Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 36

5 Star Book Reviews: The Other Kind of Life

The Other Kind of Life by Shamus Young

I could say “gritty Issac Asimov” and you’d be most of the way there. Maybe I’ll say “Rivers of London” to get you some of the rest of way. But honestly what got me to keep reading this book was the architecture trivia. Rivergate isn’t even a real city, but its architectural history is fascinating.

Then, yeah, there’s robots killing people and a criminal (famous for a robot-related heist) has to figure out why. There’s a very good discussion of AI and automation, and the with just enough of the protagonist’s cynicism to through the author’s compassion into relief. There’s also surprising, sly humor, which I enjoyed. I look forward to reading Young’s next book.

Five Star Book Reviews: Underlord

Underlord by Will Wight

Imagine that self improvement, pursued assiduously enough, gave you the ability to throw fireballs. Maybe if you throw big enough fireballs, you’ll be put in a position to understand *why* you want to throw them in the first place.

Underlord is the sixth volume of Wight’s Cradle series, and you really ought to read the others first. If you have, then, yes, this book is just as good as its predecessors. Wight has a real talent for quickly fleshing out colorful, but very human characters. When the bad guys are reduced to fine ash, you feel bad for them. The action is a linear extension of the series, but what’s really special about this book is the conceit that you can’t progress past a certain level of magic until you admit to yourself why you’re pursuing magic in the first place. Nice.

Wealthgiver alpha finished!

So I did it. I copied Terry Pratchett’s “scaffolding story” process.

I talked about ideas with my wife, I got my hands dirty with worldbuilding, I meditated, I turned on my playlist full of Ramstein, Panic! at the Disco, and The Dead South, I put hands to keyboard, and I wrote.

I didn’t outline, I didn’t do research, I didn’t second-guess myself about plot or character decisions, or worry about what other people would think. That work all comes either later, earlier, or during different times of day. In my writing time, I focused just on the act of writing. The way you feel water flowing around your body when you’re swimming. Then I sent the scene to my wife and she said “good job.”

I did that every weekday (usually in the morning) for 60 to 90 minutes. Maybe I’d find three different blocks that long and have three writing times. Usually, though, it was just the one. I spent 60 to 90 minutes writing a little scene, more or less loosely connected to the scene I wrote yesterday and the scene I planned to write tomorrow (or not, but I’ll fix those continuity problems later). It felt good. Often that little scene was my most notable accomplishment of the day.

My kids would get nose infections, they’d throw up from the antibiotics for the nose infections, they’d refuse to let me sleep, I’d bend under the weight of seasonal depression, I’d have taxes to do and dentists to visit. But at least I wrote a scene yesterday. At least I will write a scene tomorrow.

And after two months of this, I have told the story to myself. That story is Wealthgiver.

Wealthgiver

Scaffolding story (alpha draft) finished at 23,565 words

Begun on Friday, February 15th 2019 in Knyazheska Gradina.

First line: “Kori Epigi was 16 when she realized that the myth of Persephone was about her.”

Finished on Monday, April 15th in Green Deli on Nikolai Haitov.

Last line: “Kori patted Andrei’s knee. ‘You see how much work we have to do,’ she said. ‘Fortunately I’ve done a great deal of reading on the subject.'”

Now I’m going to let Wealthgiver sit while I work on other things (specifically the Centuries Unlimited). I’ll probably return to it in July and begin expanding and deepening it into full novel length. I’m looking forward to it.

Specbio Questions?

Turns out I’m moderating a panel at Eastercon next week!

It’s called “Creating Fantastic Biologies”

“If you want to make realistic SF aliens, or realistic fantasy species,

where do you start? Our panel discuss how to create fantastic biologies

and environments that really work; and critique those that really

don’t.”

My panelists will be V Anne Smith, T.J. Berg, and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

So what questions should I ask them? I’ll do my best to keep track of the answers and post them.

