Zompist Bboard Again

Wow! Does raise a question - and this also goes for Chinese. If the north-eastern variants often spell words "incorrectly" that suggests that eventually everyone will give up and recognise that they amount to one or more separate languages. The question is whether if that happens the north...

A üskiat "Tuesday". U Azdrem natnae xla qhodnae u xlaqhodem I don't know Tuesdays. On Azdra there are 10 days in a week. [ size=50][ I - nom plain form - know - neg PRES IND Sg Masc - "Tuesday". On Azdra - Prepositional Sg - there are -PRES IND pl- ten days - NOM Pl- in a week (P...

Brexnae qhladetnae ba
Do fish read?
Fish -NOM pl read -PRES pl Question particle

Vedreki: drisun - to work well; drisevlek "able to work well, suitable, fit for purpose"

Next: archipelago

Vedreki: nikaq fedax (to be tired, sleepy, unable to carry on) - literally to feel heavy (nikaq infinitive to feel; fedax heavy)

next: to understand.

I'm counting 40 consonants? That's a pretty large inventory given that the mean is about 22. Not sure I can decipher your table, but they'd need to be spread around the phonological space. Are they all supposed to be pulmonic or are some glottalic consonants - you mentioned ejective consonants in Mi...

French has gender agreement in past tense (perfect)... but only in SOV construction... You're referring here to the participle here though aren't you, not the finite verb, which is what I'm after? I suppose that's rather like the Russian position before they ditched the auxiliary, except agreement ...

Russian and Polish both have agreement in gender and number in the past tense. Russian: On prochital (he read), ona prochitala (she read); oni prochitali (they read). I understand that originally these were participles with an auxiliary verb and the auxiliary just got dropped. Do people know of any ...

Interesting. I'm particularly interested in the caste system, since I'm trying to work through how the stratification of society through caste might affect matters. My people, the Vedreki, have had a rather fossilised (reasons for that which I suppose I should explain elsewhere) caste system of five...

I don't have a microphone, but wouldn't it be easiest to round up your MA colleagues? Or advertise around the English School and elsewhere in the Uni. That seems to be how students get volunteers in my experience

Thanks. I like it when I find I was right before I confused myself!

A conlang inspired question - albeit not about a conlang. I seem to have got into a muddle in trying to set out the phonology of one of my languages. As I understand it retroflex indicates the fact the tongue is curled up, although they are all articulated as post-alveolar (or palato-aveolar, which ...