglected. Ohmygod. Who made this? edit: actually a better question seems to be. How was this stuff made?! Depending on what you're asking--the creator, John Whatnough, provides a list of so...

Has it ever been mentioned what religion the Chia-Sha peoples of Luduyn and the Koranax belong to? To the best of my knowledge, no, although the depths of the Historical Atlas might prove me wrong. Their neighbors have been illuminated to varying extents: we've now seen Meshaism, with its Wede:i an...

EDIT: I correct myself: the syllabary has arrived! Good gracious! I'd been pretty sure that the page would only include the syllabic signs, not the 770 word glyphs (that would be expecting a little too much :wink:). I was glad, however, to see both the Wede:i signs from which the Axunai syllabics we...

I have to admit that I, too, was quite startled to see two new Almean pages in quick succession! Good work! Some initial reactions to Axunashin: 1. As you note, the connections to the other Eastern languages are not hard to see, although the grammar seemed to become more unique (and "weirder") as it...

You'd mentioned in the past that the Xurnese had a different conception of magic than the Verdurians and related peoples, but the idea of the Hundred Planes was not a possibility I'd thought of. (It kind of reminds me of the works of Michael Moorcock, actually. :) ) Ugh! No offense was intended, be...

First of all, thank you very much for the new addition, Mark--neat stuff! 8) Meshaism has been a long-awaited and much-anticipated part of the Almean setting. (I hope that some day you will be able to do the same for Endajue and Bezuxao, not to mention Arashei and Eledhat, and Jippurasti, and... :wi...

Addition: while writing that last post, I found the example sentence above; it's part of Jeff's capsule definition of polysynthism, which was as follows: A while back, when we were planning a newbie FAQ for the board here, I wrote a description of polysynthism that you may find helpful; it mentions ...

I thought Poly langs ALWAYS incorporated? Not at all--or at least, not necessarily; according to what Jeff has posted and what I've read, most (maybe all) polysynthetic natlangs also permit free-standing subjects and/or objects--for example, in the form of topical phrases. Jeff once gave the follow...

Well, sometimes in conworldry, obvious is unimaginative, and sometimes it's what would happen . Knowing the difference between the realistic and the cliche is one of the primary skills that goes into becoming a good conworlder, I think. I tend to agree; that's one of the aspects I'm still working o...

Is Karimian a Verdurian-Erqarau pidgeon, or the indigenous language of the Qaraus of that area? anyway, here (http://www.zompist.com/ethno.htm) i saw that there is a word-list for this language. Even if it consists of only a few place-names, I'd very much like to see it, and any info on qaraus phon...

Thank you, Ran! 8) I'd all but forgotten about this particular request, partly because I thought that I'd gotten all the replies I was going to get. I will indeed take a look at Prof. Handel's dissertation, and some of his other online writings look interesting as well (in particular, I saved a copy...

Thanks for the tidbits, Mark! I'm looking forward to seeing the Axunashin materials (including Meshaism! 8) ) and the Skourene grammar eventually. In addition, your notes on Old Skourene ergativity and world order sparked some thoughts and questions in my mind about a sketch of my own for an ergativ...

Before I head out for the time being, I wanted to add my greetings to Zomp's: Salem , Hans-Werner! It's good to see you here once again; it feels like a long time since your last visit... :wink: I hope that your new posting is going well, and that things have been good both for you and for your fami...