Jacq Drixon Cahagn

Mon: translation + context (100 words of Borlish +) Tues-Thurs: dictionary entry + etymology + example sentence Fri: in-universe excerpt (250 words +)

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Overview of the Boralverse alternate history setting

Sound changes from Vulgar Latin to Borlish

notes in translation on the Norman city of Roun [Rouen].

Fondað par y Gallesc, lonc y Roman y citað digna Rotomagus e lonc y mesur l'intermane y sce dell'evesquað vecin nell'epoc dy Mitað-Asc primal. Founded by the Gauls, the city was known to the Romans as Rotomagus and it became the seat of the local bishopric in the early medieval period.

Ny siecr nouf sceye l'envajon dy Normant afont dy region cosogr y Paramontað Dannesc modo magno; d'an 850 Roun er seyon gournað. The ninth century saw the incursion of the Normans into the region as part of the wider Dane Supremacy; by 850 Roun was under their control.

Ag siecr onç er Roun denuð yon sceye y cort dy dynasty Drengot, oc y Ducað a Normandy regnant com vassal meg autonom. By the eleventh century Roun had become the seat of the Drengot family, ruling the Duchy of Normandy as a semi-autonomous vassal of the Kingdom of the Franks.

Posc y Conjuraçon Cornovan e lor y nastiscenç dy Preu Empir Drengoçan oc y bempart d'Albion eð y plurem de Gal abrangent, Roun er maugrfeyað. After the Kernovan Conjuring and the formation of the First Drengot Empire covering much of Albion and most of Gaul, Roun was sidelined.

L'Emperour Drengoçan tramigraurn lorry cort a Paris, con tan ðe parmaneurn a y ducað a Normandy eð a Cantuer posseïr lou meðes. The Drengot Emperors moved their court to Paris, although they continued to personally own the duchies of Normandy and Kent.

excerpts from A Glimmer of the Grimmer, a collection of correspondence between philosopher Rachel Desselut (1715–82) and mathematician Raymond al Mustafa (1710–88) which was compiled, translated and published in 2008 by Ankerton [Nuneaton] Scholastic Primers. The following text is taken from letters written while Desselut was in the Provence capital of Marsella and al Mustafa was in the Aragonese city of Huesca. Desselut's original letters survive among the Bouvoin Papers at the Vithor New School; al Mustafa's are kept in the Barcelon Gravatory.

1758 N October 14

…my long silence; I cannot blame the wars. I had the pennackit [cholera] this last summer, and twice I quite convinced my doctors that I should not reach autumn, and yet I have in fact outlived the oleanders.

My abbess [1] is dead. The words lack sentiment, though I felt it; she had been frail since the old year and we spoke our farewells far before the pennackit overthrew her. She leaves me the least of the upper rooms and the best of the library. Neither is large but the Ovid is complete, and I have been reading him into the night for the first time since Mascon [2]. He is unkind to women, of course…

…been worrying at a gap in the Parable [3], try as I might. Ink spills, copyists drowse. In most cases I can well read a manuscript despite some deficiencies. By what means can the Divine Word [4] correct errors which compound in mere matter? Do the mathematicians know of methods which will tolerate a mistake…

…little progress on the Cartographer [5]. Every time I begin, I find I have written another parable. — R.

PS. A favour, if you are ever in the capital. My father's annotated Vallakis was reported in the Jeans [Genoa] peripatetic bookhouses, which I know to visit Barcelon. The flyleaf bears our arms in red ink, and his hand fills the lower margins. I no longer think of recovering the entire library, but I would have that one volume, if it lives.

[1] Desselut spent many years as a lodger in a minor complex of religious buildings outside Marsella, following periods of exile in Norman Kent and Portingale.

[2] The Burgund town of Mascon [Mâcon] was the seat of the Bouvoin viscountcy, where Desselut's father's manor house stood.

[3] The Parable of the Mute Bookbinder, Desselut's most famous work, in which she describes how a book might fully describe its own creation.

[4] Desselut's controversial name for the written instructions she believed to be scribed within living cases [cells].

[5] Apparently referring to a collection of unfinished essays on memory and identity, published posthumously as The Tellure and the Tellard in 1819 by the University of Hulm [Ulm].

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1758 N November 17

…Duke [6] is angry with his couriers, and his couriers are angry with the roads, and I receive what is left of everyone's patience. Your letter found me in good health; having read it twice, it leaves me all the better.

