Various questions about Almea

[WeepingElf]

I spoiled the joke anyway-- it'd be pipes.

Yes, I noticed that error, too. I can't remember seeing a photo of the professor smoking a cigar, but there are several showing him smoking a pipe.

You must now adopt the vape. Though call it something befitting Tolkien—maybe an “electromechanical tobacco aid”, or perhaps “tobacco atomizer”.

Vapes are not really modern but merely fashionable. The difference between modern and fashionable is IMHO that the fashionable is new and popular but ephemeral, while the modern is new and perhaps popular but of lasting value.

[sasasha]

I agree with the comparison, noting that among his other achievements Tolkien significantly advanced the community of conlangers, a mantle taken up and developed greatly by zompist in our era.

Back to Caďin paganism, I made this roundup of terminology for / details about clergy as a prelim to some discussion:

More: show

perař - n - patriarch, cardinal [PIDRARȞ]
Perař Avéle Patriarch of Avéla (Eleďe)
Pere Perař First Patriarch (Caďinorian pagan)

perařát - n - patriarchate

vacuran - n - Caďinorian pagan priest, just below a perař or patriarch [VACURION, one in charge of a VACUS ‘holy place’]

vacuranî may be described as “primates, administrators of monastic orders” ‒ Kingdom page ‒ or not, depending on interpretation

“Below the level of perař there are vacuranî (primates), administrators of monastic orders; cürî (curates) of different degrees, responsible for provinces, districts, or cities; and altcliďî (archpriests), who supervise the cliďî (priests) of a city borough, a town, or a rural circuit. The cenoi or abbots of monasteries may report to their vacuran, the local altcliďu, or both; and the cletandoroi or deans of seminaries are subject only to perařî. Details of the hierarchy, as well as titles, can vary by region.”

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“cürî (curates) of different degrees, responsible for provinces, districts, or cities” — Kingdom page

ešcurana - n - primacy [‘great-curacy’]

ešcüre - n - primate

altcurana - n - high curacy; the office of an altcüre

altcüre - n - Caďinorian pagan curate or bishop

cürana - n - curacy

cüre - n - curate [Avélan dialect; abbreviation of vacüre; see vacuran]

altcliďu - n - vicar

“altcliďî (archpriests), who supervise the cliďî (priests) of a city borough, a town, or a rural circuit” ‒ Kingdom page
c.f. decsenge - n - vicarate [‘ten presbyterates’]

cliďu - n - priest [AIĎOCLIŤUS ‘priest, god-speaker’, from AIĎOS ‘god’ + CLIŤEC ‘speak ceremonially’]
c.f. senge - n - presbyterate [reborrowing of SENGE ‘flock’]


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cletana - n - seminary for Caďinorian priests; military academy [CLAETANDA, place where one takes a CLAETUS ‘oath’]

cletanom - n - seminarian; cadet

cletandoro - n - dean of a seminary [CLAETANDORION]

“the cletandoroi or deans of seminaries are subject only to perařî” ‒ Kingdom page


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ceno - n - abbot [CAENOS, a type of close-fitting hat worn by the head monk]

“The cenoi or abbots of monasteries may report to their vacuran, the local altcliďu, or both” ‒ Kingdom page

suloro - n - monk, hermit [SULORION, earlier SULRORION ‘master of solitude’; see surre]

sulorei - n - nun, (female) hermit [SULOREIS]

ažcita - n - monastery [až away + CINTURA ‘city walls’: ‘away from the city’]

surreca - n - solitude; monasticism

amrab - n - law; code of law; monastic rule; monastic order [OV ambrab, assimilated form of ambram, from AMARAUM ‘precedent’, literally ‘what is to be respected’; cf. ambrir]
so amrab the study of law



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vacre - n - altar [VACURES ‘most holy part of a vacus, a holy place’]

procliďë - n - oracle; spokesman [PROCLIŤILE ‘one for speaks for’]

huca - huca - n - oracle; (music) pitch, key (pl. husî) [ȞUCUA ‘god’s lodging’]

aďom - n - cleric

aďomát - n - clergy

At - honorific - abbreviation for Aďom tësaďatei, Caďinorian pagan priest

osän - n - master, teacher, tutor, doctor, guru [so san’ ‘the lord’]

žantom - n - prophet, seer [OV žannuton, from žaneme ‘prophecy’]

senge - n - presbyterate [reborrowing of SENGE ‘flock’]

decsenge - n - vicarate [‘ten presbyterates’]


