csathu-athmaza-blog

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Consonant clusters initial and medial

Initial clusters

Attested br cl cs csth dr st Save for st, all of these start with a plosive, and then a liquid or a fricative. I would consider csth to be an archaicism, since it is found only in the name of the deity Cstheio, and furthermore is the only triconsonantal cluster attested.

Speculative Assuming that PLOSIVE + LIQUID is a combination that is always allowed, we can add in pr tr cr pl bl tl dl. For clusters involving s, I would assume that voicing assimilation is in effect, ie only p t c participate. We have two hypothetical series: s + PLOSIVE: sp sc PLOSIVE + s: ps ts.

Medial clusters

Attested lt lc lch lm ln lv lth lsh lzh mb md mn mr nd nm nn nth ns nsh rb rch rm rn rr rv rth rs thm thv st sm sth vr Most of these consist exclusively of liquids, nasals, and fricatives. The ones that contain a plosive or affricative have it as the second component: lt lc lch mb md nd rch st. Note the lack of sh-, kh-, z- and zh-series. The nasal series seem not to have unvoiced plosives, though they have unvoiced fricatives.

Speculative For the m- and n-series, I have only presented those where the second component shares the point of articulation. For the fricative-initial, I have not included any with dissimilar voicing (sd or its ilk). Clusters in (brackets) are combinations (eg LIQUID + NASAL) not attested in that initial consonant's series, but attested in other series where the initial consonant is of similar type. lp ll lr ls lz lkh mp mm mv nt nch nr nz nzh rp rt rd rc rl rz rsh rzh rkh thp tht thc thn thl thr (thh ths thsh thkh) sp sch sc sn (sl sr sv) ss ssh skh (vp vb vt vd vc vm vn) vl vv (vth vs vs vsh vzh vkh)

The even more hypothetical sh-, kh-, z- and zh-series: shp sht shc shm shn shl shr shv khp kht khc khm khn khl khr khv zb zd zm zn zl zr zv zhb zhd zhn zhl zhr zhv

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Consonants found in Ethuverazin

Labial Dental Alevolar Post-Alevolar Velar Glottal Nasal m n Plosive p t k b d Affricative t͡ʃ <ch> Fricative θ <th> s ʃ <sh> x <kh> h z ʒ <zh> Liquid ʋ <v> r l

Note that /ʋ/ and /r/ are merely best guesses. Based on the lack of /f/ and /w/, I guessed that <v> was the apprroximant /ʋ/ rather than the fricative /v/. I have also marked <r> as the trill /r/, though it could just as well be any other rhotic.

The values given here are the IPA values guessed from the descriptions of the sounds. If the sound is spelled with anything other than the IPA letter, the spelling used is presented in <angle brackets>.

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

late night The Goblin Emperor thoughts

so the emperor and sons get blown up ahead of schedule, leaving tethmar unmarried to the princess and out of the line of succession. he can’t get in the line without the marriage. so the next best plan for tethimar is to get either idra or the crazy goblin kid on the throne, wrestle the marriage out of them, bump them off. problem: idra is underage and underage emperors die fast, so everyone but tethimar (who wants idra to die fast) is going to want idra to reach majority before he ascends. so, heyo, crazy goblin kid it is! 

i think all sets of conspirators thought sticking a crazy goblin kid on the throne was a great idea. tethimar thought he could bully the crazy goblin kid and then bump him off to rule. the lord chancellor thought he could take control and rule by proxy. and idra’s mom shevean could spend two years of crazy goblin kid misrule in recruiting a solid power base for idra— as well as getting the kid himself prepared to rule. so he hits sixteen, his life expectancy as ruling emperor shoots way up, they swap the crazy goblin kid (who after two years everyone would be thoroughly sick of humoring) with a properly educated and cultured elvish kid, everyone has a party. 

