Fantasist’s Scroll

This is the coolest book since the first encyclopedia!
To me, it is, anyway. I’ve been borrowing a friend’s copy of Facts About The World’s Languages and really enjoying it. I saw it on the shelf at his house back around Thanksgiving time and fell in love with it. It’s a little rich for my blood, right now, but I know that I’ll eventually get a copy. In a nutshell, Facts About The World’s Languages has basic phological and morphological thumbnails of virtually all the world’s known languages. It is super, super cool to see the phonogical analysis of major languages all laid out in easy-to-read tables and summarized in neat, little paragraphs. For one thing, it pretty well shows people making up their own languages how to layout such a description. For another, it’s providing me fodder for my own ideas about language creation. Best of all, it’s helping me do the hard parts, choosing a phonology and displaying it for others to read! That, for some reason, is the hardest damn thing for me. I just have a really hard time getting my head around the different labels for the syllabic descriptors. Frankly, I just can’t remember the difference between a labiodental consonant and a straight labial consonant and all that sort of thing. I guess it doesn’t really matter that much, but it bothers me.
In any case, this is the coolest bit of language-related inspiration that I’ve seen in a very long time. It neatly lays out complicated morphological systems in a way that makes sense to me. And, the short histories of the various languages are fascinating, as well. But, these thumbnails go into fairly good detail. For instance, they include influences from other languages, the probable evolution of the language, as well as the geographical history of the language. Really, it’s completely captivating.
In short, Facts About The World’s Languages is a great book that will be the object of lust and envy of every conlanger who sees it on your shelf. Go buy one!

Oh, boy, where to start.

Well, first, let me say that I probably just won’t be posting for a bit. My wife left me last week Sunday, right before Thanksgiving, and we’ll be getting a divorce. So, that’s going to be taking a lot of my time and energy, which will leave little left over for the blog.
Second, I’m afraid that I might say some things that are legally innapropriate considering my current marital situation, so, again, not a good idea to post anything for a bit.

Not sure how long it will take to get this resolved, but, when I do, I’ll start posting again.

Thank you for your support. If you’re the praying kind, keep me in your prayers.

Forgive me, it’s been two weeks since I blogged last.

Where does the time go? It seems like it was just Thanksgiving and now, here it is almost Christmas! At least I have almost all of my shopping done. Of course, I cheated and sent a bunch of stuff from Bells Farm again this year. I look at it this way, those folks up North have to pay a small fortune for fresh fruit and it’s cheap down here. Everybody wins!
My wife and I have one more gift to get, for her sister. It’ll be like pulling teeth to get her out to a store at this point, too. But, we’ll get it done in time, or my name isn’t Howard Johnson! (Er, sorry, bad reference to “Blazing Saddles”.)

One cool thing that’s been happening, though, is that my step-daughter has expressed a serious interest in learning to play Dungeons and Dragons. So, I’m sure Santa Claus will bring her something that has to do with D&D. The other cool thing is that it gives me a reason to get off my big, fat butt and learn to play the new edition. Great to have some motivation! And, I’m sure I’ll start designing adventures again, so we’ll have cool, original dungeons to crawl. If I do well enough with them, I might even offer them via this webiste. Maybe, even as shareware. (Insert dramatic music here.) Or, maybe not. Motivation only goes so far, then I have to actually do the work. Well, we’ll see…

Happy Holidays!