The Count of Years

[Neek]

As who?

I think he could pretty much be put as any of the three Cuzeians sans Inibe and his three sons. Or a Metailo, I could definitely see him playing as Cadriume if his role was dramatised a bit.

Well, it is a holy book, it's not going to have slangy ethnic slurs in it. The normal slur for the Cadhinorians was neni-nemi 'babbler' (thus the name of Beretos's book). I don't think I have one for the Metailo.

Touch?. We wouldn't, however, find that in our own holy books. But then again, racism may be good, clean humour in Almea. You never know.

[hwhatting]

There's no long i in Koine, only o: and e:, thus giving seven vowels: a e i o y* e: o:. So I assume the change was made during the reign of Alexander the Great. But I don't really know much about Greek diachronics, so I'm probably wrong.

*or u, depending on preferred transliteration.

So, before the Bush administration declares thread-hijacking a form of terrorism , I'm discussing this on a new thread on the "None of the above" forum.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner

[zompist]

The 10th and last chapter is up. Whew...

[Iscun]

The 10th and last chapter is up. Whew...

Another major project finally finished! Time to start another!

Seriously, wow, it's hard to believe it's really been 11 weeks.

[hwhatting]

Emai Mark,

Chapter ten is great, just could have been longer...

One quibble - the conquest of Nayas and the sharing of wheat are both said to have happened in Eleisa 78, although the latter one happened 5 years later. Should it be Eleisa 73 and 78 respetively?
Ad onlelan,
Hans-Werner

[Glenn]

Emai Mark,

(My apologies--haven't been speaking too much Verdurian lately, alas)

Congratulations on completing the whole thing!

Some comments:

--Don't talk to me about I?inos, said Itīrante. I'm the only god in this duchy.

Lanetio was touched in his liver by these words.

A useful reminder that not every culture has the same beliefs about the body. (It's almost Valentine's Day here, and there are hearts everywhere; what if it were livers instead?)

The Christian comedian Mark Lowry, in one of his routines, plays with the fact that different cultures have placed the seat of the emotions in different locations (including the Jews of the Old Testament, who, he claims, placed it in the bowels). One of his key punch lines is, "...Or he could have said, 'Hey baby, you make my liver quiver.'"

The inclusion of the "northern" and "southern" narratives is also a useful reminder that perspectives on events vary, and the discussion of writing systems and "invention" of the Cuezi alphabet are informative (although I fear that here the "conworlding" is showing--it sounds less like an actual historical or religious text to me).

One question, however:

During the lifetime of Oleniōre, she and Ximāuro lived in Eleisa during the summers, and in the House of ?rrasos during the winter.

Why not the opposite? Since Eleisa is north of the House of ?rrasos (and thus a bit closer to the equator), I would have expected it to be warmer there, making it a better winter capital than a summer one. Or does the House of ?rrasos have a more favorable winter climate for some other reason?

Overall, not a bad piece of work. Congratulations once again! What's next?

Ad onlel?n,

Glenn

[eodrakken]

Thanks for writing this, and for sharing it with us. It's not always easy to stay motivated to finish something this long. The earlier chapters are my favourites... I'm the same way with the Bible. Creation and prehistory are more absorbing to me than invasions and battles, but that's just me. You did both well.

[zompist]

Thanks for the comments, all through the process. Of course it's especially gratifying when they're positive.

It's been 11 weeks for you folks, but about a year for me.

I'll correct the years, and probably switch the winter and summer capitals. The difference in latitude is small (about that between Athens and Salonika), but I can't recall any other reason for those choices.

No apologies for the section on writing, though. Writing is sacred. (Well, most things are, if you have the right attitude.) At the time of writing, it was new, it came from the ilii, and it distinguished the Cuzeians from all other known humans. (By contrast writing was completely old hat to the ancient Hebrews.)

[Nikolai(college)]

I would like to complain about the final part, but I also realised this. We in history are used to seeing one people borrow letters from another language while retaining similar phonetic qualities. We rarely see an instance where the borrowers did so without consequence of phonetic meaning. Equally, we don't seem to think it was equally occuring that someone would speak to another, "Each letter represents a sounds...so choose an object that can represent it." It's unusual, and thusly feels uncomfortable. Or so that's how I see it...

But, that was epical. No doubt, homes. The latter chapters seemed to interest me more, I guess its pertinence to the developing history of Almea and Eretald, considering that these events are in the scope of the history of the uesti.

[eodrakken]

We in history are used to seeing one people borrow letters from another language while retaining similar phonetic qualities. We rarely see an instance where the borrowers did so without consequence of phonetic meaning.

