Archive for May, 2012
Found a "ba"! — Accidental Sandic
Thursday, May 31st, 2012See the squiggle the green arrow is pointing to? That's a ba!
It's either a "ba" or "bha", depending, I guess, on how you interpret this part.
To me, that looks like a "bha".
The image of the guy is from a movie called "Valhalla Rising". I don't think I'd heard of it until I saw the ba image. But seriously, how neat it is that someone accidentally made one, and that it made it onto a movie? And how neat is it that it's written onto flesh like Bas are supposed to be? I think I'll have to watch this movie (even though it apparently got horrible ratings). :)
Here's the video I saw on the sidebar with the ba in it.
Characters and Elements Found in Myth and Folklore
Thursday, May 31st, 2012- Begins in medias res. [Actually, I don't do that one, unless you consider beginning right after the conclusion of "The Termite Queen" to be in medias res.]
- The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe. [check!]
- Begins with an invocation to a muse (epic invocation). [No, not here]
- Begins with a statement of the theme. [Umm, not exactly]
- Includes the use of epithets. [No, I don't think so.]
- Contains long lists (epic catalogue). [Ah, yes -- I subject the reader to epic lists three times throughout the series. One in each of the original volumes. Maybe I can construct lists for the other three! Or maybe not.]
- Features long and formal speeches. [At times, when appropriate]
- Shows divine intervention on human affairs. [On only two occasions does the Nameless Mother personally poke her antennae into the mix, but the foretellings of Seers prevade the books.]
- Features heroes that embody the values of the civilization. [Definitely]
A Little Laboratory Work; a short story
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012The following story appears on the Third Sunday Blog Carnival for June 17, 2012!
[My inspirations for this piece came from the following articles in Natural History Magazine: “The Longest Winter,†by Gabrielle Walker (April, 2003, pp. 44-51; about the “Snowball Earth†theory of the Cambrian Explosion); and “A Plenitude of Ocean Life,†by Edward F. DeLong (may, 2003, pp. 40-46; about how Archaea and planktonic microorganisms are much more abundant in the oceans than anyone had realized) I retained some notes at the end regarding how I got my names.]
A Little Laboratory Work
by Lorinda J. Taylor
A Little Laboratory Work; a short story
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012The following story appears on the Third Sunday Blog Carnival for June 17, 2012!
[My inspirations for this piece came from the following articles in Natural History Magazine: “The Longest Winter,†by Gabrielle Walker (April, 2003, pp. 44-51; about the “Snowball Earth†theory of the Cambrian Explosion); and “A Plenitude of Ocean Life,†by Edward F. DeLong (may, 2003, pp. 40-46; about how Archaea and planktonic microorganisms are much more abundant in the oceans than anyone had realized) I retained some notes at the end regarding how I got my names.]
A Little Laboratory Work
by Lorinda J. Taylor
A Little Laboratory Work; a short story
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012The following story appears on the Third Sunday Blog Carnival for June 17, 2012!
[My inspirations for this piece came from the following articles in Natural History Magazine: “The Longest Winter,†by Gabrielle Walker (April, 2003, pp. 44-51; about the “Snowball Earth†theory of the Cambrian Explosion); and “A Plenitude of Ocean Life,†by Edward F. DeLong (may, 2003, pp. 40-46; about how Archaea and planktonic microorganisms are much more abundant in the oceans than anyone had realized) I retained some notes at the end regarding how I got my names.]
A Little Laboratory Work
by Lorinda J. Taylor
Finally got around to updating the lit list.
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012I can't wait to see just how many things I've *actually* got. There's enough here to fill a small book already, I think. It's such a weird thing to think. Grains of sand fill an hourglass and make up a desert, though, after all.
What's fun to look at is the increasing number and length of things done in the language year by year. In 2008 only one thing was done, but by 2012 there are at least two dozen works halfway through the year. Wonder if this trend will continue?
onion is sipulta
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012Word derivation for "onion" :
Basque = tipula, Finnish = sipuli
Miresua = sipulta
The Basque and the Finnish words for onion are unexpectedly similar, the middle four letters in both words are IPUL. I considered making my Miresua word sipula, but thought that was too like the Finnish word, so I inserted the T from the Basque word to make it slightly different.
Grammar Sticky
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012So for those who've been following this blog, bear with me. I'm going to be restating a lot of what I've already been over.
Phonemics and Romanization
Stress
Gender
Gender and Vowels
Gender and Consonants
Pluralization
Direct Objects
Indirect Objects (Part 2)
Prepositions
Pronouns
Articles?
Word Order
Tense Marking Nouns
Tense Structure: Tier 1 (Tier 2) (Tier 3)
Verbs and Intention
Other Verb Forms
Conjunctions
Core Vocabulary
People
More on Formatting Covers for CreateSpace
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012Evethkazga
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012One episode left. The season sure does speed on by, doesn’t it?
