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[Safai]

Contributing a word!

qati
    adj : exact, absolute, precise

I needed a word that started with Q and ended up coming with this. It is derived from the Urdu word qataee or qatai ( قطعی ) which means the same thing. Hope it's able to fit.

[Horatius Caul]

Sounds great! 

[Kiro Kathora]

Well, although I'm new and haven't read everything yet, here are some ideas/remarks.  Perhaps it sounds like splitting hairs.

Nouns
Possession can be expressed using either the -i (of/in) or -(n)u (of/from) suffixes, -i usually being applied to the subject (Sani Sabik - Friends in Blood) and -(n)u applied to the object (Imud Hubrau - Beast of Heaven). The two possessives are as a rule never combined. The -(n)u suffix is often attached to possessive pronouns to form words equivalent to "of his", "of theirs", etc. (e'shlech jarru - a slave of his).

Two different kinds of suffixes, or actually genetive cases, interesting. Actually I'm a little bit surprised to see a case that means 'in' and is here translated as a possessive marker, but maybe I'm wrong in my thinking. I don't think you can really consider them to be alike, though. Perhaps the -i is a remnant of a locative case.
Also, I don't understand the subject-object part. Am I correct here that you consider 'san' as the subject part of 'sani sabik', and 'hubra' the object of 'imud'?
'Sani Sabik' seems like a regular compound to me, and therefore I would expect it to be written as one word, or case marking on both elements.
Basically 'jarru' appears to be a form of hypercorrection, then? After all, 'jarr' itself is already the genetive form of nominative 'jav'. The English form 'theirs' is originally an inflected adjective, written: 'theirselves'. Hence, I think, it becomes clear where the final -s comes from. (By the way, of course I'm not a native speaker of English, but I had the impression constructions like 'of his' are rather marginal phenomena?)

Definite article is usually left to inflection and context. In writing is it usually represented by a capital letter. In special cases, the word e is injected into the mix to make things pop (Dei e Tet - God the Divine; e Chorim - the Scriptures).

Perhaps this is interesting too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar)#Evolution. Anyhow, I've got a question about your first fictional quote: Amarrad naji divreon Sacerotu, Darogu, ta Mispalu'. How do I have to translate 'ta' here? I also used CTRL+F to look it up in your glossary, but couldn't find it. First I thought it was an article.

Verbs
Most verbs begins with va-/la-, and many end in -eer/-ir, but there's plenty of irregularities already. Anyway, the conjugations are pretty regular. Everybody now: Hooray! Conjugations!  

Why do a lot of verbs begin with va-, or end with -eer/-ir? It sounds like affixes, but then what is their meaning?

Just an idea: did you ever try glossing? You can easily make those in a Word document. When glossing some basic sentences to display the syntaxis of the language (questions, indicatives, passives etc.), everything can be translated, analysed etc. much easier (by yourself and by readers).  Would be awesome for feedback etc.

Also, I wonder how I'm to pronounce all this. Do you have a table with all the phonemes listed?

Verbs are divided into three rough groups - active, passive, and irregular.

With irregular you mean ditransitive? It would be particularly interesting to mess around with semantics in this field. After all, every language community has its own ideas (unconscious), otherwise we would be simply translating everything here directly from English into Amarr. For instance, English 'to live' is basically intransitive (exception: to live a great life etc.), but a semantical shift towards the transitive spectrum in a religious community would be interesting: to live something, namely God, or heavenly rules, or whatever.

Root: l-g-r

I like this semitic move. This is useful as a starting point to create semantic networks/families, because roots are often used to create new words that are a little different. For instance, k-t-b is Arab for 'writing', and from this stem 'kitab' is derived, which means 'book', but also words like 'iktataba', 'he copied'. Etc.

[Horatius Caul]

Oh thank god, someone who knows what they're doing, unlike myself. If anything isn't making sense, just assume it's because I'm not actually educated in grammar and linguistics. I like to think that I'm decent at figuring out how languages work, but not actually why they work, or putting it into solid terminology.

ta means "and". It's word 223 in the glossary.

