Friday, October 20, 2000

Malt§egj Project 04.20.00.10.20.13.25

A few new words today, since i posted in the Artificial Languages club a few translations in my various languages.

mala bleg acteflðapul cuestriem!!! (releb parþ nag barakoþ)
[sit not desks-on-the please!!! or they will collapse]

...is the bit i posted in the club.

New words:

malato sit
cwestriemplease
relebor (i added this to the conjunctions above)
barakoþcollapse

Thursday, October 12, 2000

Malt§egj Project 04.20.00.10.12.15.21

I need days of the week and months of the year and such. In fact, i need to create a nice little useful calendar system that i can use in practical situations as well as for malt§egj.

Thus is the calendar i propose:

Twenty-four months of fifteen days each, plus the four solstices/equinoxes and one cross-quarter day each year. The cross-quarter day will change each year, moving one quarter backwards, thereby giving us a leap year every fourth year in which there will be two cross-quarter holidays. The year will start/end on the winter solstice (blewcþulsom). The twenty-four months will correspond to the solar terms, the zodiac, the cross-quarters, the solstices, and the equinoxes.

Okay, as i was trying to map this out a bit i realized that my math was faulty--such a system would give me a leap year every three years. How about this? Every year, Samhain will count as its own month, and every fourth year so will Beltane? Nah, too boring. We need something more exciting than that. Every year will have a Moon Festival! The eleventh full moon of every year (usually the Hunter Moon or Blood Moon) will be considered its own month. This will be around Samhain anyway, and will be used for its celebration.

Every fourth year this month will last for two days, and a huge festival will be expected! Bloody pagans. But every twenty-fifth Double Moon Fesival will be skipped, in reverence for Hecate, or her malt§egj equivalent, and the eleventh new moon of the year will be reserved as a day of her celebration. The Moon Festival will not be held in those years.

Hmm, that's getting a little complicated and the Moon Festival would have to take place in the middle of other months. I don't like that at all. Okay, back to the original extra cross-quarter days, and then i'll figure out where to put the leap day later.

Okay, so here is an example of a four-year maltschegj calendar cycle: 


Ya know what? This is way too virgo for malt§egj. I'll use this for dlaci instead. Malt§egj is going to get a thirteen-month calendar of twenty-eight days each, with an extra day at the point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice (technically Samhain) which will be the start of the malt§egj year. In leap years there will be an extra day at this point; one will end the old year, the next will begin the new.

And that being said, i don't have time now to come up with one. Stay tuned...

Tuesday, October 10, 2000

Malt§egj Project 04.20.00.10.10.17.21

Okay, so i do have something to add after all. I have improved the runes a bit, but i’ve still been unable to come up with a suitable system for the vowels, but given the shape and æsthetic qualities of the runes, i’ve decided to use a system much like in Hebrew where the vowels will supercede the runes themselves. Diphthongs may occur and will be read from top to bottom. I will also add a character much like the Hebrew letters א and ע, although whereas in Hebrew these have a distinct sound, this rune will be silent and will act only as an indicator of a vowel. For instance, in the word “adina,” the runes would look something like this: אDN superceded by aia (which would look something like: ^ּ^). Until i figure out how to do that with my nifty little font creator, i don’t think i can explain it more clearly.

Vowel characters are the following (or as near as i can come to it without a font):

a^
aac
e<
i, y˙, v
o>
u, w|
y`

And i’ve dreamt up some pretty squigglies and swirls in there as well.

One problem remains, however, and that it the question of how to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced runes. Originally, as stated earlier, i used a vertical line on the left side of each character, but since none of the characters look right without this line, i must figure out another way to represent this. I was considering perhaps some sort of ˝ either above or to the left of the character to indicate that i was indeed voiced.

Malt§egj Project 04.20.00.10.10.16.40

Well, after a slight break there, i’ve only created one new useful word lately, which is glaad, meaning language.

Okay, so where do i pick up?

I’ve been thinking i need to start revising some things, but i don’t remember what and i can’t recall what i wanted to revise it to. Something tells me i need to revise those prepositional suffixes a bit, although i already tried to do so. Okay, here’s another go at it.

-ato, towards, at
-að(accusative preposition) to, at
-alm without
-alh on, on the side of
-ap on, on top of
-av after
-ein
-eci until
-eð around, about
-eloi about, of
-em over, above
-ifor
-iðbefore, in front of
-ilasmall
-ilinext to, beside
-it behind
-iþ under, beneath
-o from
-oc with
-om before
-u of
-ul the
-uli this
-ulo that
-ut out, out of

Okay, nevermind again. Looking at them again they all seem pretty reasonable, although –eloi might be a little long. I like the sound of it though.

Parac is too long. It is henceforth “pac.” Although “pac ec” doesn’t sound so pleasant. Okay, nevermind. It shall remain parac and parec.