Sunday’s episode was, I think I’m safe in saying, the episode that everyone’s been waiting for since the series got the green light. I’d say it was worth the wait. There’ve been a ton of superlatives heaped on “Blackwater” so far, so I won’t bother adding to them. I would like to add a comment or two about one specific omission.
A couple of friends of mine who’ve read the books had been bugging me leading up to Sunday, “So are we going to see the chain?” The answer, as we all saw now, is no. No chain! So it goes. But this raises a non-trivial question: Does it matter? What exactly was lost with the loss of the chain? In my estimation, little. In A Clash of Kings, the chain has a three-fold function, as I see it (one literal; one figurative; one textual). Those functions are:
- Literally, the massive chain is there to prevent Stannis’s ships from retreating as they’re doused with wild fire.
- Figuratively, the construction of the chain is a massive effort on the part of the blacksmiths of King’s Landing. As it plays such an important part in the victory, this is a way to give the people a real stake in it—something to point to and be proud of.
- Textually, it serves to further showcase Tyrion’s mental acumen.
In the show, the literal role the chain would have played is minimized. As we follow the battle, we see a decoy ship sent out in “defense”, where Stannis is expecting a fleet (a fleet smaller than his, of course, but a fleet nonetheless). The visual explosiveness of the wildfire when lit (via Bronn’s arrow) renders the potential for escape rather pointless. To me, the thing looks less like a fire than a nuclear bomb. The effect is instantaneous and devastating, so escape wasn’t really an issue—and furthermore, Stannis decided to keep pressing on, anyway, so the function of the chain in the show would have been theoretical, more than anything.
Without the build up we see in the book with the slow construction of the chain, the importance of Tyrion’s speech to the troops is rather elevated. What we see is a group of soldiers who have no real stake in the fight and no will to continue, and Tyrion rallies them. He does the same thing in the book, but here without the chain, I think his speech is slightly more impressive.
Finally, something that has happened in the show which didn’t really happen in the books is Tyrion as a character has been thrust to the forefront—largely in response to Peter Dinklage’s excellent portrayal of him in season 1. We see this happen in television shows all the time: One character becomes more popular or impressive than the others, and so the writers “write them up” (one clear example that comes to mind is The Simpsons. When the show started, everyone tuned in to see what shocking thing Bart would say. By season 4, it was clear that Homer was the star). As a result, well, Tyrion didn’t need to be any more brilliant. He’s had it in spades this season—and will likely continue to. His character doesn’t need the extra acclaim that the chain would bring him, so omitting it hasn’t really affected his character all that much, in my opinion.
I think it was a wise decision on the part of Dave and Dan to have George R. R. Martin write this episode (for a number of reasons), and I think he did an excellent job in writing the chain out. I think the proof of this comes from any fan of the show who’s never read the books. Their reaction: What chain? The logic of the battle, though scaled down, works well enough as shown, and it doesn’t feel like anything major is missing. Those who’ve read the books know, but show qua show, I think it stands up remarkably well.
Oh, but this is the Dothraki blog, isn’t it? As you may have noticed, there was no Dothraki in episode 9. Not that that should be a surprise, now that the episode has aired. Unlike any previous episode (and perhaps unlike any future episode…?), “Blackwater” focused on one single event. There were different points of view, yes (Sansa, Davos, Tyrion), but it was all the same narrative, and all the same timeline. So, of course, there was nothing from Qarth, and also nothing from beyond the Wall, nothing from Robb’s camp, etc. Given the scope of this episode, that was probably for the best, and one wonders if any other event might warrant a similar treatment. (Those who’ve read the books may be able to think of at least one, but even that one’s iffy.)
Today’s post came out a day late because I was up at BayCon for the weekend. It was a smaller event than WorldCon, but good fun! In addition to moderating a couple panels, I got to meet up with our very own khaleesi Daenerys and her boyfriend Crown of Gold. We had a wonderful dinner with my wife and Juliette Wade and her family, and then when we went for gelato, which was delicious. It was truly a red letter day. San athchomari, zhey okeosi!
And now for some disappointing news. Many will have noted that last week Dothraki.org went down. This is actually because the site is hosted on the same server that the Na’vi community is hosted on, and it went down. It came back up on Sunday, but, unfortunately, went down yet again, and the problem appears to be more serious now. Dothraki.org was the best resources on the net on Dothraki (I used it myself), and if it’s gone, that leaves this blog, which is a blog, and not as useful as, say, a wiki that can simply list tables, vocabulary, etc. There are a number of potential solutions, but it’s not clear what’s going to happen moving forward, so in the meantime, we just have to hang tight. On the bright side, sunquan has put up two more Dothraki tutorial videos on YouTube. Check them out!
And next week: The finale of season 2 of Game of Thrones. Lot of loose ends to be tied up. Can’t wait to see one of my favorite episodes from the books: The House of the Undying. Anha laz vos ayok!