Trees in the Zoo Park

Trees in the Zoo Park

Rushing to put out thier leaves

The junipers laugh

Eastercon Schedule

I’ll be on two panels at @ytterbiumcon :

Creating Fantastic Biologies (with @aptshadow – have you read Redemption’s Blade? Do it.)

Apr 20 7-8pm in Johnson. Mental Health: Fiction Versus Reality Apr 21 4:30-5:30pm in Earhart

And I’ll be wandering, looking for people to talk to.

In this Parking Lot

In this parking lot

See the clouds and remember

How wide the sky is

Thracian Translations

Here are three of the four Thracian inscriptions. I translated two of them differently from the official translations, and of course there’s a lot I’m assuming. Question marks show stuff I’m really not sure about. What do you think?

SEG 45:835

Raw text: ΔΑ ΔΑΛΕ ΜΕ

Transliteration: Da dale me

Translation: Da (Demetra), protect me!

My translation: (Mother) Earth, protect me!

Gloss: Earth protect.2nd.sing.imp 1st.acc

Da < PIE *dʰé(ǵʰōm) = Earth, Gaia (Goddess)
dal/del < PIE *delh₁-? = protect < share < divide
-e < PIE *-dʰi? = 2nd person singular imperative
me < PIE *h₁mé = 1st person accusative pronoun

The golden ring of Duvanli
Raw text: ΗΥΖΙΗ ΔΕΛΕ ΜΕΖΗΝΑΙ
Transliteration: ēusiē dele mezēnai
Translation: Horseman Eusie protect!
My translation: Eusia, protect (the) horsemen!
Gloss: Eusia.voc protect.2nd.sing.imp horseman.plur/acc

ēusi = female name
dal/del < PIE *delh₁-? = protect < share < divide
-e < PIE *-dʰi? = 2nd person singular imperative
mezēn < ?PIE *mendyos = horseman
-ai < PIE *-ā = plural nom./voc./acc. neuter ??definite

SEG 38:733
Raw text: ΡΟΛΙΣΤΕΝΕΑΣ NΕΡΕΝΕΑ ΤΙΛΤΕΑΝ ΗΣΚΟ ΑΡΑΣ ΖΕΑ ΔΟΜΕΑΝ ΤΙΛΕΖΥΠΤΑ ΜΙΗ / ΕΡΑ ΖΗΛΤΑ
Transliteration: Rolisteneas Nerenea tiltean ēsko aras zea domean Tilezupta miē era zēlta.
Translation: I am Rolisteneas, a descendant of Nereneas. Tilezipta, an Arazian woman, delivered me to the ground.
My translation: I am Rolisteneas, a descendant of Nereneas. Tilezypta, master of Araszeas, comes to me (with) gold.
Gloss: Rolisteneas Nereneas.dat descendant.acc 1st.nom Araszeas.dat master.acc Tilezypta 1st.dat come.3rd gold.

Rolisteneas = male name
-eas < *-o-s = singular nominative masculine
Nereneas = male name
-ea < PIE *-ey = singular dative/genitive masculine (the merger of the dative and genitive is a feature of the Balkan sprachbund, and I'm assuming Thracian had it too)
tilteas < PIE *dʰelh₁- = descendant, scion
-ean < PIE *-o-m = singular accusative masculine
ēsko < PIE *h₁eǵ(oH) = 1st person nominative pronoun
aras zea = ?male ?name
domeas < PIE *demh₂- = master, tamer
Tilezupta = ?female name
miē < PIE *h₁méne = 1st person dative pronoun
er- < PIE *h₁ergʰ- = ?come
-a < PIE ?*-ti = ?3rd person present
zēlta < PIE *ǵʰelh₃-to-s = gold
-ta < PIE ?*-h₂ = nom/acc ?feminine ??definite

I can give Greek and Albanian cognates if you want them.
Dan

Hadji Dimitar

Hadji Dimitar

The rain carries the smells of

Honey and wet leaves

Thracian sound shifts

The fun part of writing my cave-Thracian story is of course getting the chance to reconstruct the Thracian language. I poured through word lists, looked up cognates, shook, stirred, and here’s what crystallized.

