Verdurian: Difference between revisions

'''Verdurian''' (''soa Sfahe'', "the Speech") is a [[constructed language]] created by Mark Rosenfelder, first published in 1995<ref name="inthelandofinventedlanguages1">{{citation|last=Okrent|first=Arika|title=In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language|publisher=Spiegel & Grau|place=New York|edition=1st|year=2009|page=298|quote=The years given [in the book's list of conlangs, in which Verdurian is given a date of 1995] for most of the languages I list from 1990 on represent (approximately) the first posting about the language on the Web, in a newsgroup, or on a site dedicated to the language.}}</ref><ref name="secreth">{{cite web|url=http://www.zompist.com/secreth.htm |title=The Secret History of Verduria|publisher=zompist.com|access-date=2020-12-15|quote=I accumulated a miscellaneous heap of Almean stuff during college [including a] hefty Verdurian grammar and a vocabulary of several thousand words, plus various short documents in Verdurian. . . . After college, in 1984, . . . I typed in the dictionary and rewrote the grammar. . . .}}</ref> and hosted at his website, [[Zompist.com]].  

Verdurian is the most-developed and best-known of the languages of Almea.<ref name="relaz1">[http://relaz.pl/magazyn,wymyslone-jezyki,824]  {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080319135031/http://relaz.pl/magazyn,wymyslone-jezyki,824 |date=March 19, 2008 }}</ref>

When Rosenfelder was a freshman in college, his dorm was next to that of a [[Dungeons & Dragons]] aficionado, one Chris Vargas. Vargas introduced Rosenfelder to the game, and Rosenfelder created the wilderness and also the languages for the game. All the players in Vargas and Rosenfelder's Dungeons & Dragons group were given Verdurian names.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.zompist.com/secreth.htm |title=The Secret History of Verduria |publisher=Zompist.com |access-date=2015-05-30}}</ref><ref>[http://relaz.pl/magazyn,wymyslone-jezyki,824]  {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090919135518/http://relaz.pl/magazyn,wymyslone-jezyki,824 |date=September 19, 2009 }}</ref>

The language borrows words and grammar from various [[Indo-European languages|languages of Europe]], but has been described as not resembling any one language.<ref name="relaz1"/> Many of the words were inspired directly by [[French language|French]] or [[Russian language|Russian]]. Others, such as "elir" for life, were [[A priori (languages)|a priori]] coinages by Rosenfelder. There are also words based on political humor, e.g. 'fanaticism' is [[Sun Myung Moon|''sunmünmún'']] and 'terror' is [[Yassir Arafat|''arhafát'']].

Out of all the languages of Almea, Verdurian is not only the best-developed but the most popular.<ref name="relaz1"/> Rosenfelder has translated texts from other languages into Verdurian and also published short stories and a newspaper in the language.<ref name="relaz1"/>  He has also started a Verdurian course due to the requests of Verdurian aficionados,<ref name="relaz1"/> and the language was so popular as to inspire a Zompist.com spin-off [[Internet forum]].<ref>[http://zbb.spinnwebe.com]  {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101017084935/http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/ |date=October 17, 2010 }}</ref>

Verdurian makes an appearance in the novel ''Gaits of Heaven'', one of [[Susan Conant]]'s "Dog Lover's Mysteries". The character Johanna does [[linguistics|linguistic]] research with a [[feminist]] bent on [[grammatical gender]] "in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], Verdurian and various other languages in which verbs as well as nouns are masculine, feminine, or, in some instances, neuter".<ref>Gaits of Heaven, Susan Conant, (2007), p.102, {{ISBN|9780786292813}}, Thorndike Press</ref>

''Proše mižu: --Žaneno, tan satenam mážula er gorat, kiei finta attróue so syel er tan lažecom brac, pro dy řo ažlädam fne soa pera almea Ekaiei.'' – From the story of the [[Tower of Babel]].<ref name="inthelandofinventedlanguages1"/>