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[Horatius Caul]

I can appreciate that this may complicate things, but at some point, perhaps we could consider working on the

The what?

Anyway:
Yes, verb conjugation may need to be revised. I don't want to just take the whole grammar from persian and call it a done job, but I also don't want it to be jarring for someone who may recognize some roots. It's an area that should definitely be sorted out as grammar is nailed down properly.

Pronouns? Definitely an area that can be expanded and complicated, especially if we develop cases.

Compound words I believe will be easier to develop if I get down to dismantling the current glossary to extract word roots and such, and making proper rules for making adjectives, adverbs and verbs from those roots.

One thought I've been toying with recently is to have two (or more) distinct types of verbs, essentially one active/delivering and one passive/receiving. For example, the Amarrad versions of the verbs "kill" and "die" could both have the same root, but different verb padding. Again, I'm not a real-life language expert, so I'm not sure if there are real examples of this kind of stuff, but if nothing else it might save some work in the root department

[scagga]

I can appreciate that this may complicate things, but at some point, perhaps we could consider working on the

The what?

 

I can be a bit absentminded.  The necessary content is latent within the post, I wrote that sentence then had other ideas of how to proceed.

Definitely agree with not lifting the entire vocab/grammar from one language.  However, roots would be very valuable in my view, particularly for understanding and constructing new words. 

Arabic is quite good at this, where there are three core letters that bind words of similar meaning together.

[Horatius Caul]

Okay, a bit of a draft for some verb rules.

prefix + root + conjugation suffix

Verbs are divided into three rough groups - active, passive, and irregular. With english examples, "do", "give" and "conquer" would be active verbs; while "be", "have" and "succumb" would be passive verbs. Irregular verbs can be either active or passive (or span both groups), but generally don't follow grammatical conventions to the same degree as the others.

'la-' and 'ra-' are the most common prefixes for active verbs.
'va-' and 'ha-' are the most common prefixes for passive verbs.

(yes, I know this means I probably have to retcon a whole bunch of glossary entries)

Simple conjugation tables. Stuff here retcons the first page.

Root: l-g-r (poem, psalm, song, music)
Noun: alagor (song)
Simple Present: lagorir (sing)
Simple Past: lagorimid (sang)
Present Participle: lagorim (singing)
Present Past: lagorit (sung)


Root: w-r-d (language, speech, rhetoric, linguistics)
Noun: rad (speech)
Simple Present: laradir (speak)
Simple Past: laradihd (spoke)
Present Participle: laradirem (speaking)
Present Past: laradit (spoken)


Root: kh-j-d (see, experience, regard, observe, awareness)
Noun: khijd (sight)
Simple Present: rakhin (see)
Simple Past: rakhijd (saw)
Present Participle: rakhidem (seeing)
Present Past: rakhijt (seen)

Conjugations still make me go  , so if anyone want to make a better (or expanded) proposal, please, please do.

[Silas Vitalia]

Just wanted you to know I named my station in A2-V27 "Amen Sah" from this thread, which means "we fight" from "Aman sah murid in e Sahibe" or "we fight proud for the Holder." 

I might change it soon, but I wanted some of this to be tangible and in-game for the record

[Horatius Caul]

Aman Sah would just mean "we true" or "we truly" - aman sah murid in e sahibe would literally translate to "we truly fight for the holder"

It's because I at first didn't have a word for proud, and later had a word that didn't fit in the lyrics, so I just decided to broaden the meaning of Truth to also encompass Pride.

"We fight" would be aman murid, or possibly am'murid if we start doing pronoun shifts of verbs.

It's still nice to see someone using this pile of random.

[Mathra Hiede]

I have also nicked a couple of words from the Amarrad for use in my (while currently unused) Alt-corp.

Its good stuff

[Vieve]

  Will there finally be a meaning to a name I made up out of thin air  

Hahahahahaha.

That happened to me today.  Horatius, consider this a rambling thank you note.

I noticed the latest round on the etymology of names (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1502986) and said to myself "Huh, you never did get around to figuring out what Vieve's middle name meant".

Her middle name is "Amhaline".  When I created the name, I just threw together syllables that sounded vaguely Arabic, since her Amarr god worshiping father gave her that name.  (He picked his own name -- Alons Tisserand -- out of a Federation comm directory.)

I did a Web search for parts of "Amhaline" and came up with an Omani proverb:

man amhal ... ahmal, translated as "He who delays ... neglects".

This made me go 'huh'.  It probably would have made me go 'huh' more if I understood Arabic.

I then hit the Amarrad glossary.  I didn't find words close to amhal or ahmal, or definitions for 'delay', 'wait', 'hesitate,' 'neglect', 'ignore' or 'abandon'.  I did find the lovely pronoun lav 'she/her', which, for giggles, I appended to amhal.

amha'lav

Unfortunately, this construction's got an apostrophe in it.  That combined with that terminal 'v', and I can't help but look at it and think Vieve's dad might have grown up next door to Ze'ev and Shin in Tierjiev ... which so didn't happen.  