You can ignore most shit I've written about grammar, especially the early stuff which has probably been revised later on. Establishing roots is something I found useful later on, yeah - especially as it means the community could build more new words that way. I think the direction I was heading was to possibly have several roughly synonymous roots, which would have come from different cultures (Amarr, Udorian, Khanid, Takmahl), possibly giving rise to some roots being more official, technical, or noble; and others being utilitarian, lower-class, or crude. If you have ideas for explaining or revising, or at all making sense of the grammar, I cannot welcome it enough.

[Kiro Kathora]

You can ignore most shit I've written about grammar, especially the early stuff which has probably been revised later on [1]. Establishing roots is something I found useful later on, yeah - especially as it means the community could build more new words that way. I think the direction I was heading was to possibly have several roughly synonymous roots, which would have come from different cultures (Amarr, Udorian, Khanid, Takmahl), possibly giving rise to some roots being more official, technical, or noble; and others being utilitarian, lower-class, or crude. [2] If you have ideas for explaining or revising, or at all making sense of the grammar, I cannot welcome it enough.

Ad 1: Okay! 
Ad 2: Well, first you could make a Swadesh list of words, or roots. Then you've got basic vocabulary items plus a starting point for creating those 'webs' I was talking about. As you say, this system is easy to build upon for other players indeed, plus it provides a more firm foundation for the fictional history, because it is easy to use a root, change affixes, some vowels and in this way creating a new word with a new language (Udorian, Khanid whatever).

Actually this is your project, so I didn't wish to interfere too much. But here are some concrete ideas.

As I read your work, it seems that you are going for a Semitic look, and for a more synthetic (lots of affixes in stead of loose words) structure. If you do this, you should look at

• The 'case hierarchy': the most common cases are the nominative (blank, zero) and accusative (object: 'he sees me'). Genetives, datives, locatives etc. are more secundary. This means that íf a language has a genetive, like yours, it will certainly have an accusative as well. The question now is: how many cases do you want?
• Agreement. It is common for synthetical languages to have a lot of agreement of e.g. particles and adjectives with the inflected noun. So: des heren, Middle Dutch for 'of the lord', and in Modern Dutch its 'van de heer'. Des was a case form of de.
• Of course there doesn't have to be a strict line between analytical and synthetical. On the one and you find English, on the other Latin, but somewhere in between is Italian. Italian has clear conjugated words, like in your language, that allows pronouns to be deleted. It also has a lot of agreement, e.g.: La casa piccola ('the small house') and il ragazzo piccolo ('the small boy'). Here's how Arabic does it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_nouns_and_adjectives
• If you wish to 'rebuild' your glossary for the sake of a harmonious, logical and consistent stem-based system, you should consider the sounds you want to put into the language. No language has all sounds. A consonant based language, like Arab and Hebrew (the ones you are aiming for) has a lot of consonant phonemes (28), since consonants bear the most information. This is exactly the reason why the alphabet was written with consonants only. You could simply copy the Arabic list of phonemes, if you like. Besides, not all combinations of those recognized phonemes are allowed. English does have [š], [k] and [r], but starting a word with škr- is not done.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_phonology
• About those stems, if you're going to do that. I'm not sure, but it seems likely to me that vowels aren't inserted at will, randomly. There should be patterns. Not only for grammatical reasons, but also because consonantal context may trigger specific vowel changes. And of course affixes can trigger this too.

Take for instance the stem w-r-d you proposed, meaning 'word'. A web could contain the following concepts (and phonotactis depend on your inventory of sounds):
 word:      worod
informing:   tarafworda (taraf: ‘by’; second o is deleted because of word length; a indicates an infinitive verb)
support:   tarvrawrada (taraf + verkh (‘other’); f and v assimilate)
reason:   vamilorod (vamil: ‘think’, w is deleted, because wl is akward)
reasoning:   vamilorda
utterance:   traworod (I made up tra ‘to’, with same stem as taraf, because by and to share semantic features)
uttering:   traworda
language:   denirod (den: ‘all’, deletion of w)
linguistics:   vishednurod (stem from vishen: ‘knowledge’ + d-n)
tongue:   uflorod
rhetoric:   vumlorod

I made these words up simply as an example, nothing more. You don't have to use any of it.