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Thematic dictionary:

adhomát - clergy; adhom - cleric; calnadhom - chaplain; osän - guru; zhantom - prophet

surreca - monasticism, solitude / amrab - monastic rule or order; azhcita - monastery; ceno - abbot; suloro - monk, hermit; sulorei - nun

adhnáe - temple; huca - oracle; cletana - priestly seminary

Hierarchy

lebom acolyte
clidhu priest	senge presbyterate
altclidhu vicar	decsenge vicarate
cüre curate	cürana curacy
altcüre high curate	altcurana high curacy
eshcüre, vacuran primate	eshcurana primacy
perarh patriarch	perarhát patriarchate

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Modern patriarchates:

Verduria	Verdúria	Zeirdan	Šerian	Ožnëa
Svetla	Liynnor	Aránicer
Ctésifon	Žésifo
Barakhún	Barakhina
Viminia	Maranhë
Curiya	Kulža
Lebcaizura	Kalomei
Bažra	Zariaspa
Azgami	Saikn
Érenat	Avéla
Dhekhnam	Ilzanea†	Eteban	Visecra
Solhai	Lumrehy
Hežina	Sarnáe
Bešbalic	Beloa
Dracnáe	Dracnáe

“The Dhekhnami have closed down the cletanî in their territory, and chased the perař out of Ilzanea; they still suffer those in Eteban and Visecra to remain, these having made Soviet-style professions of fealty to their overlords.” ‒ Kingdom page

“Seminary of the Gods, Lake Como, Svetla
This lake has been holy for five thousand years, to Meťaiun, then Arániceri, then Caďinorians, and each culture has left evidence of its devotion; the lake is ringed with temples, monasteries, mansions of pious nobles, hermits’ huts, inns, and bathhouses— for it is a blessing to bathe in the sacred waters. The seminary (Soa Cletana Aďië) is the oldest in Eretald, dating from before the Munkhâshi conquest, though the major structures date to imperial times. It extends down an entire hillside, comprising shrines and temples, gardens and cloisters, burial grounds and dormitories. If you bring a camera you will be snapping shots continuously; it’s just that picturesque.” ‒ Almeopedia, What to see: Eretald


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“Verduria is divided into ten provinces (fetörî): Verduria, Zeir, Šerian, Curesi, Irvesi, Aodo, Zelm, plus the vassal states Célenor, Luyšor, and Sereor. These are in turn divided into districts (šanî), although duchies and marquisates (šohî and surcontanî) are not considered part of a šana. It is the districts which elect representatives to the Esčambra. Cities also do not belong to šanî, and thus elect borough (kešana) instead of district representatives.

…

Verduria-city is divided into boroughs (kešanî), whose leaders are stewards (kešaroi). From the time of the Soleî until Elena, the boroughs elected representatives to the Esčambra, but sent their stewards to the Biyetora.”

‒ Kingdom page

I also wanted to see where the perařátî and ešcuranî were in relation to one another (without knowing quite what the latter are for), so I made this map. Red solid circles are for the patriarchates (minus those in Dhekhnam). Blue rings are for the great-curacies / primacies in Verduria. Orange rings for those in other countries. This is based on the inference that ešcuranî are based in province/country capitals. (I may have got one or two slightly off, as in the wrong city in the right country; and some are conjectural; I was tired, and I don’t know the Caďinorian provinces and whether their old capitals have ešcuranî still, nor whether all the 3480 countries’ capitals count as seats of ešcuranî. So take with a pinch of salt.)




Interestingly there are few seminaries in Sereor (and none in what is Ismahi in 3480); I wonder if the cletana in Zeir has a special structure that helps it send out (more) trained priests further afield? I wonder if there was an ancient seminary at Aites, now ruined.

Another observation is that Verduria province is clearly more centrally controlled than some places (which makes sense). The places with the most seminaries are the mid-central provinces of the old empire, where the early need to educate the people was greatest ‒ except Sereor.

A question is whether the Seminary of the Gods is attached to another perařát ‒ presumably Aránicer?


I know all this info is from various times and possibly some of it is STR but I thought it would be useful to have (a good chunk of) what is out there gathered in one spot.

[sasasha]

Just trying to set up my new phone and finding that verdurian.ttf and maraille.ttf from this page seem not to work the way the other Almean fonts do (including Patreon ones). Posting here in case I’ve forgotten that they have received updates and there are new links I haven’t found, or something.

To provide more detail, I was hoping I would be able to use the fonts with free Android office suite apps which support custom fonts (such as WPS Office or OnlyOffice). I don’t have Microsoft Office atm. Wrt WPS, all the fonts bar verdurian.ttf and maraille.ttf work, though only in a manner of speaking (the app seems to have janky behaviours with custom fonts, such as, the font changing every time you do anything other than type the next letter). With OnlyOffice, verdurian.ttf actually does work, but the character mapping is quite opaque and doesn’t match the newer fonts so I can’t work out how to type effectively.

