zompist bboard

Aside from the lack of interrogative pronouns, I've noticed that a good load of verbs end in -u. But yet, there's no way to tell when you drop the -u or not. At first, I thought the -u is dropped if the following suffix begins with a vowel, but is retained if the suffix begins with a consonant. Or so I thought. It nearly drops everywhere except for euphony. So is the -u just a themantic vowel?

I ask this, unusually, because a girl and I trade sweet nothings to each other in Wede:i (yea, I know, we're dorks). With such things like meleningku, and me calling her yaino. She's also came into the habit of calling me s'eluguno, though I'm not sure if it's s'elguno. (though we might settle with s'elaguno.)

Nikolai(lazy) wrote:Aside from the lack of interrogative pronouns, I've noticed that a good load of verbs end in -u. But yet, there's no way to tell when you drop the -u or not. At first, I thought the -u is dropped if the following suffix begins with a vowel, but is retained if the suffix begins with a consonant. Or so I thought. It nearly drops everywhere except for euphony. So is the -u just a themantic vowel?

Pretty much. In the verbal system, it's dropped when any suffix is added, except when an unacceptable consonant cluster would be created. (The -i of ituri works the same way.)

As for the interrogatives... oops. I'll have to do something about that. Wede:i also really needs a better sample text.

I ask this, unusually, because a girl and I trade sweet nothings to each other in Wede:i (yea, I know, we're dorks). With such things like meleningku, and me calling her yaino. She's also came into the habit of calling me s'eluguno, though I'm not sure if it's s'elguno. (though we might settle with s'elaguno.)

That's very cute. S'eluguno has precedent in lez'ugu 'trustee'-- perhaps this is because both verbs derive from nouns, so the -u- is useful to indicate that we're deriving the -gu form from the verb rather than from the noun.

Ok. I'd have a problem with s'elagu since it more implies 'dockhand' or 'gate keeper' more than a defender (thence, knight).

Now there's nothing wrong with Phaedrus, just that yea--the ongoing trend is usually a native piece. I don't recall my history books stating that Phaedrus was Wede:i...but they could be wrong...*goes to check*

Nikolai wrote:Ok. I'd have a problem with s'elagu since it more implies 'dockhand' or 'gate keeper' more than a defender (thence, knight).

Now there's nothing wrong with Phaedrus, just that yea--the ongoing trend is usually a native piece. I don't recall my history books stating that Phaedrus was Wede:i...but they could be wrong...*goes to check*

Phaedrus?

(I'm back, see.)

Phaedrus was a Greek author who wrote a large collection of fables. One of these, aptly called Sour Grapes, is featured as the sample text for the Wede:i language. If you noticed, nearly all sample texts now are native pieces, rather than borrowings from Earthly literature.