Zompist Bboard Again

French isn't (quite) Germanic, and it distinguishes e.g. mon "my" from le mien "mine". But the other language I'm familiar with, Mandarin Chinese, uses the same construction for both: 我的 "my, mine".

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2023 8:42 am Serious question: Do people in Mainland China these days produce calligraphy in simplified characters?

It exists, but generally calligraphy is always in traditional characters. If I remember correctly, Mao himself produced some works after the introduction of simplified characters.

Arzena wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 5:28 pm So stoked by the idea of an Almea Vicky 3 mod o.0

I don't have Vicky 3--I doubt it would run well on my computer--and Vicky 2 is what I'm familiar with modding anyway, which is why I'd choose it.

Oh, well. I'll try out making one, then. The one posted above looks a little distorted in Jagai and Šočya.

Is there still interest in this? I missed it when it was originally being discussed, unfortunately, but I recently got onto Zompist's Patreon, and that has made me want to make an attempt at a Victory II mod. Also, I was wondering whether Zompist had already existing Mercator projection maps of Alme...

I enjoyed reading about Sarroc quite a bit. I've noticed a few things too, though. In the reflexives section, there is an instance of “reflective” that I think should be “reflexive”. In the section on subordinate clauses, the first two example sentences are in different orders but have identical glo...

Unfortunately, I have no idea what the etymology of the surname Whelchel would be. As for pronunciation, I would guess /wɛltʃəl/. There is a rule somewhat commonly observed in the US (and, as the German commented, not in Britain, if I recall correctly) that "which" should only be used in n...

Sentences 1, 2.1, and 2.2.1 are all fine for me (well, sentence 1 should have "started" instead of "start", but I don't think that's what you're asking about), but 2.2.2 doesn't work. You could say "It was only last month that I became available, picked one out, and started ...

Oh, yes, platform is right. "The fact that" is pretty semantically empty, and to the extent it has meaning, it means something more like "situation". If I were translating the sentence into Chinese, I think I'd drop the "fact" entirely (something like 這場夢讓我聯想到在網上學習語言). ...

(I'd like to narrate the dream I had last night as a writing exercise. Thank you in advance for any language corrections.) At the beginning that I can recall, in the dream I was walking in a city I had never come been to . Having gotten off a bus earlier, I seemingly was going to the place where I'...

"Can't" is equivalent to "cannot". "Must" works differently. "Mustn't" and "must not" are equivalent, and they both mean that something is forbidden. If you want to say that something is not necessary, you can use (from most to least formal) "ne...

To put it another way, "cannot" is 不能 and "can not" is 能不, but "may not" is ambiguous between 不可以 (and maybe 不可能, if you force it, though it's not very natural) and 可以不/可能不 (both of which meanings are very natural). "Mayn't" is only 不可以/不可能 (but it doesn't exi...

Do you find compound words easier than single characters too? I do, and sometimes I work back from a compound (or phrase) to remember the tone(s) of a character. ... Yeah, compounds do tend to be easier because even if it's still short, I still have a "melody" to copy. I'll probably start...

I'm trying to learn some basic Mandarin right now. I've been making better progress than in past attempts, especially with tones (I tried in middle school and then again on my own after college), but I've found I tend to remember phrases instead of single words, especially when it comes to tones. I...

I'm not sure I understand what ∅ means in this context. From looking it up, it looks as though it means it's not pronounced, which wouldn't be true for "furry". Oh, I (mis)interpreted that as /ø/, which sounds rather like /ɜ/ and is easier to type. I didn't notice that it was capitalized,...

Qwynegold wrote: ↑Sat Feb 20, 2021 9:41 am Can someone give an example of a (common) English word with an intervocalic R, that's pronounced [˞˞ ] in GA or [∅] in RP, please?

The canonical example is "furry", which is reasonably common. I merge /ʌr/ and /ɜːr/, so I can't easily think of another example.

Your explanation makes a lot of sense, including the ambiguity. I appreciate your taking the time to answer!

Huh, interesting question! I don’t know the answer to this, and I don’t really have time to research this properly just at the moment, but here’s a couple of pertinent observations in the meantime: Adpositional complements tend to be marked; the more marked case in an ergative–absolutive system is ...

I’m sorry if this has already been addressed in this thread, but I couldn’t find mention of it. Does anyone know if the objects of adpositions in ergative-absolutive languages tend to be in the ergative case or the absolutive case? I would expect the absolutive to be used, since it is the default an...

I’m personally fond of <c> for /tʃ/, but it may indeed not be ideal for an IAL. Aesthetically, the orthography seems fine to me. 1. SETRANTE strand 2. TERIK trick 3. URETU Urdu 4. SEPRUS surplus 5. EPLAGKE plank 6. KERAFTE craft 7. ESKERUTRAIWE screwdriver 8. MULSIYA emulsion 9. SETREGFE strength 10...