Verdurian language

The Verdurian language is a constructed language (or conlang) designed by Mark Rosenfelder. Characterized by its Romance-like phonology and Latin-like inflection, the language is the most developed of the languages featured in Rosenfelder's conworld 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.

The language has a grammar and vocabulary that borrows deliberately from a variety of European languages, particularly French, Russian, Latin, and German.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

External link

• Grammar of Verdurian (http://zompist.com/verdurian.htm) - Hosted by Zompist.com