unfortunately for them, and fortunately for idra, maia turns out to be this enormous triple threat: intelligent, likeable, and iconoclastic. he learns fast, he makes up for his awkwardness with earnest courtesy, he dodges as many snares as anyone can put out for him. he leaves the issue of his sister’s marriage up to his sister. he bowls the lord chancellor over and won’t be controlled. he starts actually ruling— justly and well. uncomfortably justly. the ethuveraz goblin and mix population form a power base i seriously doubt anyone had anticipated. 

under those circumstances, it’d make sense for the lord chancelor and shevean to panic, and decide to push idra’s timetable up. way up. nip this shit in the bud up. because like, between both of them, they could— should— be enough to protect and control idra for the years necessary. after idra, there really wouldn’t be any other viable candidate, varinechebel’s line ends with him, and tethimar still hadn’t married in. there’d be enough claimants with tenuous connections that any particular single guy would have a hard time working up much support, and they’d all know it. so, sticking idra on the throne ahead of time would have looked worth it.

unfortunately for them, again, they moved the timetable up far enough that idra hadn’t even been informed that he could be emperor, let alone persuaded. you can really tell that the lord chancellor is an old man, though, he probably completely forgot that fourteen is way closer to sixteen than twelve and that idra would be starting to develop autonomous political and philosophical views. like, ‘i don’t actually want to be emperor’ kind of views.

so maia continues being the emperor and rules happily ever after, with a brief detour while tethimar airs out his ‘i actually really wanted to be the emperor’ views, the end. 

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

I spent a lot of time making the Drazhada fighting cats crest for Maia’s bed hangings, I think because I care a lot about making porn accurate. Then I spent a lot of time trying to make it tile, which I am not particularly good at

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Diareses

If two vowels appear consecutively (as opposed to being a diphthong), the latter must have a diaresis on it: Nedaö, Mireän, Aäno, Esterveriär.

If one of the vowels is a diphthong, however, no diaresis is required: Maia, Ilinverieise.

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Given names in the Ethuveraz

In elven use, there are six endings: -a, -et, -is, -an, -o, and -u. In addition, some people with goblin ancestry have names that end with -er.

Like surnames, name suffixes depend on the bearer’s gender. -a, -et, and -is are exclusively used for men; -an and -o are exclusively used for women; and -u and -er are found on either.

The name suffix is appended onto a name-stem, most often a monosyllabic one. Some examples from each category:

-a Maia, Thara (Celehar), Cala mai-, thar-, cal-

-et Csevet, Deret, Evet (Polchina) csev-, der-, ev-

-is Dazhis, Nurevis, Vorzhis (Gormened) dazh-, nurev-, vorzh-

-an Mireän, Arbelan, Loran (Duchenin) mir-, arbel-, lor-

-o Vedero, Stano, Csethiro veder-, stan-, csethir-

-u Kiru, Eiru (Berenar), Csoru kir-, eir-, csor-

-er Verer (Orthema),  Suler (Zhavanin), Thever (Sevraseched) ver-, sul-, thev-

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Assorted character descriptions

(I’ve been putting together a list of descriptions for my own reference, and thought other people might find it useful too, so here it is. Under the readmore you’ll find quotes from the book along with their Kindle page numbers. It’s not every quote, because some of them don’t say anything new or specific; if you think I’ve missed something important, please let me know! I’ve also done Maia, Csevet, Csethiro, and the nohecharei.)

This is a list of descriptions of, I believe, every other character in the book who receives a description. They didn’t have enough quotes to justify making their own single posts, and I couldn’t decide how to split them up, so this is just a big quote dump. Characters are listed in alphabetical order as they appear in the list at the back of the book (except for one character who’s never named in the book, who you’ll find under “Unnamed Courier”).

More than the other lists, this one may not be complete - like I said above, if I’ve missed someone or something important, please let me know.

Keep reading

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Descriptions of Maia

(I’ve been putting together a list of descriptions for my own reference, and thought other people might find it useful too, so here it is. Under the readmore you’ll find quotes from the book along with their Kindle locations. The first group are about his physical appearance, while the second is about his clothes. It’s not every quote, because some of them don’t say anything new or specific; if you think I’ve missed something important, please let me know! I plan to do these for some other characters as well, and I’ll add links to those posts when I put them up; so far I’ve done Csevet and Csethiro.)