To your question. I have a name for you, though it has not yet left my workshop. In the course of astronomical prediction, I encounter configurations which are resident, settling to an arrangement almost no matter how they begin (I am reminded of a method for finding the edge of a square), and those which are fugitive, when variation in the beginning is only amplified with time. I do not know how fragile the Word is. There are enough miscarriages to suggest that some mistakes, at least, cannot be corrected…

…you told me from St. Ives [Setúbal, Portugal] that you had considered "Inner Word". I have always found the name you chose to set a fence between your argument and your reader, but I cannot begrudge your conviction. It is only that my city is full of scholars and clergy with their own convictions…

…a disadvantage. My Madray [~Madurai] correspondent, of the medical school, has convinced me that the progress of life theory here in Barcelon is dead. I have considered Roun [Rouen], or (to my mother's delight) the new observatory in Mashick [~Mexico]; I no longer believe I will die in Huesca.

I will look for the Vallakis. If it is in Spain I will hear of it by summer. — R.

salbrut /salˈbrɪt/ [salˈbʀɪt]

saltpetre, potassium nitrate, a chemical compound with the formula KNO₃ found as a white powder with a sharp and bitter taste;

(formerly) any of similar compounds such as sodium nitrate

Etymology: Middle Borlish, borrowed from Scholastic Latin sāl brūtus "dull salt". This is a folk-etymological adaption of Arabic بَارُود • bārūd "saltpetre; gunpowder", which is of uncertain origin. The term brut for a general nitrate was derived from the name of this substance in the eighteenth century.

pighar /paˈjar/ [pɐˈʝɐː]

bugger, top, to penetrate in the course of anal sex;

(loosely) fuck, to have sex with;

screw, cheat, ruin, to deceive or to scupper the chances of by underhanded means

Etymology: disputed. Attested since the eleventh century in late Old Borlish piȝar "bugger", making it the second-oldest vulgarity for intercourse after foutr "fuck" < Latin futuō "I fuck". Possibly the word is a dialectal form of piglar "plunder, pillage"—compare Old Borlish caiȝ "toggle" < Vulgar Latin cavicla "latch". Alternatively, it might derive directly from Latin pēdīcō "I bugger" (although the word has no other descendants).

coricheyar /ˌko.riˈkjar/ [ˌko.ʀɪˈkjɐː]

(of fabric) to decorate with chintz patterns;

(of a person) to dress in chintz-patterned fabric;

(of a room) to fill with chintz-patterned items of furniture;

(colloquial) zhoosh, spruce, finesse, spice up, to make more appealing or exciting

Etymology: 19C, verbal derivation from noun coricot "chintz (fabric, clothing, furniture)", as though the -ot ending were a diminutive suffix. The noun comes from the city of Coricot [Kozhikode] in Limerick [~Kerala, India], from where the fabric was exported. In metaphorical usage the term is seen from the 1950s.

notes in translation on the Mendevan [North American] polity of Mashick [~Mexico].

Vascel Morracan ny Colluy dy Nou Mont stablisceurn ligaçon commarcer ny siecr quinç jagerrem coll'Empir Mascic joun naðusc, oc stant nell'oç epoc fort circonscreutessem cos geographic. Morrack vessels of the New World Company established trading relations in the late fifteenth century with the relatively-new Mashick Empire, which at that time was much more geographically restricted.

Ny dezein prosequent seget Novomondin monfeyað se correurn tras l'occeyan Atlantic des Mascic, com bustr tascban e scoclet. The next decades saw many Novomundine crops make their way across the Atlantic from Mashick, including tashban and shockle.

Mascic e Tavancy luïsceurn sona de mojol por y geoscopy dy païsaç Mendevan. Mashick and Tavancy served as bases for exploration of Mendevan lands.

Flottisc carteyaurn cos slognað allors jusc l'Ax, e Mascic sarveu a gournanç issarr sur porçon dell'Arcabil e lorry risceç aðoyent. Fleets charted as far afield as the Ax, and Mashick was used to exercise control over parts of the Arcabil and their growing riches.

Mascic ny siecr novoç intermane un entrell'amaçgat ðescnat dell'Ubictað, y doctrin politic smargent. Nineteenth-century Mashick was one of the hotbeds of the nascent political philosophy of Ubiquity.

further excerpts about gases from the Veriloquace Glossary of Alchemy, a reference quire compiled by Rotcham University Primers [1].

aphlox n. [/ˈa.flɔks/ "carbon dioxide"] a colourless and unsmelling air which is the principal product of the burning of e.g. plant matter in fresh air, exhaled by animals. 1699 < Scholastic Latin āēr aphlox "aphlox air" < Greek ἀφλόξ • aphlóx "flameless". The term formerly referred to any air in which burning could not occur, gaining its current sense in the late eighteenth century.