Proto-Indo European > Thracian (examples) Notes

*bʰ > b (*bʰébʰrus > berbrus “beaver”, *bʰuǵ > Byzas name) p (*bʰel > pala, *bʰer- >por,per,pes,puis “son”, *bʰerHǵós > berza(s) “pine”) There might have been a dialect difference with b in the north (Dacian) and p in the south (Thracian).

*d > d (wódr̥ > Urda place, *déh₃-tis > Datos place) z (mendyos > Mezēnai “horsemen”, *deywós > ziu “Zeus”) st (*skeyd- ktístai “monks”) I think there was palatalization here, with dy/de/di becoming /dz/, which Greek scribes spelled as best they could. The other possibility is “ziu” was borrowed from Greek.

*dʰ > d (*dʰéh₁s > desas “god”, *dʰewbʰ- > Dapha place, *h₁rewdʰ- > Rhodope “place”)

*ē, > o (gʷḗn-h₂ > goni “woman”) e (*ǵʰēlo > zelâs “gold”, *h₃rḗǵs > rezas “king”) maybe a previous labialized consonant conditions the shift to o?

*e > a (*(s)kelh₁- kalsas “dry”, *bʰel > pala “mud”, *déh₃-tis > Datos place, *dʰewbʰ- > Dapha place, *h₂ekʷeh₂ > achel “water”) e (*kʷetwóres > ketri “four”, *dʰéh₁s > desas “god”, *ǵenh₁- > zenis “child”, *ǵʰwer- > zeri “beast”) ē (*h₁eǵ(oH) >ēsko “I”, mendyos > Mezēnai “horsemen”)  o (*h₂ep- > ópē “river”) wouldn’t it great if Thracian had an /æ/ sound?? But a more likely possibility is the peculiarly Balkan “accented shwa” Bulgarian /ɤ~ɐ/, Albanian /ə/, Romanian /ə/.

*er > er (*bʰerHǵós > berza(s) “hill” *gʷʰer-mós Germe- “warm”) or, er, e, ui (*br- >por,per,pes,puis “son”) There may be some Persian influence on “son.”

*ew > o (*h₁rewdʰ- > Rhodope place) u (*kewH- > kuti “box”)

*ey > i (*skeyd- ktístai “monks”)

*ǵ > sk ((*h₁eǵ(oH) >ēsko “I”) z (*bʰerHǵós > berza(s) “hill”, *bʰuǵ > Byzas name, *ǵenh₁- > zenis “child”, *h₃rḗǵs > rezas “king”) This one is especially interesting because ǵ > z it’s an isogloss for “Eastern” Indo-European languages (the satem languages such as Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian). The word “ēsko,” though is from one one of the three known Thracian inscriptions, and was probably written by a Thracian, rather than Greek, scribe. I wonder, then, if might not have been how Greeks tried to spell /ʃ/.

*ǵʰ > s ((*dʰé)ǵʰōm > semele “Gaia”, *ǵʰl̥h₃tóm > saldas “golden”) z (*ǵʰelh₃- zelta “gold”, *ǵʰēlo > zelâs “pink”) see above. I think it was /ʃ/.

*ǵʰw > z (*ǵʰwer- > zeri “beast”) Perhaps ǵʰwer > ʃver > ʒer?

*gʷʰ > g (*gʷʰer-mós Germe-“warm”) Fun to see those Germanic cognates, isn’t it?

*k > k (*kr̥snós > kersas “black”, *(s)kelh₁- kalsas “dry”, *kewH- > kuti “box”) *kr̥snós is interesting, because it only shows up in Eastern Indo-European languages.

*ḱ > s (*h₁éḱwos > esvas/aspios “horse”) see *ǵ. I think it was /ʃ/, and the *w became /v/, which gave Greek scribes trouble.