Maia has slate-gray skin, pale grey eyes, and long, dark, curly hair. He is skinny. He has a jagged set of silver scars on his left forearm, and large knuckles. He seems to be tall, as the second-hand clothes he inherited from Setheris are “barely large enough”, women who are described as very tall are only an inch or two taller than him, and he only has to tilt his head back to look his 6’6” grandfather in the face rather than, for example, crane his neck. While he takes after his mother in his colouring, he apparently has his father’s bone structure, and in terms of his facial features he probably looks more like a typical elf than a typical goblin.

Keep reading

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Descriptions of Csevet

(I’ve been putting together a list of descriptions for my own reference, and thought other people might find it useful too, so here it is. Under the readmore you’ll find quotes from the book along with their Kindle locations. I’ve included descriptions of both his appearance and his related mannerisms, because the contrast between his behaviour at the beginning of the book and how he acts later is quite pronounced and might be useful. It’s not every quote, because some of them don’t say anything new or specific; if you think I’ve missed something important, please let me know! I plan to do these for some other characters as well, and I’ll add links to those posts when I put them up. For now I’ve done Maia and Csethiro.)

Csevet is a full-blooded elf with pale skin, white hair and eyes “the color of rain”. He looks around nineteen or twenty years old, but is apparently closer to twenty-five. He does not wear rings on his hands, but his ears are pierced (as seems standard in the Ethuveraz). It is unclear how tall he is, except that he is a full head taller than someone who is described as “stocky” (but never actually as short). He is graceful, elegant, and usually, but not always, good at masking his emotions.

Keep reading

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Descriptions of Csethiro

(I’ve been putting together a list of descriptions for my own reference, and thought other people might find it useful too, so here it is. Under the readmore you’ll find quotes from the book along with their page numbers. It’s not every quote, because some of them don’t say anything new or specific; if you think I’ve missed something important, please let me know! I’ve also done Maia and Csevet.)

Csethiro is twenty-two years old, with a narrow face, a long nose, a weak chin and blue eyes. She is noted to be not pretty. She has white skin, and as she has only elven heritage she presumably has white hair as well. Her voice is deep and carries well. Currently known as “Dach’osmin Csethiro Ceredin”, she will be called “Csethiro Drazharan, Ethuverazhid Zhasan” after her marriage.

Keep reading

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

Descriptions of the nohecharei

(I’ve been putting together a list of descriptions for my own reference, and thought other people might find it useful too, so here it is. Under the readmore you’ll find quotes from the book along with their Kindle page numbers. It’s not every quote, because some of them don’t say anything new or specific; if you think I’ve missed something important, please let me know! I plan to do these for some other characters as well, and I’ll add links to those posts when I put them up; so far I’ve done Maia, Csevet and Csethiro.)

This one is in a different format, because there aren’t as many descriptions to reproduce for each character. This list does contain spoilers.

Keep reading

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

An introduction to surnames

In the Ethuveraz, men’s surnames are different to married women’s surnames are different to unmarried women’s surnames. (Goblin surnames have only one form.)

In the order of man’s suffix | married woman’s suffix | unmarried woman’s suffix: -ar | -aran | -in -a | -o | -eth -ezh | -ezho | -ezhen

The Aranin names are the most typical ones. Aoeth names are “still in use” among the common folk of the South, near goblin lands. Ezhoen names are used by the herders of the western plains.

Let’s take a look into all this with an enterprising, imaginary young lady with interesting marital prospects:

We have an aspiring Min Loru, whose birth-surname is irrelevant. She has always been enamored with the name Runo, and plans to give it to her firstborn daughter.

Now, our Min Loru is on the look-out for a man. The first of her suitors in our hypothetical scenario is the dear Lieutenant Beshelar. “Beshelar” is a perfectly legitimate Aranin name in the masculine form. (The stem would be beshel-.) Should our Min Loru choose to marry him, she would be known as Merrem Loru Beshelaran, and her even more hypothetical daughter would be Min Runo Beshelin.

