What have you accomplished today?

[Ares Land]

I'm working on the syntax of Simbri.

Incidentally Simbri now has a word for 'to die of dysentery.'

[alynnidalar]

Planning to take Simbri for a spin on the Oregon Trail?

[Man in Space]

Redid the political map of Íröd!

[Ares Land]

Planning to take Simbri for a spin on the Oregon Trail?

Next verbs: 'to be too deep to ford' and 'to break an axle.'

[Vardelm]

Planning to take Simbri for a spin on the Oregon Trail?

Next verbs: 'to be too deep to ford' and 'to break an axle.'

In Simbri, how does one say "Looks like meat is back on the menu, boys"?

[Ares Land]

Okačatsatlis dačča, aytlomi!

o-ko-čats-atl-is

CL.2-REP\PFV-serve.food-seem-FUT

dačča

meat

/

ay-tlom-i

VOC-mate-PL

[Vardelm]

Okačatsatlis dačča, aytlomi!

o-ko-čats-atl-is

CL.2-REP\PFV-serve.food-seem-FUT

dačča

meat

/

ay-tlom-i

VOC-mate-PL

I didn't expect an actual gloss. Apparently my expectations were too low!

[Ares Land]

Simbri got a bit of a phonology overhaul. Listen here.



Sōrsā Piyon qinet dotletečman an sādor akton sohāysa. Hayo tonda tledotatlna kādas tlammi baror.

[ˈso:r.sa̰:ˈpi.jɔn 'kʼi.nɛt ɗoˌtɬe.'tɛtʃ.man an ˈsa̰:.ɗɔr ˈak.tɔn sɔ.ˈχa̰j.sa / ˈχa.jo tɔn.da ˌtɬeɗoˈtal.na ka̰:.ɗas tɬam.mi ɓaˈrɔr]
'My uncle Piyon gave this ruin of a house to my cousin. He also sold him a lame donkey, out of spite '

[Raphael]

Neat!

[Emily]

working on verbs has led to a necessary detour into fleshing out the non-personal pronouns, which i'm mostly done with now (at least for phase 1!)

[Emily]

took a short break from modern gothic (and early modern gothic, and middle gothic) to collect all my notes on ka'ekala together (a conlang inspired by polynesian languages but also by luiseño) and also worked out how the ka'ekala verb phrase is structured (including evidentials, tense markers, and hawaiian-style directional particles)

[WeepingElf]

I have abandoned the notion that the Elbi (the speakers of Old Albic) were, or descended from, Plato's Atlanteans.

The Atlantis story, if Plato did not just make it up, appears to be a distorted version of Egyptian accounts of the War of the Sea Peoples. Plato writes that the story came from Solon, who brought it home from a visit in Egypt where priests translated hieroglyphic inscriptions commemorating the events for him. Such inscriptions actually exist, for instance at Medinet Habu.

Now, while nobody knows exactly where the Sea Peoples came from, such that they could in theory originate in Britain, there are plausible if uncertain identifications of all the names mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions with places and peoples in the Eastern Mediterranean, which are at any rate vastly more plausible than a British origin which would have involved ridiculously long supply lines. There are some resemblances of Atlantis, as described by Plato, to Britain, but that may be due to a description of Britain becoming part of the story after the Pillars of Hercules became part of it probably by way of a mistranslation of some Egyptian name for some other strait (perhaps the Hellespont) or whatever, and that the island was otherwise unconnected to the story.

The Old Albic designation Atlantha 'face/front of the world' is not the usual name of the country of the Elves; this is usually simply named Albartha 'Elfland'. Rather, Atlantha is a hapax legomenon which seems to refer either to Elfland or the European Atlantic seaboard in general. It is thus only a linguistic coincidence, kind of like the Aztec Aztlán which also has no connection with Plato's Atlantis. Or maybe I'll drop Atlantha entirely, and also the designation Atla for 'the world', as that one is etymologically difficult in itself.

So my conclusion is that the Elves are not the same people as the Atlanteans.

[Ares Land]

Atlantis' overrated anyway! I always thought the Atalantë thing was a stretch
Plus, I suppose you can keep the Atlantis connection as a theory in-universe.

[WeepingElf]

Atlantis' overrated anyway! I always thought the Atalantë thing was a stretch
Plus, I suppose you can keep the Atlantis connection as a theory in-universe.

Yes - there are people who think that Albartha was Atlantis.

[Raphael]

Oh, it is a powerful story, IMO. One of the largest and most powerful cities in the world sinking beneath the waves just like that...

[Ares Land]

That's true, but I think almost impossible to use in a story or a conworld except as parody.

[WeepingElf]

That's true, but I think almost impossible to use in a story or a conworld except as parody.

Yes - it is overused and has been done to death and beyond. All you'll get as a response will be "Oh dear, another Atlantis story?!"

[Jonlang]

Been doing a lot of work on the PQL family over the last couple of days. A lot of the previous work has been thrown out in favour of re-hauling everything. A lot of Celtic-like plurals have been implemented by classifying them as a-stems, e-stems, i-stems, o-stems, u-stems, t-stems, nt-stems, and s-stems. In the P (Welsh-like) conlang this yields plurals in:

e-stems and o-stems: i-affection plurals (cf. Welsh car ~ ceir, castell ~ cestyll)
nt-stems: i-affection of stem + -nt suffix (cf. Welsh câr ~ cerynt)
a-stems and s-stems: a-affection if susceptible, often singulars and plurals will be identical.
u-stems: -all /aɬ/ suffix which will also cause a-affection if susceptible.
i-stems: -idh /ɪð/ suffix with i-affection of stem.
t-stems: -ed /ɛd/ suffix

Like Welsh, certain suffixes will become associated with certain semantic fields and the suffixes will swap around and become unpredictable and even result in multiple possible plurals per noun. The -all suffix will become associated heavily with animals (and possibly people); the -ed suffix will become heavily associated with geographical features. The -idh suffix will become the most productive plural marker (as Welsh -au is today).

[Raphael]

That's true, but I think almost impossible to use in a story or a conworld except as parody.

Fair enough.

[Ares Land]

I need to flesh out the parent languages of Simbri a bit. So I wrote a small bit of a creation story.

Šiqag bainaiqe dauaḫem Ṭaqis am ḫimeh ṭaḫhesrah.
'This is what the young prophetized in the place named Taqis.'

Heṭeṭaheš, heṭqaaqoše uṭih ṭahi, qandah aqguð .
'We shall write, we shall tell the ancient story, the origin of all things.'

Hebnen, eqwren, šaa he Aqean, Qehṭseh Moa, Hemhas, Irukah, Hatlis, Qauṭesqo, Mohšoṭes.
'They sowed, they dawned, the Fountain Aqean, the Celestial Mother, the Owner of Rain, the Willful Lady, the Clothed One, the Provider, the Great One Below'

Hesam e qauqheš e ðedondeš daḫurto aqahto doqeh, qandah ṭumai qandah šogan.
'Souls and demons and angels were above the ice, the desert; all was quiet, all was asleep.'

Eran šaa he Aqean
The Fountain Aqean spoke

"Qag ðog ðigamreš hešiqairfigqis"
'It is time that we revived the Earth'

E qande ðigamreš qerfigqwan
'And indeed the Earth was revived.'

Aqgan hesṭah gonðe doqe šah dodah ena
'The World Soul flowed from the mountain to the sea.'

Pean fig.
'It was the first year.' (literally: 'Year zero.')