The Verdurian language is a constructed language (or conlang) designed by Mark Rosenfelder. It is the most developed of the languages featured in Rosenfelder's constructed world of Almea and is spoken by the inhabitants of Verduria, a country in that planet. The language's name for itself is soa Sfahe, "the speech". The language has its own alphabet. An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose vocabulary and grammar are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture as with natural languages. ... Mark Rosenfelder is the creator of the website Zompist. ... A rendered conworld, as would be seen from space by an observer. ... An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ...

The language has a grammar and vocabulary that borrows deliberately from a variety of European languages, particularly French, Russian, Latin, and German. Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a language. ... A vocabulary is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of a specific language. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

Fictional history

Verdurian is a descendent of Cadhinor, an extinct classical language that bears some similarity to Latin. It developed from the vernacular language that was used in the states that succeded the collapse of the Cadhinorian Empire. With the rise in power and prestige of Verduria, the language spread to become a lingua franca throughout many regions of its home continent, Ereláe. Increased trade and travel have brought many foreign loanwords into Verdurian, and it has developed scientific and literary coinages from various sources, including reborrowings from Cadhinor. A classical language is a language with a literary tradition that can be judged as classical. According to George L. Hart: [To] qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Dymaxion map by Buckminster Fuller shows land mass with minimal distortion as only one continuous continent A continent (Latin continere, to hold together) is a large continuous land mass. ... A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken into by one language from another. ... For the scientific journal named Science, see Science (journal). ... Literature is literally an acquaintance with letters as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning an individual written character (letter)). The term has, however, generally come to identify a collection of texts. ...

As a descendant of Cadhinor, the language has sister languages in the form of Ismaîn and Barakhinei, as well as the yet-to-be-developed Sarroc. It is more distantly related to the extinct languages Cuêzi and Axunašin, as well as several other undeveloped languages. All of these languages are ultimately derived from the proto-language Proto-Eastern and form part of the Eastern language family. This grouping has many similarities to the Indo-European language group, and its proto-language Proto-Indo-European. Proto-language may either refer to a language that preceded a certain set of given languages, or to system of communication during a stage in glottogony that may not yet be properly called a language. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. ... The Proto-Indo-Europeans are the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, a prehistoric people of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. ...

Real-world history

The Verdurian language began when Verduria was created as a setting for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in which Rosenfelder participated in while at college. He used his knowledge of a variety of languages (the aforementioned French, German, Russian and Latin, as well as others such as Esperanto and Greek to create a language that was "European-sounding" without being closely tied to any specific European language. He also coined a number of words, such as mažtana ("city") and elir ("life") from scratch. The original Dungeons & Dragons set Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) published by Gary Gygax and David Arneson in January 1974. ... A college (Latin collegium) can be the name of any group of colleagues; originally it meant a group of people living together under a common set of rules (con-, together + leg-, law). As a consequence members of colleges were originally styled fellows and still are in some places. ... Esperanto flag Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international language. ...

Rosenfelder would later revise the language in the light of increased knowledge of linguistics. The grammar was expanded to include material on transformations, and the lexicon was developed to the point where it contained several thousand words. A number of different fictional languages were also developed and provided input into Verdurian. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... Transformation has two meanings in molecular biology: Transformation is the genetic alteration of a cell resulting from the introduction, uptake and expression of foreign DNA. Transformation is also the process by which normal cells are converted into cells that will continue to divide without limit. ... A lexicon is a list of words together with additional word-specific information, i. ...

Rosenfelder put a grammar of the language, along with other material about Almea, on-line on his website, where it attracted attention from RPG players and other constructed language enthusiasts. Also included were short stories, translations, a piece on Verdurian personal names, and an excerpt from a Verdurian newspaper. A number of people have made attempts to learn the language, for which Rosenfelder has developed a beginner's course, and the website has its own message board, where enthusiasts will occasionally communicate in Verdurian. A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game where players assume the roles of fictional characters via role-playing. ... An Internet forum, also known as a message board or discussion board, is a web application that provides for online discussions, and is the modern descendant of the bulletin board systems and existing Usenet news systems that were widespread in the 1980s and 1990s. ...

As can be seen from the fictional history, the language is intended to bear relation to most of the languages of Western Europe, particularly the Romance languages. The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages or New Latin Languages, are a subset of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Latin dialects spoken by the common people in what is known as Latin Europe (Italian/Portuguese/Spanish Europa latina, French Europe latine, Romanian Europa latină) as Vulgar...

Verdurian is relatively well-known within the conlang community, and although it is not necessarily the most fully developed conlang in existence, the quantity of available on-line resources has meant that it has attained a relatively high degree of exposure in comparison with other, more obscure projects. As one of the best-known artistic languages on the Internet, it is often cited as an example of the world of Internet-based conlangs. An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose vocabulary and grammar are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture as with natural languages. ...

Grammar

Verdurian has an inflecting morphology that is very similar to that found in many Indo-European languages. Nouns have four cases, two genders and two numbers. Adjectives agree with their head noun in gender, number and case, as does the definite article, so. Verbs have three conjugation patterns, five tenses and an imperative mood. They also agree with their subjects in person and number. Other parts of speech include adverbs and prepositions. Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a language. ... This article is about inflection in linguistics. ... Morphology is the following: In linguistics, morphology is the study of the structure of word forms. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people, including most of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ... A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ... In linguistics, declension is a feature of inflected languages: generally, the alteration of a noun to indicate its grammatical role. ... In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once (Hockett 1958: 231). ... Number, in linguistics, is a grammatical category relevant to certain lexemes such as nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ... Look up Agreement in Wiktionary, the free dictionary An agreement may be an agreement in beliefs, rules, practices (policies), or conduct. ... Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzards 1996 performance released on video and CD. The video/DVD and CD performances were both recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, England. ... A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence (to decompose (itself), to glitter), or a state of being (exist, live, soak, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. ... The word conjugation has several meanings: Grammatical conjugation is the modification of a verb from its basic form. ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... Imperative programming, as opposed to functional programming, is a sort of programming employing side-effect as central execution feature. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... In grammar, a part of speech or word class is defined as the role that a word (or sometimes a phrase) plays in a sentence. ... An adverb is a part of speech that usually serves to modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, clauses, and sentences. ... In grammar, a preposition is a type of adposition, a grammatical particle that establishes a relationship between an object (usually a noun phrase) and some other part of the sentence, often expressing a location in place or time. ...

Nouns and Adjectives

The four cases for nouns and pronouns are nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. Nouns have ten declension patterns (five masculine and five feminine). A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun. ... The term accusative may be used in the following contexts: A form of morphosyntactic alignment, as found in nominative-accusative languages. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... The dative case is a grammatical case for nouns and/or pronouns. ... In linguistics, declension is a feature of inflected languages: generally, the alteration of a noun to indicate its grammatical role. ... The word masculine can refer to: the property of being biologically male masculinity, a traditionally male gender role the masculine grammatical gender This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The word feminine can refer to: the property of being biologically female femininity, a traditionally female gender role the feminine grammatical gender This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

External link

• Grammar of Verdurian - Hosted by Zompist.com
• Virtual Verduria