zompist bboard

Posted: **Wed Feb 04, 2015 3:30 pm**

What exactly do the names of the Incatena ranks mean in Verdurian?

Posted: **Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:05 pm**

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:03 am**

why are half of those from latin and slavic?

ad, alta, appellare, apollo, arachnis, arbor, arcum, argentum, azur ...

okno, svetla, borsuk, bogaty, chetvert, chisto, chesto, zdorova, dzienkuy, dinya, dobre, dom, den, drug, dukh....

feels very unprofessional

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2015 7:49 am**

You know Verdurian was Zomp's first conlang, right? This was before the days of easy, computer-assisted vocab generation.

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2015 9:55 am**

Even the name is a Romance loan:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verdura

But yeah, I believe Zomp started working on Verdurian when he was a teenager or even younger, and has made few changes to the basic vocabulary since then. The page says copyright 1998 but it was already fully fleshed out by 2001 so the language might be older than that. Another page on the site says 1994. So maybe not as old as I thought, but someone could fill me in. http://www.zompist.com/secreth.htm says the 1980s.

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:22 pm**

Zompist wrote:Some Verdurian words are invented from scratch (e.g. mazhtana or elir 'life'); others I stole mostly from French and Russian. This was even more evident in the earliest versions of the language. It was also rather harder to pronounce, since I tended to import the Russian consonant clusters and palatals unmodified.

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2015 1:20 pm**

Neon Fox wrote:You know Verdurian was Zomp's first conlang, right? This was before the days of easy, computer-assisted vocab generation.

I've no problem with zompist taking words from real languages, but if I did the lack of computer assistance wouldn't be an excuse: coming up with words by yourself really isn't that difficult ...

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:36 pm**

I began working on Verdurian in 1978. I revised it heavily in the early 1990s after learning about historical linguistics.

It's a bit ironic when a member of my board comments that it's not a pure a posteriori naturalistic language. Uh yeah, why do you think this board tends to prefer that sort of conlang? Maybe something to do with the models and the kit and the tools provided by its founder?

I'll also mention that when I started Verdurian I was heavily influenced by Tolkien, whose public-facing model was a world where the closer languages were to the protagonists' culture, the more familiar they looked. So Verdurian was supposed to look like a European language, while farther-off languages would be more exotic.

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2015 9:23 pm**

zompist wrote:the models and the kit and the tools provided by its founder

next time just make a webpage that says "read typology books pleb" and save yourself a bunch of work hth

Posted: **Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:03 am**

Hallow XIII wrote:
zompist wrote:the models and the kit and the tools provided by its founder
next time just make a webpage that says "read typology books pleb" and save yourself a bunch of work hth

If I wanna buy a car and personalize it you would tell me to get an engineering degree first.

Posted: **Fri Feb 06, 2015 11:48 am**

what do you want, I'm a product of my times

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 6:44 am**

They are named after army ranks??? So Niš must be trainee, and Osän is master.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 8:24 am**

Birdlang wrote:They are named after army ranks??? So Niš must be trainee, and Osän is master.

No!

Niš 1 = "niš - nothing; zero; as interjection, fine, OK, great (nišei niš nišán) [NISIOS] / niš fleade Verdurian name for the Q (q or ʔ) used in Flaidish / niš er niš absolutely nothing"

Sanci 15 = "sanci - recruit, inductee, newbie [sam cistilan ‘without a crown’, i.e. without the decoration for a year’s service]"

Lebom 75 = "lebom - novice, apprentice"

Avisaru 250 = "avisaru - student in an avisar"

Smeric 1000 = "smeric - candidate for a degree; student; disciple (pl. smerisĭ) [SUMERIC ‘student’; see sumerir]"

Sumerul 2500 = "sumerul - ‘bachelor’, one who has successfully completed his university studies; cf. smeric"

Visanom 5000 = "visanom - scientist, serious scholar; expert; -ologist"

Šriftom 7500 = "šriftom - doctor, professor, holder of a scrifteca; wise man"

Osän 10000 = "osän - master, teacher, tutor, doctor, guru [so san’ ‘the lord’]"

Yes, I just did that *for* you, and no, these aren't "army ranks". Next time you might should click the llink you're provided.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 12:42 pm**

Actually, relatedly, what does vohpenonomae's custom rank ("N'guny") mean?

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 2:30 pm**

ObsequiousNewt wrote:Actually, relatedly, what does vohpenonomae's custom rank ("N'guny") mean?

They have a custom rank? I ne'er noticed.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 5:35 pm**

ObsequiousNewt wrote:Actually, relatedly, what does vohpenonomae's custom rank ("N'guny") mean?

I don't think it's in Verdurian; it may not even be in an Almean language? For some reason I associate it with Elkaril, but I might easily be wrong.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 8:12 pm**

It's Elkarîl, yes.

Posted: **Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:27 am**

vohpenonomae's rank appears to mean "witch, sorcerer, enchanter", based on the word in the Elkarîl lexicon n'guñ with that meaning.

Edit: I think it's interesting that neither lil nor rim is what a human would call "focal green"--rîm is better than either, IMO. Khil, nij, ñij and jith are pretty good foci by human standards, though qiñ is a little light for focal purple, at least to my eye, and of course ggich/teal isn't a usual basic color term in human langs.

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:13 am**

Neon Fox wrote:vohpenonomae's rank appears to mean "witch, sorcerer, enchanter", based on the word in the Elkarîl lexicon n'guñ with that meaning.

Edit: I think it's interesting that neither lil nor rim is what a human would call "focal green"--rîm is better than either, IMO. Khil, nij, ñij and jith are pretty good foci by human standards, though qiñ is a little light for focal purple, at least to my eye, and of course ggich/teal isn't a usual basic color term in human langs.

I wouldn't be surprised if these colors are actually an adaptation to their lifestyle, which involves so many grays that being able to distinguish more colors would be more successful for them.

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:08 am**

Yiuel Raumbesrairc wrote:
Neon Fox wrote:vohpenonomae's rank appears to mean "witch, sorcerer, enchanter", based on the word in the Elkarîl lexicon n'guñ with that meaning.

Edit: I think it's interesting that neither lil nor rim is what a human would call "focal green"--rîm is better than either, IMO. Khil, nij, ñij and jith are pretty good foci by human standards, though qiñ is a little light for focal purple, at least to my eye, and of course ggich/teal isn't a usual basic color term in human langs.
I wouldn't be surprised if these colors are actually an adaptation to their lifestyle, which involves so many grays that being able to distinguish more colors would be more successful for them.

Oh, yeah, that's clearly the motivation behind the systematic-vowel-changing thing. I was speaking more in terms of which colors are the "basic" ones. Apparently, even speakers of languages that don't have, e.g., separate words for "blue" and "green", when asked to pick the best example of blue/green, will pick either focal green or focal blue, as agreed upon by speakers of languages that do distinguish. So either Elcari have slightly different visual apparatus, which is surely not implausible, or they agreed at some point a long time ago to use focal colors that were spread out in some particular way even though that meant that the "best" green didn't get a basic term of its own.

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:41 pm**

They are a different species, so the focal colors are different for them.

(I have to admit, I didn't work them out on a neurological level. Maybe I will...

)

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What do the rank names mean in Verdurian?

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