Search found 2615 matches

by zompist
Sat Aug 18, 2018 12:58 am
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Retransliterate Klingon!
Replies: 22
Views: 19621

Re: Retransliterate Klingon!

Nortaneous wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:40 pmUnusually, there's no voiced equivalent of the lateral affricate - given that the only sibilant is retroflex, the affricate might be from earlier *s > *tθ.
The best part of this is that they become the singan.
by zompist
Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:17 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Retransliterate Klingon!
Replies: 22
Views: 19621

Retransliterate Klingon!

As I mentioned, I think Klingon's transliteration is kind of wack. The idea of re-using capitals is a clever way of avoiding special characters, but it makes Klingon look like ToRgO sPeeCh and mostly isn't necessary. So why not redo it? Here's the phonology. stops p b t ɖ q ʔ affric tɬ tʃ dʒ fric v ...
by zompist
Wed Aug 15, 2018 4:35 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: DJP criticisms
Replies: 81
Views: 41784

Re: DJP criticisms

That said, David's conlangs are far better than Klingon - which is actually a good demonstration how not to create a conlang. It's one of the worst conlangs I have ever seen, worse even than Volapük. Wow, I disagree on both counts. Too bad Jay Shorten isn't here anymore to defend Volapük. It's kind...
by zompist
Wed Aug 15, 2018 4:10 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: DJP criticisms
Replies: 81
Views: 41784

Re: DJP criticisms

Really? I'd like to know more about how DJP actually got the job, do you have any articles on this? The LCS was asked to create Dothraki, and had a contest to create it. I'm pretty sure it was advertised on the ZBB, because I submitted an entry. Well Mongol is pretty much out of the window, because...
by zompist
Wed Aug 15, 2018 3:58 pm
Forum: Almea
Topic: The Ad'ivro and Ovid's Fasti
Replies: 5
Views: 9635

Re: The Ad'ivro and Ovid's Fasti

Not a conscious borrowing— in fact, I don't think I'd heard of the Fasti before. I may well have heard about chronological arrangements elsewhere, though.
by zompist
Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:32 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: DJP criticisms
Replies: 81
Views: 41784

Re: DJP criticisms

Yeah, to be clear, there are plenty of Dothraki names from GRRM and quite a few sentences that had to be accommodated.

(E.g., khaleesi is from the books, so right away you're faced with either challenging his orthography, or giving it a really weird pronunciation.)
by zompist
Tue Aug 14, 2018 4:57 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: DJP criticisms
Replies: 81
Views: 41784

Re: DJP criticisms

I haven't read the book. My impression is that he's a competent conlanger, but hardly of stellar talent. I guess it's easy to feel it rather unfair that he's profited so much from language creation when many others of equal or greater ability have not been able to. I haven't read David's book or lo...
by zompist
Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:36 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: How was the age of the Rigveda (and by extension, the oldest attested form of Sanskrit) determined?
Replies: 17
Views: 13763

Re: How was the age of the Rigveda (and by extension, the oldest attested form of Sanskrit) determined?

In terms of language, note that the Buddha (c. -500) didn't speak in Sanskrit, but in Magadhi. So classical Sanskrit was already old then... and Vedic Sanskrit is quite a bit more archaic than classical Sanskrit. Isn't the point that he chose to teach in Magadhi (or some pre-Prakrit), rather than i...
by zompist
Wed Aug 08, 2018 8:11 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Centaurs
Replies: 8
Views: 7761

Re: Centaurs

As others have said, centaurs are more likely if six legs is the norm for your dominant animals. Six legs also offers the option of having dragons-- i.e. four-legged winged creatures. (The usual dragons shape makes no sense, except perhaps on a planet with minimal gravity. But birds with extra arms ...
by zompist
Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:07 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: Globalisation and language change
Replies: 6
Views: 6969

Re: Globalisation and language change

Globalisation has sped up the replacement of non-standard varieties. It also has helped minority languages find new methods of preservation and communities who spoke now extinct languages find linguists willing to help revive them. This. Everyone gets so worked up over "global English" or...
by zompist
Sun Aug 05, 2018 9:59 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: How was the age of the Rigveda (and by extension, the oldest attested form of Sanskrit) determined?
Replies: 17
Views: 13763

Re: How was the age of the Rigveda (and by extension, the oldest attested form of Sanskrit) determined?

