Quaras?

[TheLoneAmigo]

Is their any information about Quaras? I've looked all over, and can't seem to find any information about this mysterious eastern nation.

[Tayanrai]

Hey, welcome to the board, TheLoneAmigo.

I'm assuming that you mean "Qaraus", right? I just did a search on Google for it and I found these links on the old Virtual Verduria Message Board: here, here, and here. There's not a whole lot of information you'll find in those links, though - it's all I could find, but hopefully zompist will be able to fill you in with more stuff.

~Tayanrai

[TheLoneAmigo]

Yeah, sorry for the misspelling. Thanks!

[brandrinn]

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 phonology or grammar that may so-far exist.

[Glenn]

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 phonology or grammar that may so-far exist.

Well, Mark certainly lists it as a language in the Qarau family, which may indicate that it's probably indigenous, but I don't know for sure; even if this is the case, a degree of crossover seems likely (given that the Verdurians have had a colony and trading post at Karimia for nearly three centuries).

Mark? Do you have any tidbits that are ready to share?
(I'll certainly understand if they're not.)

p@,
Glenn

[zompist]

Karimian is the Qarau language local to the Verdurian colony. It does show some Verdurian influence by now, but it's not a pidgin.

The wordlist is very small, mostly placenames (e.g. Qarau itself, and the rivers Auqi and Uiqim); one content word known is ayochaq 'trap', the source of a Verdurian word.

[brandrinn]

I'm a bit confused by these unvoiced velar plosives:
the "c" in Carhinnoi
the "q" in Qarau
the "k" in karimia
Are these different phonemes, or are they arbitrary differences in orthography?

Of course, this is a relatively unimportant area to be concerned with, so I understand if you don't go out of your way to answer my little questions.

(thanks for the timely responce, btw)

[zompist]

I'm a bit confused by these unvoiced velar plosives:
the "c" in Carhinnoi
the "q" in Qarau
the "k" in karimia
Are these different phonemes, or are they arbitrary differences in orthography?

They all go back to /q/ (an uvular stop) in Qarau. Transliterating Qarau, I use <q> for /q/ (since there's no good reason not to).

The Verdurians, naturally enough, transliterate /q/ with their uvular stop -- which however I transliterate <k>. So the Verdurians' name for the land of the Qaraus is Karimia.

Carhinnoi is an ancient word, referring to those Qaraus who converted to Jippirasti and ruled the eastern half of Munkh?sh. The Cadhinorians heard of them only indirectly, through the Munkh?shi or Lenani, neither of whom had a /q/ sound and therefore substituted /k/. The Cadhinorians had no way of knowing that this actually represented /q/; they heard /k/ and wrote their velar stop -- which I transliterate <c>.