For tongue I made up the stem f-l, ‘do’, fela ‘doing’ and z-l as a affix, from your glossary entry ziel, ‘goal/purpose’. Doing is atelic, that is, it is continuous and does not semantically result in a specific state, product etc. With these morphemes we can make a telic verb, making: zelfela. On the other hand f-l results in moving, ufula. From there ufel, ‘muscle’, and hence uflorod.

You could also consider vowels to have some semantics themselves: a appears in active verbs; e in passive verbs; u in outward movements (vumlorod is something you do in front of others, based upon reasoning, which is an internal process); o in ditransitive verbs. And so on.

Some semantical ideas:

• There are two types of we, namely the inclusive we (that includes the hearer to whom one is talking) and the exclusive we (that excludes the hearer) (same goes for the plural form). The distinction is made clear by a suffix. Since I here a lot about Amarrians as being zelots with brotherhoods and striving for devine enlightenment or whatever, I think both we-forms fit in really nice. If one says: 'We+SUF. go to war', this gives a whole new meaning to the sentence, because the speakers know that we includes God, for example.
• For instance, English 'to live' is basically intransitive (exception: to live a great life etc.), but a semantical shift towards the transitive spectrum in a religious community would be interesting: to live something, namely God, or heavenly rules, or whatever.

I think your verb conjugations are absolutely fine. Strong and clear conjugations, however, will usually result in pronounless constructions, simply because the verb ending indicates person, number, tense etc. perfectly.
O yes, typologically speaking an SOV-language tends to have postpositions, and to have auxiliary verbs placed behind the main verb. So: I table beautiful upon stand, meaning 'I stand upon the beautiful table'.

I don't have enough time to dwell upon this any further, due to examns and a Pre/Proto-Gallentean project. 

[Publius Valerius]

As I read your work, it seems that you are going for a Semitic look, and for a more synthetic (lots of affixes in stead of loose words) structure. If you do this, you should look at

• The 'case hierarchy': the most common cases are the nominative (blank, zero) and accusative (object: 'he sees me'). Genetives, datives, locatives etc. are more secundary. This means that íf a language has a genetive, like yours, it will certainly have an accusative as well. The question now is: how many cases do you want?

I don't have enough time to dwell upon this any further, due to examns and a Pre/Proto-Gallentean project. 

About the time.... NO, NO, forget the gallente, help us  . But really nice to see an expert on this field and how they work thru such a problem. If I may make a small suggestion? I would love to have the latin kasus (with the vokativ), as was that which teach me to use german "proper"; as well as the strict us of the active and passive and the right subjunctive/konjunktiv (not just the so call "Juristen-Konjunktiv). Still can the konjugation of amare  .

So my suggestions would be:
-Us the latin cases/kasus (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative and locative case)
-An "easy" to use active and passive system, as well as an easy to use subjunctive/konjunktiv system. As I think many NNS english player would like to use it, or lets say would use it more heavily (my suggestion would be again something close to latin or a even more structure ones like arab etc...).
-Most important point: Help us, not those gallente  . As the wiki article says: "Speakers of interstellar Gallente are either found in space, where it is the official language for Federation starship captains and traffic controllers, or in major cities with active spaceports and off-world trade. In both instances, these individuals will not be speaking interstellar Gallente as a first language, unless perhaps if they were born in a space habitat. The Gallente language as the cluster’s foremost second language and the language with the most speakers overall after Amarr means there are more speakers of interstellar Gallente outside the Federation than inside it."1 As you can see, Gallente isnt even the first language in the Fed, so forget them and help us  .

[Kiro Kathora]

Lol. Well, the reason why I started with Gallentian was because my character back then was Gallentean.  I don't have any experience with Amarr stuff. Well, Gallentean is, I presume, the first language of most people from Gallentia. And still it is apperently a huge lingua franca. To me, tat justifies the effort of creating the language.

Your native language is German, by the way?

As for your request: of course I'm willing to help with Amarr language, but I prefer a simple role on the side-line. Let's see how useful my earlier remarks turn out to be for the project first. 

I think your suggestions are fine, although personally I don't particularly like the conjunctive and cases (I always ignore them when I speak German). I'm not sure about the locative, though.

