zompist bboard

You mentioned at some point in the distant past that the Verdurians put west at the top of maps and east at the bottom.

So why this? Even if they didn't do west-east, I suspect, being in the southern hemisphere (that, and the Cadhinorian idea of being in the southern part of the world) that they would put south at the top?
In addition, on the Multilinguilism map, I suspect that Kebreni has at least as many second speakers as Gurgador or Omeguese...
What do the Verdurians think is above the Zone of Fire? I know they've been to Bekkai, but what else do people believe is up there? Gigantic ktuvok empires (not entirely unfounded)? Incredibly advanced states? Nothing but primitive people (again, not entirely unfounded)? Eventually somebody will get up there with an army, and I keep imagining a Spanish-in-America scenario-the conquest of gigantic swathes of territory in a matter of years.
Rather related to that, it seems that in terms of colonization Almea is far behind its Earth counterparts-even the most enterprising country, Verduria, brings to mind something far more like 1450's Portugal than 1750's anything-it's basically got a town in Qaraumia and a swathe of land not much bigger in Tellinor. And Kebri is about the same level. The only real large colony was Fananak, and even that went autonomous within several decades. Hasn't it occured to the Verdurians or the Kebreni that Neinuoi or Kereminth might be nice colonies? It's also odd that, right on the doorstep of an early modern, 18th century society, you've got a completely uncivilized plain of nomads. With all the rivers, I suspect the Barbarian plain could be a breadbasket if you irrigated it.
Also, are you ever going to put up any Western languages? I've heard rumors that it's going to be a reconstruction challenge, but I don't know.
I've also heard a while back that there's actually two languages that you've put up that are related, but haven't told us about, so that the enterprising Almeologist can try and reconstruct them. Is this true?

dhokarena56 wrote: It's also odd that, right on the doorstep of an early modern, 18th century society, you've got a completely uncivilized plain of nomads. With all the rivers, I suspect the Barbarian plain could be a breadbasket if you irrigated it.

For that point, remember that big parts of the Eurasian steppe were still independent nomadic states or only nominally subjected to sedentary overlords even at the beginning of the 19th century. And Almea lacks the equivalent of cossacks, i.e. mounted colonists, who did most of the colonisation work for Russia (but also frequently were a source of upheaval). And lastly, I think the comparative backwardness of Almea in the development of handguns also plays a role here - they give an advantage to sedentary people, as they are much easier to produce in big quantities for nations with an industrial base.

dhokarena56 wrote:You mentioned at some point in the distant past that the Verdurians put west at the top of maps and east at the bottom.

So why this?

It does say it's an adaptation. It's been reoriented, the text converted to a printed font, and the tribe names colorized.

In addition, on the Multilinguilism map, I suspect that Kebreni has at least as many second speakers as Gurgador or Omeguese...

True enough, but it'd be harder to represent as it overlaps with Verdurian and Dhekhnami.

What do the Verdurians think is above the Zone of Fire? I know they've been to Bekkai, but what else do people believe is up there?

The ancient Cadhinorian idea was that there was nothing there; but of course it's been known for millennia that Almea is a sphere. The Count of Years talks about civilizations in the north, though it says little about them; a rough map was also available from the iliu.

Still, there's no obstacles to rampant speculation. The commonest ideas are that it's just like the southern hemisphere, or that its societies are backwards in all sorts of ways, an idea that lends itself to satires.

There's been a visit or two to Lebiscuri, confirming the more sober speculation that the inhabitants were less advanced than the 'rudomi' of Bekkai.

Rather related to that, it seems that in terms of colonization Almea is far behind its Earth counterparts-even the most enterprising country, Verduria, brings to mind something far more like 1450's Portugal than 1750's anything-it's basically got a town in Qaraumia and a swathe of land not much bigger in Tellinor. And Kebri is about the same level. The only real large colony was Fananak, and even that went autonomous within several decades. Hasn't it occured to the Verdurians or the Kebreni that Neinuoi or Kereminth might be nice colonies?

Development isn't going to be precisely parallel between planets. One reason might be that there's no equivalent to the Spanish: a nation built out of a clash with a very foreign civilization which applied its brutal methodology to the New World. Look instead at British and French colonization as of 1750 or so. Except for the Spanish and Portuguese, there wasn't yet conquest of huge tropical areas just for the sake of it.

It's also odd that, right on the doorstep of an early modern, 18th century society, you've got a completely uncivilized plain of nomads. With all the rivers, I suspect the Barbarian plain could be a breadbasket if you irrigated it.

Perhaps it will be someday, but it would be a quixotic project today. Eretald thinks in terms of rainfall irrigation, and the Barbarian Plain is too remote.

Also, are you ever going to put up any Western languages? I've heard rumors that it's going to be a reconstruction challenge, but I don't know.

Someday, yes. I have extensive wordlists for Omeguese, K'aitani, Moa, and Nanese, but not proper grammars.

(The real loose end is Ur-Kagöt.)

I've also heard a while back that there's actually two languages that you've put up that are related, but haven't told us about, so that the enterprising Almeologist can try and reconstruct them. Is this true?

Yes.

zompist wrote:

I've also heard a while back that there's actually two languages that you've put up that are related, but haven't told us about, so that the enterprising Almeologist can try and reconstruct them. Is this true?

Yes.

So What languages could they be? Since we know the relation of all of the Eastern languges we can remove them, excepting proto-eastern. Elkaril is too strange to be at all related, so that's out to. Which leaves us with:
-Proto-Eastern
-Kebreni, although we probably want to look at the Meṫaiun parts most heavily
-Wede:i
-Skourene

Flaidish is also a possibility, since we know nothing of they're history and the language isn't particularly different, although this is unlikely in my opinion.

