Practical Course in Verdurian - Lessons 1 & 2

Pere urek First lesson [To Index]

Ke ei? Who are you? Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Knock! A man opens the door.

"Hello, Ihano!" says a young man. "How are you?"

"Fine, fine. But... please, young sir, who are you?"

"I'm Mihel!"

"You're Mihel? But who's Mihel?"

"But don't you know? Your cousin! My father is Nícolo."

"You're my cousin? And Nícolo, who is he?"

"Nícolo... His mother is Reveca."

"Reveca Titei? She is indeed my cousin! And so you, Mihel, are my cousin. Welcome, cousin!"

"Reveca Titei? But no, my grandmother is Reveca Solomei. I'm sorry, Ihano. I must have the wrong house. [Literally, It isn't the right house.]"

"Yes, I'm sorry. And besides, my name isn't Ihano! My name is Atónio!"

Lozhi Words Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Vuî Sounds Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

• Pronounce the vowels with their Italian or Spanish values. Thus urave is oo-rah-vay, not you-rave.
• Accent the next-to-last syllable-- thus, kuzulo is koo-ZOO-loh. But if there's a long mark " over a vowel, accent that syllable (esë = eh-SYEH); and if there's an explicit accent | over a vowel, accent it (onlelán = ohn-leh-LAHN).
• c and g are always hard: cira is KEE-rah, not see-rah.
• When you see ë rather than e, insert a y sound before the vowel. So dëkuy = DYEH-kuy.
• sh, ch are pronounced as in English; zh is the voiced equivalent of sh, as in 'measure'; dh is the beginning sound in 'that'. The following <h> is a concession to the limitations of html; I prefer to write, say, for sh.

Mörî Culture Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

The extended family generally lives nearby, and is available for family celebrations, business contacts, babysitting, emotional support, religious observance, and financial assistance. Significantly, Verdurian has two words for 'orphan': sampire, used for those without parents, and samzhenate for the more serious condition of not having a family.

Reveca Titei is called that not because her family name is Titei, but because her father is Tito. It's very common to call a Verdurian by his or her name (nom) and patronymic (pirei).

Aluatas Grammar Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Uestu	uve	so dher.
subject	verb	object
a man	opens	the door

Articles. Verdurian just has one article, the definite article so 'the'. There is no indefinite article-- where we would say "a door" or "a father" in English, a Verdurian would just say dher or piro.

Questions and negatives. There are several ways to form questions in Verdurian. The simplest is just to use a rising intonation of the voice:

E dhaye dom? Is it the right house?

To negate a statement, insert rho before the verb:

Piro esë rho uve so dher.
My father doesn't open the door.
So uestu rho e sulete.
The man isn't young.

To be. The basic forms of esan 'to be' are:

ai	(I) am
ei	(you) are
e	(he, she) is
am	(we) are
eo	(you all) are
eu	(they) are

• You generally don't need to put subject pronouns ("I, you, he, it," etc.) into the sentence in Verdurian. Ei Mihel is a complete sentence ("You're Mihel")-- it doesn't need le 'you'. (If you do put in the pronouns, it adds emphasis: Le ei Mihel, "You, you're Mihel."
• Verdurians carefully distinguish singular and plural you. Ei means "you are" when you're talking to one person; eo is used when you're talking to several people.

Possessive pronouns. To indicate who something belongs to, you use the possessive pronouns, after the noun:

cira esë	my wife
maris lë	your husband
cira lië	his wife
maris lië	her husband

• Lë and lië sound very similar (lyeh vs. lee-yeh). Make sure you draw out the i in lië to help distinguish them.
• Again, you must distinguish singular and plural you. Lë refers only to one person. We'll learn the plural equivalent later.
• Lië means either 'his' or 'hers'.

Onteca Exercises Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

2. Using the vocabulary from this lesson (or the glossary), make up some sentences expressing your relationship to people you know.

3. Using the conventional expressions, write a very short, polite conversation between two Verdurians who meet in the street.

Ftore urek Second lesson [To Index]

So malsfaom The barbarian Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

--Tana. Urë pite zhöh lië-- er rhark esë.

The barbarian is dirty and tired. He sees a farm and a house. Knock!

--Farmer! Where are you, dog?

The farmer comes and opens the door. "Yes, sir?"

"I want mead!"

"You want mead! And you don't know how to say please?"

"I'm a warrior, dog! I want mead, and right now!"

"Yes, yes, indeed. Wife! There's a barbarian who wants mead!"

