Re: Semitic languages & Cultures

On Fri, 17 May 2002 08:18, Balazs Sudar wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> I have two kinds of questions to everyone concerning semitic languages and
> cultures created for your languages.
>
<snip>
>
> Do you have any created cultures?
Of course.  I started out writing fiction, and being a fantasy/SF fan, my
created cultures are set on other worlds - though I do believe I may yet
create an Earth-based one.  Creating something/s to fit inside a Dyson
Sphere, or to orbit a binary star; that's a lot of fun.

I saw you wrote about calendars, but have
> you invented creatures, history, places?
Yes.  The Lakhabrech were bred from humans abducted some 40 000 years ago by
aliens who were trying to get genetic material to repopulate their planet
after a few millenia of messing things up big-time.  Then they were co-opted
by a set of these aliens who were trying to "get back to nature" in the worst
possible taste, and some were genetically rebuilt in the manner of
purpose-built survivalist predators a la crocuta crocuta ie the spotted
hyena.  Then their masters kept dying since they were ill-equiped to be
genuine hunters themselves, so the Lakhabrech ancestors kept getting out and
setting up for themselves.  After being wiped out a few times almost in their
entirety in specific locations by ordinary - ie, non-mutated - humans who
objected to being preyed upon, they worked out some modi vivendi and set up
as matriarchies, since as with crocuta crocuta, the females are bigger than
the males.  It is a breaking of Yhe Shawi Liyhita - The Jaws of the Midwife,
the Lakhabrech's capital law - to kill and eat a speaking being now.  And
they have an almost Jewish tale of liberation from ancient slavery - they
refer to all their "cousins" - their word - who hunt with their former
masters, as |tyerrakhani| - "bound, fettered, enslaved", |eilakh| - "unfree",
and others, including the highly insulting |pliuya weshu vhekhrani| -
"running/operating only under guidance/when guided".  They welcome new
members of the tribe - those who haven't been born into the tribe, with a
ceremony somewhat like pesach/passover; it's also the way they welcome back
members who have seriously offended the law and have been previously outlawed.

And how have you invented names?
> Do you take all possible words and choose the ones you like?
I worked out a few names I didn't like, picked a few that I did like, worried
that they were derivative after, worked out the probable parsing - eg,
|vheratsho|, the name of one of my major characters, a thoroughly
disagreeable woman, a renegade and traitor, kin-murderer, thief of property
and territory held in common, seems to have been derived from some
badly-remembered Spanish, not that I ever let that stop me.  I parsed it as
|vher| - "evil", "unclean", "unquiet", etc, and |ratsho| - "spirit", "ghost".
 With the adjectival part of the compound prefixed to the noun part for
emphasis.

Other names I figured out much the same way.  Then I worked out the other
features of the language, mostly because I wanted some consistency.

Wesley Parish

 I don't think
> so ;-) If there's someone who prefers taking from other sources, what are
> they?
>
>         Thanks: Balazs
--
Mau e ki, "He aha to mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."