So I peered at the verbs in the Amarrad glossary, and made some minor adjustments to the proverb text.

amhal became 'amhah' - which I think means 'to delay', 'to wait', 'to hesitate', and feel free to think so too (or suggest otherwise, if that won't fit the new conjugation schema).   I turned ahmal into 'ahmak' - 'to neglect', 'to ignore', 'to abandon'.

amhahlav looked a little better to my eyes, but not perfect.  I'm not familiar enough with the constructions here to feel right about using pronouns as suffixes.   So I dropped the 'lav', and took another look at the '-ine' suffix in Amhaline.   That's used in Greek, French and Latin to suggest "like or of", and stuck on the end of a bunch of male names to make them feminine (e.g. Francine, Claudine).

And then I imagined a conversation between Alons and Celeste that might have gone like this.

Alons: Amhah.
Celeste: Patience?
Alons: You could translate it as that.
Celeste: But you aren't.
Alons shrugs slightly.
Celeste: One of these days I'll get a straight answer from you...
Alons: ... and you won't like it.
Celeste: Very likely not.  Hmm.  Vieve Amhah ... I don't like it.   People will forever be thinking we just bastardized the spelling of Emma.   And it just doesn't flow.
Alons:  Fine.  Name her Emma.
Celeste:  You're horrid at looking like you don't care...
Alons:  I'll work on that.
Celeste ... and it'd have to be Emmaline in order to flow, and that's just one step away from giving her both of my grandmother's names.  Genevieve Emmaline?  Can you just imagine?  She'd grow up to be a...
Alons: Librarian.
Celeste: I was thinking romance novelist.
Alons: The medication is polluting your mind.
Celeste: Quite.   So ... Vieve Amhaline?
Alons: If you like.
Celeste: I believe I do.  It seems strangely appropriate, even if it doesn't entirely mean patience.
Alons: Mmm.

I believe the translation, particularly with Celeste's appending that '-ine' suffix is very close to 'obstacle; thing that causes waits, delays and hesitation'.  

[Horatius Caul]

'm-h-a, - root: delay, patience, stop, ignore, leave undone
 

I should really get around to working out a root index, with child-words.

[Sinjin Mokk]

Ok, I'm definately loving this!

Kinda missed on the "Aman Sah" translation, we've been using Aman Sah as "We fight" for a bit now. And if the right sig comes up, I did one using the full phrase. Next time, I'll try to do it with Arabic script.

I'm not a good linguist, but I do know history. An influence on certain aspects of language and culture in the general Persian area was the influence of the Mongols. And Arabic culture definately influenced Mongol culture as well. So it would seem to me that the Khanid and Khanid dialects might easily reflect this as well.

I guess i'll take a look through a few things and see if I can come up with a good working example.

In the meantime, there is one aspect of Amarr language that I feel needs some development too.

Expletives and invictives. 

We probably don't have to go into the full "sailor with tourettes" level of extreme swearing (or as I like to call it, Brooklynese), but I think a few of us might like to toss in the occasional Amarr-style cuss word from time to time on IGS. Obviously, we shouldn't try to circumvent CCPs language filter, but terms like "pig" "dog" "one who sleeps with slaver hounds" "person of questionable birth" "person with no clearly defined maternal lineage" and such might be fun to develop.

Any thoughts?




I see

[Horatius Caul]

Discrepancy fix!

Considering how deeply rooted Amarrad would be in tradition and ritual, it's possible that a phrase such as Aman Sah - while technically meaning "We Proud" or "We Truthful" - in this case would evoke the implication of battle through its connection to Murid (to fight), which has been drilled into every Amarrian citizen from a very young age through "We Fight Proud For The Holder"

Technically, Aman Sah would be a grammatically meaningless phrase, but from its historical and religious context everybody who knows the words in that phrase would also know the title of the song.

Crying "Aman Sah!" would essentially be a short form for "We fight for the users Holders! (and we're proud/srs about it)"

[scagga]

Points of information

'murid' (depending on pronounciation), means 'sick' (pl.) in Arabic. 
Mordeh means dead (pl) in Farsi
Iman means faith in both

[Horatius Caul]

Silly Vaari cultist and your tongues.

[Mitara Newelle]

Silly Vaari cultist and your tongues.

LOL!!!

[Horatius Caul]

Considering the developments these past few days, I doubt I'll be around much in EVE up ahead.

If I feel inspired, I might work a bit more on this project, but if I were you I wouldn't count on any further (ir)regular production from my end. If anyone else wants to pick up where I'm leaving off, I'd be happy to take on an advisory role in development.

[Mitara Newelle]

Considering the developments these past few days, I doubt I'll be around much in EVE up ahead.

If I feel inspired, I might work a bit more on this project, but if I were you I wouldn't count on any further (ir)regular production from my end. If anyone else wants to pick up where I'm leaving off, I'd be happy to take on an advisory role in development.

* Mitara Newelle is sad