*kʷ > k (*kʷetwóres > ketri “four”) or ch (*h₂ekʷeh₂ > achel “water”) maybe /k/ became /x/ between vowels?

*ḱw > sv (*h₁éḱwos > esvas “horse”) zb (*ḱweytos > Zburulus name) see why I think /v/ was sometimes written ?

*l> l (*(s)kelh₁- > kalsas “dry”, *bʰel > pala “mud”, *ǵʰēlo > zelâs “wine”) a nice, stable sound.

*l̥ > al ( *ǵʰl̥h₃tóm > saldas “pink”)

*m > m ((*dʰé)ǵʰōm > semele “Gaia”, *gʷʰer-mós Germe- “warm”, mendyos > mezēnai “horsemen”, *srowmos > Strymon, Struma rivers) another nice stable sound.

*n > n (*ǵenh₁- > zenis “child”) 0 (*mendyos > Mezēnai “horseman”) I think this is palatalization and assimilation: *nde, ndi > ne, ni.

*ō > e ((*dʰé)ǵʰōm > semele “Gaia”)

*o > u (wódr̥ > udrēnas “aquatic”) â (*ǵʰēlo > zelâs/zelai “wine”) You can’t trust sounds at the ends of words.

*ow > y/u ( *srowmos > Strymon, Struma rivers) So was probably written early enough that it still meant /u/.

*p > p (*h₂ep- > ópē “river”)

*r > r/rh (*h₁rewdʰ- > Rhodope mountain, *h₃rḗǵs > rezas “king”, *bʰébʰrus > berbrus “beaver”) I don’t think there was any functional difference between and . Note the rhotization of previous accented vowel in beRbrus.

*r̥ > er (*kr̥snós > kersas “black”) rē (wódr̥ > udrēnas “aquatic”) ri (kr̥snós > Krisos place). The vowel wandering around the r makes me think this r stayed syllabic until very late. Perhaps the front vowel associated with it was /ɨ/ like in Romanian?

*s > s (*kr̥snós > Krisos place, *dʰéh₁s > desas “god”)

*sk > kt (*skeyd- ktístai “monks”) since this word was written by a Greek-speaker, I wonder if it might not actually have been /ʃ/. I’m less sure about this one than the other /ʃ/s, though.

*sr > str (*srowmos > Strymon, Struma rivers) For some reason, this sound shift makes me very happy.

*t > t (*kʷetwóres > ketri “four”, *déh₃-tis > Datos place)

*tw > t (*kʷetwóres > ketri four )

*u > u/y (*bʰuǵ >Buzas/Byzas/Byzantas name) meaning the settlement of Byzos that gave the Byzantine Empire its name might originally have been Thracian, meaning “young goat.” That’s cognate to English “buck,” by the way.

*w, *u̯ > 0 (wódr̥ > udrēnas “aquatic”) ph (*dʰewbʰ- > Dapha place)  I think this means *wV> V and *wC> /v/, with *wb assimilating to just /v/.

Conclusions, it looks like Thracian was a Satem Language, but very close to the split between Satem and Kentum. My feeling is you have (Albanian+Illyrian) on one side, ((Greek+Phrygian)+(Armenian)) on the other, and between them ((Thracian+(Balto-Slavic))+(Indo-Iranian)). So when I make up Thracian words from PIE roots, I’ll try to use roots that survived in at least Greek, Albanian, and Lithuanian. But I’m sure that Thracian borrowed some words from Greek. It might have borrowed some words from some ancient Balto-Slavic or Persian languages, too.

I’m also assuming that Thracian was the substrate language that gives Albanian, Romanian, and Bulgarian their similar characters.

Now, with these sound shifts nailed down, I can take a stab at deriving some new Thracian words! But first, I’ll look back at those three Thracian inscriptions and see if I can translate them. Questions, comments, corrections, and encouragement welcome