aureol n. [/ˈəu.ʒɔl/ "helium"] the corporal [element] whose atoms have 2 mora [protons], a colourless and unsmelling air which is sparser than any air except aquifer [hydrogen]. 1831 < Scholastic Latin corōna aureola "golden crown" < Classical aureolus "gilded, golden" < aurum "gold". This is a doublet of aureole [/əuˈʒuːl/ "halo; corona"], which refers both to the crown of light worn by saints and to the crown of light wreathing the sun. The corporal aureol was first observed in the sun's aureole via its iris [spectrum] in 1816.

ignifer n. [/ˈai.nɪ.fə/ "oxygen"] the corporal whose atoms have 8 mora, a colourless and unsmelling air occurring as one-fifth of air in tesquo and necessary for animal life and for burning. 1699 < Scholastic Latin āēr ignifer "igniferous air" < Classical ignis "flame". The term formerly referred to any air in which burning could occur, gaining its current sense in the late eighteenth century.

noxal n. [/ˈnɔ.ksəl/ "nitrogen"] the corporal whose atoms have 7 mora, a colourless and unsmelling air occurring as almost four-fifths of air in tesquo. 1772 < Scholastic Latin āēr noxālis "noxal air" < 1674 terra noxālis "muriate of ammony" [NH₄Cl] < c1550 noxaterra < adapted to terra "earth" from c13C Malchassian νοξάτερα • noxátera < Classical Persian نُشَادِر • nushádir "æq". Noxal air was first isolated in 1772 by combining muriate of ammony with psolic salbrute [KNO₂].

pharmac /farˈmak/ [fɐːˈmak]

medication, pharmaceutical, drug, medicine, a substance ingested or injected to heal or otherwise affect the health of a patient;

(historical) charm, talisman, fetish, amulet, an item which has been enchanted to have a magical effect (especially promoting harm or healing);

remedy, fix, solution, silver bullet, an unexpected method of solving a seemingly intractable problem

Etymology: Medieval Borlish, borrowed from Latin pharmacum "drug; poison", from Greek φάρμακον • phármakon "drug; potion; dye". The historical use persists in parachthon [e.g. fantasy] writing, having fallen into disuse in post-Arnoutszen medicine; the metaphorical extension is attested from as early as the sixteenth century.

sine sanguine /siˈne ˌsan.gaiˈne/ [sɪˈne ˌsaŋ.gɐiˈne]

morganatic, (of a marriage) not entitling the children of the marriage to inherit the property or titles of the father;

life, for life, (of a position or role) not automatically passed on to one's heir upon one's death;

second-rate, second-class, B-tier, lacking features of the best or most prestigious alternatives

Etymology: Middle Borlish, legal jargon from Latin from sine sanguine "morganatic", literally "without blood". The ablative sanguine is a byform of sanguis "blood", which via a Vulgar accusative sanguem gave Borlish sanc "blood". In extended use the phrase is seen from the nineteenth century.

enmigtað /ˌɛn.maiˈtaθ/ [ˌɛn.mɐiˈtaθ]

enmity, hostility, the condition of being enemies or at cross-purposes;

rivalry, competitiveness, a desire to defeat one's opponents;

rancour, animosity, a feeling of ire for someone over a perceived wrongdoing

Etymology: Middle Borlish, noun derivation from enmig "enemy, rival". This descends directly from Latin inimīcus "enemy", literally "un-friend". For the sense developments, compare parallel constructions in other Romance languages such as Portingale nemizade or Norman enmisté "rivalry".

notes in translation on Denmark in the medieval period.

Danmarc es un polity peninsoler se situant entr y Mar Norðer e Gravinic. Denmark is a peninsular polity located between the North and Graven Seas.

Danmarc sta un part dell'eiðel dy pouvr Dannesc durant y Paramontað Dannesc nell'epoc dy Mitað-Asc, dont sorten gazou viking eð accommission fragossaver. Denmark was part of the homeland of the Danes during the Dane Supremacy in the medieval period, from which viking raids and colonisation projects left.

Y regnour d'Istr Boral eð y bempart de Larry Dannesc pall'oc epoc broucan linaç ant orin ne Danmarc. The rulers of Borland and much of Dane England during this time were dynasties originating in Denmark.

A mesur dy siecr seç Danmarc intermane sodal dy Concert Dannesc, un union monarchal de stat norðer. During the sixteenth century Denmark was part of the Dane Concert, a monarchic union of northern states.