It does happen sometimes, though. The Cherokee syllabary, for example, is based on English letterforms, but the symbols have no correlation to the sounds of the English letters they resemble.

[jburke]

We in history are used to seeing one people borrow letters from another language while retaining similar phonetic qualities. We rarely see an instance where the borrowers did so without consequence of phonetic meaning.

It does happen sometimes, though. The Cherokee syllabary, for example, is based on English letterforms, but the symbols have no correlation to the sounds of the English letters they resemble.

Just a note on the Cherokee syllabary: its origin is highly controversial. Though American History books tend to credit Sequoyah, Sequoyah himself actually denied having created it; instead, he said it was based on an earlier Cherokee syllabary borrowed from the Cree (who in turn took their syllabary from the Blackfoot). There is some evidence for this beyond anyone's word: while some Cherokee characters resemble Roman letters, others do not (e.g., <ka>, <ma>, <wa>, <yi> and <mo> are just a few examples). These characters look completely alien to the Roman alphabet, and indeed to European writing generally; it seems likely that they may be the remains of the earlier syllabary that Sequoyah spoke of. (And where did the Blackfoot syllabary come from? The most controversial theory holds that the Blackfoot invented it, pre-1492. But that's a long story.)

[So Haleza Grise]

Oh, and out of curiosity, what would the Cuezi be for "Cayenas changes hands?" Do they have an idiom of their own?

[Ihano]

I don't know one way or the other about what Sequoyah himself did or didn't do, but...

These characters look completely alien to the Roman alphabet, and indeed to European writing generally; it seems likely that they may be the remains of the earlier syllabary that Sequoyah spoke of.

Um, have you taken a look at this writing?

Cherokee syllabary with examples

At a quick count, perhaps 25 out of its 85 symbols look exactly like English printed letters, others have flourishes or small orthographic modifications, and in general they work off the same model. (A Ming Chinese probably couldn't easily tell the two apart.)

Certainly there's no connection between the symbols' sounds in English and their Cherokee pronunciations, but all that goes to show is that whoever invented it had seen English letters (and realized the power writing could give a society) without learning to read them.

In what way is it "alien"? Or is there something I'm neglecting to take into account?

[jburke]

At a quick count, perhaps 25 out of its 85 symbols look exactly like English printed letters, others have flourishes or small orthographic modifications, and in general they work off the same model. (A Ming Chinese probably couldn't easily tell the two apart.)

By all means, then, tell me what underlying English letters were "orthographically modified" to create the symbols <ha>, <ma>, <dla>, <le>, <yi>, <o>, <mo>, <wo>, <su>, <lv> and <dv>. And these are only the obviously non-English characters. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that merely because the syllabary is stylistically homogeneous that all the letters must all be variations on the Roman alphabet; but, in fact, a number of the symbols cannot be connected to Roman letters in any meaningful way. Many have attempted this; none have succeeded. We're left with two possibilities: (1) Sequoyah created these "alien" letters himself and made their style conform to the style of English lettering he was using elsewhere in the syllabary; (2) Sequoyah adapted these "alien" letters from an older syllabary and merely gave them a stylistic facelift, so that they appear (at first glance) to belong amongst the English letters. Sequoya himself denied that (1) was the case.
No one has been able to definitively prove (2) yet (and probably never will).

In what way is it "alien"? Or is there something I'm neglecting to take into account?

You're negelecting the whole 150+ year debate on this matter.

[Ihano]

Thanks for clearing that up. You're right, I know nothing of the debate; I thought of your options (1) would be a very reasonable assumption, but if Sequoyah denied it, we have a whole new can of worms.

Also, I had thought you were implying that the whole writing system was from a non-Western antecedent of some kind.

[zompist]

Oh, and out of curiosity, what would the Cuezi be for "Cayenas changes hands?" Do they have an idiom of their own?

At root, b?ti yuve:, literally 'changes plumes', this being the same plume that gave dukes their name (yaviciu: 'plumeholders'). The title of that section is actually a nominalization, however: B?tias yuve:nu Cayenex. Writing the title as a noun phrase works better in Cu?zi; in English, as a sentence.

[eodrakken]

Are the section titles meant to be part of the Cuezi original? I'd assumed they were just added labels to help the lay reader find the section he wants, as is sometimes done in simpler translations of the Bible.

[zompist]

Are the section titles meant to be part of the Cuezi original? I'd assumed they were just added labels to help the lay reader find the section he wants, as is sometimes done in simpler translations of the Bible.

Depends on which original. They weren't part of the earliest manuscripts, but were added later, so they are part of the canonical text.