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==External history== | ==External history== | ||
Rosenfelder has been involved in constructed languages (conlangs) from an early age. His interest became more serious during his college years at Northwestern University, where he lived next to a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master named Chris Vargas. During this time, Rosenfelder contributed to the game by creating a detailed map of the surrounding wilderness and supplying unique in-world terms and 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 [[w:Sun Myung Moon|''sunmünmún'']] and 'terror' is [[w:Yassir Arafat|''arhafát'']]. | 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 [[w:Sun Myung Moon|''sunmünmún'']] and 'terror' is [[w:Yassir Arafat|''arhafát'']]. Some early vocabulary is shown below: | ||
* ''druk'' "friend" (cf. Russian ''друг'' [dɾuk]) | |||
* ''dormir'' "sleep" (cf. Spanish ''dormir'') | |||
* ''filio'' "son" (cf. Latin ''fīlius'') | |||
* ''amor'' "love" (cf. Spanish ''amor'') | |||
* ''dobre'' "good" (cf. Russian ''добро'' [dɔbɾə]) | |||
* ''brak'' "arm" (cf. Latin ''brachium'' [brakium]) | |||
Some words in Verdurian, such as ''filio'', were eventually replaced, but many remain, as shown in the Verdurian dictionary. Mark Rosenfelder also worked backwards to create plausible etymologies for similarities between Verdurian and natural languages. For example, the word ''dobre'' is retained in the language. Its etymology suggests it derived from the older ''domeres'', which meant "fine" or "handsome" in the past. This progression is linguistically plausible, involving the loss of an unstressed vowel (domeres > *domres), a nasal to stop change before r (domres > *dobres), and the final loss of *s, possibly transitioning through h (dobres > *dobre). | |||
Rosenfelder continued to develop the Verdurian language and other languages of his constructed world throughout his college years. By the end of his time at university, he had accumulated extensive documentation and artifacts related to Verdurian and the D&D world. After the group disbanded, Rosenfelder continued to expand on his creations for the next 36 years. | |||
==Fictional history== | ==Fictional history== | ||