Monday, September 26, 2005

Barsoom!

podcast

Before Star Wars or Trek.

Before WWII And WWI.

An interplanetary series of stories, with aliens, swords and ray guns that inspired generations of SF enthusiasts. And, OF COURSE it included alien languages!

Travelers need new words, but borrow the old:

At ABBA, Go Left to SpongeBob




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A picture of Mars from orbit

Barsoomian

The Language Of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars



http://erbatlas.virtualave.net/index.shtml maps of Mars(Barsoom) and more


CONJECTURES ON EVOLUTION
OF A COMMON LANGUAGE




AND YES, the Galactic Phrasebook now includes BARSOOM!

Monday, September 19, 2005

Swiss Wiki on a Stick!

Podcast

First pass on making a language: http://bajoran.mrklingon.org


An example of playing around with a language that didn't exist, using a Kwiki Wiki to organize my language development.

Summer 2003 project to construct rudimentary Bajoran language.

Frequency of each vowel:
' 6
a 97
e 44
i 19
o 30
u 10
y 7


Consonant frequencies.

b 11
c 5
d 12
f 1
g 3
h 17
j 6
k 25
l 26
m 17
n 34
p 16
r 43
s 24
t 26
v 9
w 2



Using Wiki's - TiddlyWiki is a way to right down and organize your life. Or try "Kwiki" at http://www.kwiki.org/


Doctor Floyd promo - finally!

Making my Swiss!

(what the heck is a Swiss? Read Karen Traviss!!

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a201.html )

Karen Traviss is shocked, shocked, shocked by the 17 March announcement of Swiss Army knives with USB memory-stick `blades', as predicted in her sf novel City of Pearl. Just like Arthur C.Clarke with geosynchronous satellites, she failed to secure the patent. I wonder whether any sf satirist foretold the other amazing innovation revealed in the same news item: Swiss Army knives for air travellers, with no blades.


Now... you *could* buy one (http://www.swissbit.com/)

But, that's no fun - how do you make one?:

First you need a knife: http://www.victorinox.com/newsite/en/produkte/
http://www.swiss-knife.com/

(I'm using a tiny one - my daughter had a spare and gave it to me; I actually have two or three other big ones; I ALWAYS want one with a scissors!)


NEXT you need memory - I got one of these at http://nanosys1.com

pad

512MB Super Talent USB 2.0 Portable Flash Memory Drive

Go get one of these (I'm assuming you use Firefox - if not, forget it, stick with The World in One FILE ) http://tiddlywiki.com/

TiddlyWiki is a single, self-contained html file, like a web page. It is like a blog, but each entry is like a little index card, called a tiddler. Before I really lose you, this is what it looks like. Each entry in the center of the screen is a tiddler. Go play around with it, close and open some tiddlers. Your changes wont affect the website once you reload or leave it.
Load it up with all the tools you want or need:

SSH, Firefox, Bible references, netcat, the works:
















And still there's plenty of room for more!




















Finished project - Homebrew "Swiss":

Monday, September 12, 2005

Paging Mr. Webster!

podcast version

Building vocabularies

Lexter - an experiment in dictionary building:



Creating word lists:

the Romulan Way - includes Romulan vocabulary





Book Cover




Diplomatic Implausibility - and others include Klingon Vocabulary

Keith R. A. DeCandido

Book Cover









Generating texts

On Inventing a Romulan Language for the ST Novels

from Diane Duane's web page


Online "message" from Romulus
Click on this message - refresh window for new text.








UTA Lite - simple translator/vocabulary generator
Do it yourself!

My Odeo Channel (odeo/4d2acbe46bc378bc)

Friday, September 02, 2005

A Paper Skiff

Podcast



Build your own spaceship today!

MrKlingon checking out his spaceship:
inspecting Friendship 7!!

A catalog of "Spaceship terms" in alien languages:

Eedada huutaveet - spaceship [Ewok]

Pankpa - Spaceship. [Hutt]

Teesaw - Spaceship. Space Cruiser. [Hutt]

Zat x'ratch keezo bompaz ha sheep.
That scratch was there when I rented the ship. [Bocce]
'ejDo' starship, starship class[Klingon]

Duj
ship, vessel
[Klingon]

ryZ
enclosure
(ship, bottle, container) [Ferengi]

skeebeetle
spacecraft, spaceship
[Gungan]

qfaqleo
boat: boat/ship/vessel
, vehicle for traveling on top of water [Vulcan]

khina
ship, starship
[Romulan]

rrhiet
starship with warp capability
[Romulan]

T'liss
bird-of-prey starship
[Romulan]






Remember Columbia -

Get ready to Take OFF - Build your own spaceship!







Learning a Sci-Fi language... LATIN?!?


Latin For Mountain Men

A short course in practical Latin


Manifold Space

Stephen Baxter

Book Cover






LATIN-ENGLISH
DICTIONARY PROGRAM

AND a full Latin / Engish text of the Bible:


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