Y famigl reyal acommis un gran aðendrment de lorry reyaum pall'annað pres d'an 1560, loy visitant com Albourg. The royal family undertook a grand tour of their realm in the years around 1560, visiting places like Alburgh.

excerpt from the answer key for the Conster Open School's 2010 scitation paper on Government in the Drengot Collusion, 1936–61, taken from the quick-fire "In Fact" section. This consisted of incorrect statements; examinees had to identify and correct the mistakes.

In 1941, the Ministry for Consequences was given the authority to name all proposed acts, laws or regulations. —While Consequences had this authority in almost all cases, they did not have this power when the legislation was proposed by Consequences itself.

During these years, the Ministry for Information was located in a brick-faced building in Roun [Rouen] officially known as the Red House. —"The Red House" was an entirely unofficial name for 1 rue d'Abiscandre, popularised by newspapers of the Russet Dove writing guild.

The Darchild memorandum, made public in 1960, included correspondence from then-leader Romney Darchild discussing the Ministry of Information's discreditable clandestine activities and corruption. —The memorandum included several missives sent to, but not from, Romney Darchild. Darchild used this fact to unsuccessfully claim ignorance of the Red House's activities during the Furore of 1961.

The Collusion imported astraphor [electricity] in this period from polities including Bavarn and Portingale. —The Collusion was always a net exporter of astraphor; Bavarn and Portingale were two of its many customers.

Civic celebrations were held through 1952 to mark the centenary of the formation of the New Urban Mesh, seen as the forerunner to the Drengot Collusion. —The 1952 celebrations marked the political union of Norman Kent, France and Burgundy in 1852, which predated the formation of the New Urban Mesh by thirteen years.

panelleyar /ˌpa.nɛˈljar/ [ˌpa.nɪˈljɐː]

tessellate, to assemble into a space-covering arrangement;

pattern, copy, imitate, repeat, to cause to be in a repeating arrangement or to replicate an existing arrangement elsewhere;

theme, to align various features of something to all conform to a single concept

Etymology: Middle Borlish, verbal derivation from panel "panel; motif, template", originally "swatch of fabric, panel of wood". This descends via a Vulgar Latin diminutive from Latin pannus "cloth, rag".

engin /ɛnˈʒɪn/ [ɪɲˈʝɪn]

nature, character, an innate quality;

disposition, inclination, habit, the way in which someone is apt to behave;

talent, ability, skill, unpractised capability;

(historical) onager, catapult, battering ram, any of several types of siege engine

Etymology: from Old Borlish engeȝn "talent; siege machine", inherited in the first sense from Latin ingenium "nature, cleverness" and borrowed from Old French cognate engin "cleverness; siege machine" (from the same Latin word) in the second sense. The historical use is based on first-millennium writers such as the younger Isidore, who copied it from late Classical authors. The sense "nature" was reinforced by theological writing in the Second Tetrarchy period (1028–c.1200) which contrasted ingenium "nature" with accidentia "happenstance".

scrim /xrɪm/ [xʀɪm]

swordplay, fencing, the art or skill of fighting with blades;

scuffle, skirmish, clash, a minor or disorganised physical confrontation (also metaphorical);

banter, repartee, persiflage, rapid witty or combative back-and-forth in conversation

Etymology: early modern borrowing from Tuscan scrima "swordplay", a deverbal from scrimire (also schermire) "fence, fight with swords". This itself was borrowed from Lombard Dutch skirmen or Frankish skirmian "protect, shield", both from Classical German scirmis "pelt; covering, shelter". Extension to verbal sparring is seen from the late eighteenth century.

notes in translation on the Second Roman Empire from the first millennium through the Second Tetrarchy period.

Plusour heresy Chrestan ayen lorrell'orin ny Scon Empir Roman, cos particuler durant y preu millenner. Many Christian heresies had their origins in the Second Roman Empire, especially in the first millennium.

L'ec son abrangent de casc y 'heresy Greçan' noncupað, tan com Marmeronism. These include all the so-called 'Grecian heresies', as well as Marmeronism.

Candon parson nell'Empir ec tal sentenç sposant acavau a influyenç signfeyant accarr, l'Empir se pone nacleu a lou exiglar vars communtað monastic slognað. When individuals in the Empire who espoused such viewpoints acquired significant influence, the Empire had a propensity for exiling them to far-flung monastic communities.

A mesur dy Scon Tetrarchy, l'Empir attegneu un zantr cas eðegl (alcant y concarnç de Derban d'an 1206), yon lo gournau feu des Corsc nell'ovest vars y Mar Hazaran nell'aust. During the Second Tetrarchy, the Empire reached a territorial maximum (with the capture of Derban in 1026), controlling lands from Corse in the west to the Hazaran [Caspian] Sea in the east.