It would be great, to begin with, if you can point me to the character mapping for verdurian.ttf, as that would mean I could use OnlyOffice at least. I’m sure this has been provided before but I can’t find it right now. (I could also map the right characters to the Verdurian keyboard design I made on the excellent Keyboard Designer app made by Gerrit Humberg, and have a working Verdurian keyboard for Android that anyone could download.)

All this is just in pursuit of being able to make pdfs with Verdurian script on my phone. If it’s impossible that’s fine, but my laptop is playing up, so it would be nice to be able to do this on another device. In any case I tend to do most conlanging and Almea stuff on my phone these days; small as it is, it’s always around...

[zompist]

It would be great, to begin with, if you can point me to the character mapping for verdurian.ttf, as that would mean I could use OnlyOffice at least. I’m sure this has been provided before but I can’t find it right now. (I could also map the right characters to the Verdurian keyboard design I made on the excellent Keyboard Designer app made by Gerrit Humberg, and have a working Verdurian keyboard for Android that anyone could download.)

Both fonts were designed for the Mac. I don't have the ASCII values offhand, though you could probably figure them out from the guide in the Tëdene PDF guide.

I will probably revise verdurian.ttf to include the Unicode characters like the other fonts have, but that will take a bit.

[sasasha]

It would be great, to begin with, if you can point me to the character mapping for verdurian.ttf, as that would mean I could use OnlyOffice at least. I’m sure this has been provided before but I can’t find it right now. (I could also map the right characters to the Verdurian keyboard design I made on the excellent Keyboard Designer app made by Gerrit Humberg, and have a working Verdurian keyboard for Android that anyone could download.)

Both fonts were designed for the Mac. I don't have the ASCII values offhand, though you could probably figure them out from the guide in the Tëdene PDF guide.

I will probably revise verdurian.ttf to include the Unicode characters like the other fonts have, but that will take a bit.

Thank you, that clears this up. I knew I had read about this somewhere but couldn’t remember where.

If I manage to create the Android keyboard I will let you know. I could theoretically make it functional in each font (swipe left on the key for the value that works for Tëdene, press for the value that works in Verdurian, or something ‒ or create a different mode for each font) but it would be a fiddly thing to do. If you are going to do that update for Verdurian then it might be as well to wait.

Oh and a small thing ‒ š and Š are reversed in Tëdene.

[So Haleza Grise]

Xurnese has a verb kapi derived from the same verb in Axunashin. How does it conjugate? Is the stem kapi- and it's third conjugation? (so, kapiú, kapi, kapiom...) Or should it actually be kap in Xurnese?

[zompist]

Xurnese has a verb kapi derived from the same verb in Axunashin. How does it conjugate? Is the stem kapi- and it's third conjugation? (so, kapiú, kapi, kapiom...) Or should it actually be kap in Xurnese?

I think your instinct is right: it's an error. I'll change it to kap.

[sasasha]

A quick question for Zomp: are there any more maps of parts of Almea that you haven't shared? Like, the zoomed-in province map of Célenor-Curesi: I love how detailed it is, and wonder if other parts of Eretald got this treatment? Or something like the Province map of Verduria, but for other provinces?

You once shared some campaign maps (non canonical) of the Western Wild, which was really cool. Even if they're not canon, I would always like to see more maps!

[zompist]

A quick question for Zomp: are there any more maps of parts of Almea that you haven't shared? Like, the zoomed-in province map of Célenor-Curesi: I love how detailed it is, and wonder if other parts of Eretald got this treatment? Or something like the Province map of Verduria, but for other provinces?

You once shared some campaign maps (non canonical) of the Western Wild, which was really cool. Even if they're not canon, I would always like to see more maps!

Looking in the maps folder... yeah, that map of the Western Wild is the only one. I should fix it up— the names are mostly terrible,

[sasasha]

A quick question for Zomp: are there any more maps of parts of Almea that you haven't shared? Like, the zoomed-in province map of Célenor-Curesi: I love how detailed it is, and wonder if other parts of Eretald got this treatment? Or something like the Province map of Verduria, but for other provinces?

You once shared some campaign maps (non canonical) of the Western Wild, which was really cool. Even if they're not canon, I would always like to see more maps!

Looking in the maps folder... yeah, that map of the Western Wild is the only one. I should fix it up— the names are mostly terrible,

I quite enjoy the Easter egg of unpicking the old campaign through the names, but sure... That would be great!

New question: do we know anything about Meťaiun, Cuzeian, Kahinisan and Caďinorian tomb art?

(Naturally I’m interested in the rest of the planet too, but this might prove relevant to stuff I’m doing right now. Some of our best evidence of ancient musical cultures comes from their tomb art.)

[bradrn]

Some of our best evidence of ancient musical cultures comes from their tomb art.

Huh, really? Didn’t know that.

[sasasha]

Some of our best evidence of ancient musical cultures comes from their tomb art.

Huh, really? Didn’t know that.

Sure, have a look at this.