Verdurian: Difference between revisions

Verdurian is the most-developed and best-known of the languages of Almea.

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>

The language borrows words and grammar from various [[Indo-European languages|languages of Europe]], but has been described as not resembling any one language. 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. Rosenfelder has translated texts from other languages into Verdurian and also published short stories and a newspaper in the language. He has also started a Verdurian course due to the requests of Verdurian aficionados.

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]].