[Publius Valerius]

Lol. Well, the reason why I started with Gallentian was because my character back then was Gallentean.  I don't have any experience with Amarr stuff. Well, Gallentean is, I presume, the first language of most people from Gallentia. And still it is apperently a huge lingua franca. To me, tat justifies the effort of creating the language.

Your native language is German, by the way?

As for your request: of course I'm willing to help with Amarr language, but I prefer a simple role on the side-line. Let's see how useful my earlier remarks turn out to be for the project first. 

I think your suggestions are fine, although personally I don't particularly like the conjunctive and cases (I always ignore them when I speak German). I'm not sure about the locative, though.

Yes, Im a native german speaker.... I had french just for two years (and during my school time... never used since); so most likely I will not be a great help on the gallente site. About the latin, I had it way longer and used a little during my university-time; so I could help there a little (if it is needed) and more important: "I could use then the Amarrad more easily" (and isnt it all about me?  And making the world easier for me?  ).

As for the kasus, I always liked the latin cases; as I mention before: They are, if you can use them, easy to use. And if you cant use them.... stick to what/which you know (Julius Caesar). So I agree, a writer which uses less cases (like Julius Caesar) are easier to read and to understand; but sometimes you have a complex issue, which needs badly the full width of tools. As amarrian RP, is a "tool rich" amarrad very desirable. But just my 50 cents.




About: "I don't particularly like the conjunctive and cases (I always ignore them when I speak German)" Why? Dont do that .

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Adding a few words:

verdhart, adj. - veritable; real, true, actual, genuine, authentic: being in fact the thing named and not false, unreal, or imaginary. - insipired by indo-european root 'u̯erǝ-' (friendship, tustworthy, true), e.g. lat. 'verus', ger. 'wahr'.

destra, noun - the main/sword/right hand; the hand including the arm to the elbow, an ell, a term applied to hawks or falcons, the chief seat of precedency given to the most honoured guest, a prime minister (informal), power, strength,superiority, victory, advantage. - inspired by farsi "dast"and lat. "dexter".

rasaj, noun - skill; (practical) wisdom, cleverness, ability, perfection, access: the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance. - ispired by Farsi "rasāʼī".

destrasaj, noun - swordmanship; martial arts, fencing, swordplay, combat skill, art of fighting: art or skill of combat and self defense. - compound of destra and rasaj.

[Repentence Tyrathlion]

First up, awesome - been trawling through this making use of it for future plottingz.

Second, I offer a new word:

Shardal, noun - gryphon, a mythical half-lion, half-eagle creature associated with divinity, power and being a guardian of both.  Inspired by Persian 'شیر دال' (transliteration 'shar dal'), meaning the same.

There are actually quite a few Persian words or phrases for gryphon - when all you have is google translate, working out the subtleties implied by each is effectively impossible, so I went with the one that had the right sound to it.

[Arkon Sarain]

Just wanted to say I have started using this, as for similar reasons to first post I find Latin a bit meh.

If you are still working on it and want a hand I will happily lend one (and drag in a linguist friend, he owes me) as I would really like to see this fully expanded and expounded

Cheers regardless for all the awesome effort!
-A

[Horatius Caul]

I'm unlikely to put any more significant effort into this, at least for the foreseeable future, and as I've always said I want this to be a community project rather than a one-man show I'd be more than happy if someone else wanted to keep working on it!

[Lyn Farel]

Caul-Sensei !

[Arkon Sarain]

I'm unlikely to put any more significant effort into this, at least for the foreseeable future, and as I've always said I want this to be a community project rather than a one-man show I'd be more than happy if someone else wanted to keep working on it!

I might keep chipping away at it then, if that is fine with you of course, and see what I can add to all this awesome work!

-A

[Melku Sharvas]

The Amarr religion is an offshoot of something called the "Unified Catholic Church of Mankind".  If "Catholic" means "Roman Catholic", which is what springs to mind because of the Catholic inspiration for Amarr art, then it makes sense that Latin would be the ancestral language of Amarrian. However, looking at the collection of Amarrian constellation and system names, the phonetic resemblance to Persian is uncanny.