The Wede:i family

Questions or discussions about Almea or Verduria-- also the Incatena. Also good for postings in Almean languages.
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Post by zompist »

So Haleza Grise wrote:There appear to be some We:dei cities in Easterner territory; are these trading outposts or something?
I should clarify: the map actually shows all the towns founded by the Wede:i and Jeori. The political boundaries are for -400, but some of the towns are anachronisms at that date. (Jeor was not actually settled very much at that time, for instance.)
Do you envision giving Cuolese and Jeori each their own seperate pages in the future?
Possibly, but it's not a very high priority. I couldn't really do it anyway till Xurnese and Tzhuro are done. And frankly I don't think they'll be fascinating languages; the interesting part of their grammars are the Wede:i inheritance-- the rest will be Axunashin/Xurnash influence. I'm more interested in the Western languages (which are polysynthetic) and even Uytainese (which looks isolating for now).
Jeori is now a dead language, not spoken as a native tongue anywhere, is this correct? Or are there still isolated pockets where it exists?[

How widespread is the knowledge of modern Jeori (I suppose I'm really asking a question about the Tasuc Tei education system)? Is it a requirement for any kind of professional life, or can most people, outside of maybe state officials and bureaucrats, get by without it?
Jeori is entirely dead as a native language-- it doesn't even have its own Gaeltacht. Intellectuals have struggled to maintain it, and though Tasuc Tei doesn't have a pure Revaudo system, intellectuals do have a lot of power and influence. They've succeeded in getting it taught in the local equivalent of high schools, which means the elite is exposed to it at least; and there are festivals with (e.g.) plays and songs entirely in Jeori. The bureaucrats approve of all this (anything that reinforces the country's identity is good for them), but don't necessarily learn the language.
On a morphological/syntatic note, it was perhaps surprising to see that both We:dei descendent branches maintained both their accusative and dative cases under pressure from Xurnese, which, as I understand it, has a pragmatics-based case system. Does the "free word order" rule from We:dei still apply? Is topicalisation used as a word order feature?
Axunashin case usage is evolving. :) It used to be topic/comment, but this no longer seems likely to me. Xurnese lacks nominal cases.

The cases in the Wede:i languages are pretty easy-- I don't think there's much pressure to eliminate them. Word order still pretty much resembles Wede:i (as you can see from the sample sentences).

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Post by dunomapuka »

zompist wrote:I'm more interested in the Western languages (which are polysynthetic) and even Uytainese (which looks isolating for now).
Western, meaning the languages in the Rau Jungle? Or Tellinor? Or elsewhere?

From what tiny bit is visible of the Tellinor languages, I like them a lot. They have a sort of Asian feel.

I like the word 'kyodo.'

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Post by zompist »

boy #12 wrote:
zompist wrote:I'm more interested in the Western languages (which are polysynthetic) and even Uytainese (which looks isolating for now).
Western, meaning the languages in the Rau Jungle? Or Tellinor? Or elsewhere?

From what tiny bit is visible of the Tellinor languages, I like them a lot. They have a sort of Asian feel.

I like the word 'kyodo.'
Heh... did you do a search on the Verdurian dictionary to find that?

Actually I have no idea what the linguistic map of western Erelae looks like... the Western/Kagot family may extend all the way to Tellinor, or it may not. Planets take a heap o' creatin'.

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Post by Dudicon »

I for one like the use of colons to indicate long vowels, for whatever reason, especially in the case of Wede:i. I'd explain further, except that I don't think I could.

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Post by Nemo »

Looks cool, Zomp. Do I guess rightly that the N with a weird tail (on the map) is simply the capital version of ŋ?
If so then :D :D :D

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Post by zompist »

Alexandra wrote:Looks cool, Zomp. Do I guess rightly that the N with a weird tail (on the map) is simply the capital version of ŋ?
If so then :D :D :D
Thank you... yes, it's a capital eng.

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Post by dunomapuka »

zompist wrote:Heh... did you do a search on the Verdurian dictionary to find that?
You mentioned a couple of borrowings from Tellinor on the main Verdurian page.

What's Rafsani, by the way?

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Post by Glenn »

boy #12 wrote:What's Rafsani, by the way?
I'm going to take my guess, based on what I know--I'm pretty sure that Rafsani is the language of the natives of the Rau Jungle (note that the two example of borrowings from Rafsani in the Verdurian grammar are more-or-less tropical terms--"mosquito" and "tiger"). I'm not sure whether it's the name of a single language, or a group of languages--quite likely it's the main tongue spoken in the jungle kingdom of Leru Leru, with its delightfully named capital of Nouaseuae.