If the prospect of becoming Merrem Beshelaran does not please her, Min Loru can look for another man. For the purposes of our example, she stumbles upon a man with an Aoeth name. Since we all like canon characters, we shall declare that the man in question is none other than Csevet Aisava (stem aisav-). If our Min Loru were to marry him, she would become Merrem Loru Aisavo, and her future daughter would be Min Runo Aisaveth.

Now, since all this fooling around with the Emperor’s nearest and dearest has attracted some attention, Lieutenant Telimezh is sent to investigate. Conveniently for our example, his surname is an Ezhoen one (stem telim-). He, too, shall therefore become a marital prospect for our Min Loru, who would then be known as Merrem Loru Telimezho, and the daughter she would birth would be Min Runo Telimezhen.

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

The pairing generator

Most pairings are crack. Originally described here.

link to the Python code

It's a Python 2 file. Download it and run it from the command line.

Eg. if you downloaded it onto your desktop, open a command line/terminal, type “cd Desktop”, press enter, then type “Python tgepair.py”. Press enter, and you should get pairings. If this doesn’t work, send an ask to us.

The first pairing generated will be generated by choosing from the entire dramatis personae of the book, including all the Belmalivens mentioned. It is best considered "hard mode". The second pairing is from a shorter list of characters that this nonnie considers "significant" (less Belvesenas!) and thus can be considered "easy mode". Example output: Rosharis/Khever Nemera Drazhar | Varenechibel IV/Sehalis Athmaza There are no safeguards against A/A pairings, so it might occasionally generate some like that. Interpret those as you may.

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

The name generator

(initially described here)

Go to http://bprhad.wz.cz/awkwords/index.php and insert the following patterns:

V (vowels) e*107/a*105/o*47/i*40/u*20/ei*16/ai*7/ee*2 C (initial consonants) *85/c*16/n*14/v*14/d*13/m*12/p*11/r*10/b*9/cs*7/s*7/t*7/th*7/l*6/zh*6/h*4/ch*3/k*3/br*2/st*2/cl/dr/kh/csth K (medial consonants) r*103/*101/n*78/v*61/s*56/l*55/m*43/th*32/d*25/zh*25/c*20/sh*20/ch*18/t*18/h*14/b*13/p*12/dr*8/z*8/nth*7/rn*6/vr*6/lch*5/rth*5/br*4/rch*4/st*4/sth*4/thm*4/kh*3/nm*3/rm*3/thv*3/nd*2/nn*2/rr*2/rs*2/rv*2/sm*2/lc/lm/ln/lsh/lt/lv/lzh/lth/mb/md/mn/mr/ns/nsh S (suffixes for given names) a/is/et/o/an/u N (the endings of surnames for men) ar/a/ezh F (sounds found word-finally) *128/s*29/n*25/r*12/t*7/z*2/th/m/d/b into the pattern: (note that you'll have to correct for umlauts manually) GIVEN NAMES: CVK(V(K))S Examples: era hutho keiet orocu ametis stelea SURNAMES: CVK(V(K))N veinar braca mulvaezh drerar daa aranezh WORDS: CVKV(KV)F dise uran khevira zharola zhebi vases Feel free to try out some other patterns!

[csathu-athmaza-blog]

A short introduction to pronoun usage

The default pronoun set is we/you – using the formal “we” to refer to oneself, and the formal “you” to refer to the person one is addressing. (In English, these are indistinguishable from the plural forms. In unclear cases, Addison makes a note of which is being used.)

Between people familiar with each other, the pronouns used are I/thou – see the Wikipedia page on thou for more information on proper usage.

In cases where the speaker holds all the power and holds the addressee in contempt, the pronoun set is we/thou – see Maia’s final scene with Setheris.

The addressee in the above situation uses I/you, as would a speaker trying to extend the hand of intimacy in a step from we/you to I/thou.