Considering we gave only 4/5 possibilities and we know that only two are related that's not too many possibilities. I think that we should definately do this, as a big challenge for the board.

Atom wrote:

zompist wrote:

I've also heard a while back that there's actually two languages that you've put up that are related, but haven't told us about, so that the enterprising Almeologist can try and reconstruct them. Is this true?

Yes.

So What languages could they be? Since we know the relation of all of the Eastern languges we can remove them, excepting proto-eastern. Elkaril is too strange to be at all related, so that's out to. Which leaves us with:
-Proto-Eastern
-Kebreni, although we probably want to look at the Meṫaiun parts most heavily
-Wede:i
-Skourene

Flaidish is also a possibility, since we know nothing of they're history and the language isn't particularly different, although this is unlikely in my opinion.

Considering we gave only 4/5 possibilities and we know that only two are related that's not too many possibilities. I think that we should definately do this, as a big challenge for the board.

I wouldn't leave out the flaids and their language.

Personally, I would suspect Old Skourene and Kebreni, as they have a very similar system of inflection based on vowels. OS is a vowel-changing triconsonental system; and Kebreni moves and changes its vowels so much it can very easily be called a biconsonental root language.

OK, here's the evidence I have for relating OS and Kebreni. Admittedly I don't have time to do the comparative method right now, so this will smack of Uralo-Altaic rather than Indo-European; it's based on typological similarities.

1. Both Kebreni and OS have systems of inflection that depend on vowel change.
2. The categories of verbal inflection can be seen to have some similarities. Both languages have a perfect-imperfect aspect split; both have intentive inflections; and I think it would not be too far of a stretch to say that the Kebreni benefactive and antibenefactive may correspond to the OS desiderative and metuitive.
3. OS is ergative, and Kebreni displays remnants of an earlier ergative system: all of its verbs are ergative. English only has a few ergative verbs, such as "break", which displays the following transitive and intransitive sentances:
The window broke.
I broke the window.
All Kebreni verbs work this way, which I think corresponds to an earlier ergative system.

I may post some cognates later, if I find them. Certainly the initial glance at the lexica is not promising-and I'm using words that are pretty resistant to change. I use Methaiun for the cognates, not Kebreni.
'Mother': baba-amelon.
'Father': tata-aŋesom
'Eye': briu-ḍişan.

More research is needed, I believe... I'd also like to point out that the Verdurian transcription of Xurnese has some errors. They use <h> for /ks/, not Flaidish <x>...but since Xazno uses /x/, we'll let it slide. Weirder is the fact that they borrow <w> from Ismaîn or Kebreni...interestingly, neither Ismaîn nor Kebreni have either the sound or the letter. In fact, no known language of Eretald even has a <w>! And even Cuêzi, although <w> is used in transcription, has no native grapheme for /w/.

Okay...I think this language family challenge is intriguing.

Just for fun, and because this includes some very basic lexical data (better for comparisons, right?) , I'll put a lexical comparison from the Almeopedia wordlists--excepting Eastern languages, as zompist said they aren't part of this mysterious family, and the non-human languages, which I think don't count. (I really don't think Western languages etc. really count either...but it's just for fun, right?)

Language.OS....OT..Kebreni...Wede:i....Cuolese....Omeguese..K'aitani..Nanese...Munkhashi...Demoshi....Lé......Uyseʔ
1............moṭ...mo..gem.......bo..........bou..........it.............pi :ch.......ɛi..........tat.............tath........jû.......or
2............ḍog...ñok.kur........yok..........öw..........nai...........das......ne...........dhak...........dhakh......rò......nre
3............ded...dej..dam......śir............ :sh ur.....sem...........zim......sâm.........kach...........kash.......jùr.....swol
river........ḍel....jal...vur.......ye...........ye...........nai............dah......nei..........êrêt...........erêth......pùŋ.....tso
town.......eŋ.....im...-du......gala:i.......do............ :ch o........k'uar.....lai..........tlar.............char........sɛ̀.....tsiʔ
people.....mand.man.neḣada.de:i.........dè..........main...........ban......mim........lachna........lashna......tú......ram
big..........-roḍ...-luj.lim........ŋor.........gör..........da.............tes.......da.........knok...........genokh.....bɔ̀ .....ħom
small.......-its....-it...śe........śu:......... :sh uy.....mu............buh.......mɔi.........chot...........tsoth.......ŋi.....tsim

I think the main reason why Almea doesn't have enormous colonies currently is the lack of virgin ground for Almean diseases. We have to remember, the Americas and Siberia were only conquered because of the death of 60-80% of all of the inhabitants. Nowhere in the southern hemisphere has the same type of isolation that created that in our world. The southern hemisphere is a lot like our world's Africa and Asia.

This does however mean that the Northern hemisphere is utterly screwed.

dhokarena56 wrote:More research is needed, I believe... I'd also like to point out that the Verdurian transcription of Xurnese has some errors. They use <h> for /ks/, not Flaidish <x>...but since Xazno uses /x/, we'll let it slide. Weirder is the fact that they borrow <w> from Ismaîn or Kebreni...interestingly, neither Ismaîn nor Kebreni have either the sound or the letter. In fact, no known language of Eretald even has a <w>! And even Cuêzi, although <w> is used in transcription, has no native grapheme for /w/.

Look. <w> is from Caizu, zompist had that written in his mind before either Ismaîn or Kebreni were sketched.