Rafsani is thus an example of one branch of the Western languages, and is (very) distantly related to the languages of the Western nomads further south--the Somoyi-Methelyi, Kagot, and the forest-dwelling Mgunikpe. (There is a diagram of the major language families of eastern Erelae in the Historical Atlas of Almea.)

The Nanese languages, even further north than Rafsani, are, I believe, not related to either the Eastern languages and their relatives, nor to the Western language group--they're another family altogether.

p@,
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Wede:i pronunciation

Post by valinta »

I am currently studying Wede:i and have a question: How are long vowels (the ones indicated with a following colon) pronounced? I can't find any guide in the Wede:i grammar.

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Post by Nuntar »

Like the other vowels but longer, I'm guessing. On the vowel diagrams, each long vowel is in the same place in the vowel space as its short vowel.

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Post by zompist »

Yep. IIRC Japanese works this way (that is, the primary realization is double length).

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Post by valinta »

Yes! I'm very familiar with Japanese, and it's always the language I default to when trying to pronounce something new. Thank you for the perfect analogy. Speaking of Wede:i, I really like the grammar. My own conlang is aggluginative, and seeing how Wede:i expresses such complex concepts in a single word (with the verb affixes) was a real eye-opener for me. Truly excellent.

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by Yæd »

I know this thread is actually dead, but it'd be really nice to see an indipendent page for Cuoli and Jeori, or just Cuoli... they are beautiful languages, I like them very much (they have been generated from a quite simple language like Wede:i and they are as complex and irregular as Italian or Spanish :D). I did an experiment one day: I took the word ànu, from W. a:inu, and I wrote a dictionary voice for it: istantaneously lots of words grew from it (ex. a:inugu 'the helping man' :> à~ju, a:inung 'helpful' :> ànung, a:inur 'helping' :> ànür, a:ina 'help' :> àn ......), and more more words when I examined the II-generation lemmas.... the interesting thing is that the experiment is still on even now :P bye bye to you all, and thanks to Zompist for having created these splendid languages! :D

PS I didn't forget the loans from Axunashin, Xurnese and Skourene: pãdu from OS pamd-, cüci from Ax. kurti, and sörci from X. xorci, which also derives from kurti. Note that I mantained sörci and not *söci because I saw that loan as too recent to be modified by traditional Cuoli sound changes; Cuolese can handle these loans without problems... I think I will come up with a Cuolese dictionary :wink:
PPS I have a question for Zompist: when will you give us a page on Proto-Wede:i-Lenani-Littoral? I'm so curious
"O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti..."

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by Drydic »

Wow. A relatively complex (and self-aware) necropost.

Props on avoiding the trope.
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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by brandrinn »

Every necromantic post has to be immediately followed by a post commenting on its necromantic qualities.
Drydic Guy managed to repeat this extremely overdone trope... while complaining about overdone tropes.
And now I fill the obligatory role of pretentious smarmy douchebag.
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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by Drydic »

brandrinn wrote:Every necromantic post has to be immediately followed by a post commenting on its necromantic qualities.
Drydic Guy managed to repeat this extremely overdone trope... while complaining about overdone tropes.
And now I fill the obligatory role of pretentious smarmy douchebag.
hey now I usually just link an image so
Image Image
Common Zein Scratchpad & other Stuffs! OMG AN ACTUAL CONPOST WTFBBQ

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by zompist »

Hmm, there's several languages that could use more elaboration in Xengiman, particularly Cuolese, Ṭeôši, and Tžuro. Maybe Sainor too as it would be a source of borrowings.

Well, I don't make predictions about when I'll get to things, but thanks for the expression of interest-- it's a good reminder of unfinished work. :)

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by Yæd »

Keep on your nice work! :D
"O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti..."

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by wendolpho »

I'd LOVE to see Ṭeôši and Tžuro.

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by kios32 »

I find it difficult to pronounce these words like you pointed out. The ones associated with the Wede:i: sounds complex and it is difficult for a moderate person to come up with a discussion about it. If there is some simple method to perform, then it would be great.


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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by So Haleza Grise »

Is this some kind of weird spam?
Duxirti petivevoumu tinaya to tiei šuniš muruvax ulivatimi naya to šizeni.

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by zompist »

I wondered that too, as it's worded so oddly. In case it's spam, I removed the URL.

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by Birdlang »

Wede:i is a very interesting language. I like that it has colons for long vowels. Where did that influence come from?
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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by zompist »

From the IPA!

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Re: The Wede:i family

Post by Birdlang »

zompist wrote:From the IPA!
That is interesting. I just thought of an alternate orthography for my conlangs using a colon for length instead of the usual macron.
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