The dates I found (researching the ICK) were a little later: -1300 to -1000. Wendy Doniger's The Hindus probably has info on this. Indian historians prefer a date as early as possible. A lot of it is attempting to fit it into what we know of Indian prehistory. The Harappans lasted until the -1700s, ...
by zompist
Sun Aug 05, 2018 3:02 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: General American and actors
Replies: 27
Views: 20581

Re: General American and actors

I think you missed the joke... the thing with focus is that if your vowel is too high (or even too open) you get "fuck us", and with beach that if you lax the vowel you get "bitch". And Ars Lande is quite right that wrong vowels are liable to produce misunderstandings. As just on...
by zompist
Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:56 pm
Forum: Almea
Topic: The Virtual Verduria Feedback Thread
Replies: 11
Views: 18796

Re: The Virtual Verduria Feedback Thread

That fixed the loop, but tried to go to the wrong page.

But I fixed the original problem anyway, by making an index.html that redirects to almeo.html.

I do appreciate the help— I never learned how to do .htaccess.
by zompist
Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:54 am
Forum: Almea
Topic: On Socionomics and Directors
Replies: 3
Views: 7816

Re: On Socionomics and Directors

The best analogy I can think of it with modern vs. premodern medicine. Could a society choose to use modern medicine, only throw out the practice of antisepsis? Of course. It could still make use of modern knowledge of anatomy, surgery, genetics, drugs, etc. Only, lots of people would either die fro...
by zompist
Sat Aug 04, 2018 7:39 pm
Forum: Almea
Topic: Some Verdurian typos
Replies: 98
Views: 118752

Re: Some Verdurian typos

OK, typos should be corrected.

("Dolorai" goes back to before the Great Relexification... that was an error in the old grammar too!)
by zompist
Sat Aug 04, 2018 4:06 pm
Forum: Almea
Topic: The Virtual Verduria Feedback Thread
Replies: 11
Views: 18796

Re: The Virtual Verduria Feedback Thread

Thanks, Are Lande! Sadly, though, it doesn't work. Any request just goes to the main page. Any idea what might be going wrong?
by zompist
Fri Aug 03, 2018 6:25 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: Quechua resources
Replies: 7
Views: 7401

Re: Quechua resources

Can they wait a year and a half? That will probably be my next project. Your Mexican friend is out of luck, but your Peruvian friend is living in the only place where Quechua resources are easy to find. If they don't live in Lima, surely they know people who do, or who go there. (And if they live wa...
by zompist
Thu Aug 02, 2018 9:45 am
Forum: Almea
Topic: The Virtual Verduria Feedback Thread
Replies: 11
Views: 18796

Re: The Virtual Verduria Feedback Thread

OK, these should be done except for the rewrite rule. Does anyone speak .htaccess? This is what I have now: Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on # Special handling for search strings # RewriteRule ^Special:Search(.*)$ almeopedia/mediawiki/index.php$1 [L] # Everything else RewriteCond %{REQUEST_F...
by zompist
Wed Aug 01, 2018 7:51 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Vowel reduction
Replies: 7
Views: 7040

Re: Vowel reduction

I added a special BBCode, bk, to avoid this in the future. (You don't have to use it for all brackets, only for things that can be interpreted as BBCodes, like [i] [u].)
by zompist
Wed Aug 01, 2018 7:04 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Vowel reduction
Replies: 7
Views: 7040

Re: Vowel reduction

Note: I edited your post to make the IPA work. All I did was check "Disable BBCode". (The board was interpreting [i], [u] as "begin italics/underline"). I'll see about a better solution.