The wife comes and sees the barbarian. "Hello, sir. Is it you who wants mead?"

"It is. Are you his wife? You're a beauty, my chick."

The wife says nothing, but goes into the house. She comes again, carrying the mead. The barbarian drinks and goes. He doesn't say thank you.

"That barbarian is a villain," says the farmer.

"Yes indeed. That's why he's drinking his mead-- and my spit."

Lozhi Words Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Vuî Sounds Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

• ö and ü are pronounced as in German (or like French oe and u). If these sounds are new to you:
• To pronounce ü, say a series of i's, and then round your lips as you would for u. You'll end up with a ü.
• Similarly, you can get to ö by saying e and rounding the lips for o, or by saying o and relaxing the lips.
• The h in Verdurian is silent. So zhöh is pronounced zhö, with no final consonant.
• Verdurian rh is pronounced far back in the throat, like a French or German r. Try pronouncing a sustained h and moving your tongue a little forward as if you were going to say an r. It should get louder and a bit messier. You've succeeded when it occurs to you that rhark is a very good word for 'spit'.

Mörî Culture Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Malsfaom ('barbarian') literally means someone who 'speaks badly'-- that is, someone who doesn't speak Verdurian. By convention speakers of Ismaîn, Kebreni, and Flaidish are not considered malsfaomî. So the word ends up referring to someone from outside the Cadhinorian Plain; and in practice anyone in this category who might be met inside the Plain is likely to be one of the southern or western nomads (loosely including Kachanza and Caizura in this category), or someone from the western mountains or the Western Wild. Most of these are 'barbarians' in our sense-- nomads, warriors, unfamiliar with the graces of urban civilization.

Many barbarians, however, are fine and courteous individuals, quite unlike the one in the reading.

Aluatas Grammar Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

These are subject pronouns (that is, se is "I", not "me"). Since Verdurian verbs show person and number, it usually isn't necessary to use the subject pronouns at all. They're sometimes useful, however:

• for emphasis: E le ke vuleu so zhöh? "Is it you who want the mead?"

• to distinguish "he" and "she" in the third person.

Gender. Verdurian nouns, as in French, German, or Greek, have gender. Each noun belongs either to the feminine or the masculine class. Words referring to males are usually masculine, and those referring to females are usually feminine; but this doesn't always hold, and gender assignments are often arbitrary.

Fortunately, the gender of a word is (with a very few exceptions) obvious from its form. For now all you need to know is that nouns ending in a consonant or -o are masculine, and nouns ending in -a are feminine.

Masculine: avo grandfather; hutor farmer; maris husband; dom house; cuon dog
Feminine: ava grandmother; tilka chick; cira wife; beluana beauty; besya girlfriend

The definite article has different forms for feminine nouns. You use so only for masculine nouns; for feminine nouns you use soa:

so maris	the husband
so dom	the house
soa cira	the wife
soa tilka	the chick

Verbs. Verdurian verbs are inflected; that is, their endings vary to indicate tense, number, and person. The same is true of English; "comes", for instance, indicates third person, singular number, and present tense.

The dictionary form is the infinitive, corresponding to expressions like "to say" or "to go" in English. Infinitives for Verdurian forms always end in -an, -en, -ir, -er, or -ec.

We won't try to learn all the forms of the Verdurian verb yet; but you should know how to form the "he/she" form of the present tense. It's quite simple: you take off the infinitive ending (-an, -en, -ir, -er, or -ec) and add -e.

lädan go	-->	läde goes
tenec have	-->	tene has
uvir open	-->	uve opens
pitir drink	-->	pite drinks
lelen see	-->	lele sees
vulir want	-->	vule wants

With this simple rule you can look up verbs in the dictionary and start using them. You should be aware that there are a few irregular verbs-- though nowhere near the number you find in French or even English. We've already met a few of them:

esan be	-->	e is
zhanen come	-->	zhe comes
mizec say	-->	mis says

Double negatives. In Verdurian, any number of negative words adds up to a single negation. To put it another way, when you use a word like nish 'nothing', you must still put rho before the verb:

So hutorom rho lele nish. The farmer sees nothing.

Onteca Exercises Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

2. What's the "he/she" form of the following verbs: rharkir spit, sfahen speak, prosan walk, crezhen eat? Find some more verbs in the dictionary and construct the he/she form.

3. Invent a conversation between the barbarian and the farmer where the barbarian is a good deal more polite.