Leave it to pop culture -- and Mel Gibson -- to revive a couple of dead languages…. Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ, opening today, utilizes two tongues from way back in the day: Latin and Aramaic…. the Aramaic spoken today, called the Eastern group of dialects, is different from the Aramaic spoken by Jesus Christ, dubbed the Western group, a branch that is considered extinct. That made it difficult for [the Rev. William] Fulco to translate the Passion script, as no one really knows how Jesus spoke. "We don't know much about ancient Aramaic," says Fulco, who stitched together a language from a variety of sources, including the Old Testament of Daniel, fourth-century Syriac and Hebrew. "Almost every town had a different dialect. I created a possible reconstruction and had to coach all the actors."

• Abjad - symbol for each consonant
• Alphabet - symbol for each consonant and vowel
• Abugida - symbol for each base-vowel syllable (systematically changed for other vowels)
• Syllabary - symbol for each syllable
• Ideography - symbol for each word or morpheme
• Logography - symbol for each word

• divination, foretelling, soothsaying, fortune telling - the art or gift of prophecy (or the pretense of prophecy) by supernatural means
• dowse, dowsing, rhabdomancy - searching for underground water or minerals by using a dowsing rod
• geomancy - divination by means of signs connected with the earth (as points taken at random or the arrangement of particles thrown down at random or from the configuration of a region and its relation to another)
• hydromancy - divination by water (as by patterns seen in the ebb and flow of the tides)
• lithomancy - divination by means of stones or stone talismans
• necromancy - conjuring up the dead, especially for prophesying
• oneiromancy - divination through the interpretation of dreams
• onomancy - divination by the letters of a name
• palmistry, palm reading, chiromancy, chirology - telling fortunes by lines on the palm of the hand
• pyromancy - divination by fire or flames

One of the shows I watched as a kid was "Pirates of Dark Water". The characters on that show spoke English most of the time, but they frequently cursed in the native tongue of Mer, the world they inhabited. Here is a dictionary of these Merian phrases as well as names of places, creatures, and characters.

I thought you might enjoy it, and perhaps there is enough there to make an entry for Merian for the site. The owner of the PoDW site is well versed, and might be happy to contribute.

On a personal note, I'm not sure I agree with some of the spellings she offers, but as no direct information from Hanna Barbera exists to my knowledge, I wouldn't contest her on it, seeing as how she's obviously a much bigger fan than I am.

bal

[< Nevbosh pal, "say".] speak.

balt

said.

baln

saying.

velgom

old man.

velgoma

old woman.

How would you write up a course for a model language, or any language for that matter? I've tried writing up a course for my model language, but I just don't know where to begin.

• In February 2002, I realized that I needed a list of conlang resources; a collection of links to pages that weren't just languages or Babel Text translations. From a humble beginning of just seven links, the Resource collection has grown into 78 resources.
• In March 2002, I realized that thanks to David Salo's Bibliotheca Sagittari, I had a ready-made directory of conlang-related books and videos, which formed the kernel of the Books directory (in fact, David has entered 141 books out of the 168-item collection; come on, add a book!).
• In April 2002, I realized that "Weaver's Dictionary of Verbifications", a short faux dictionary that I wrote in high school, could form the kernel of a New English directory of invented words (and, in fact, I have entered 96 words of the 651-item collection, of which 51 words were from the original collection). It quickly became the second-most popular feature of the site after the Model Languages directory.

Back in December 2003, I began a productive e-mail exchange with Mattias Persson, who first wrote in to tell me, "I love writing systems, and I often look for updates at Langmaker and at Simon Ager's Omniglot". In a hobby comprised of unique individuals, Mattias stands out for his singular devotion to inventing writing systems. His site features six of his writing systems, but it turns out he's invented over 60 scripts, yet finds it too hard to keep his site updated. When I realized that Omniglot, a site I love, prefers to list only distinctive constructed writing systems, I realized that a win-win-win situation would be for Langmaker to add a directory of constructed writing systems: a win for Langmaker.com, because it adds a visually attractive section to the web site; a win for Mattias, because it makes it easier for him to share his work and easier for him to see other's scripts; and a win for Omniglot.com, which concentrates on providing a wonderful overview of natural-language scripts with highlights from some famous constructed scripts.

I've decided to call the section Alphabets, because that is shorter than "Writing Systems" and less ambiguous than "Scripts"; the term "Alphabet" is often used generically to mean any writing system, though it also used specifically to distinguish alphabets from abjads, abugidas, syllabaries, and ideographies. Please add your own writing system to our new directory!

I am writing a website for a constructed language in XML. I noticed that Langmaker.com is written partly or wholly in XML. My question is: how does one create a link in XML to a specific page using CSS?

Someone was asking about more information on Silbo Gomera, as I recall, on your site. This article isn't specifically about that language, but does have information on whistling languages in general.

If I recollect correctly, Miller sung of the "pompetus" of love... therefore I would suggest he meant something along the lines of the pomposity it eschews, and the benefits it gives - thereby attempting to encapsulate all in a single phrase, statement, or notion. Don't we all. Try Alex Connell (very difficult to track down) - he was the 1st to play Millers recording 2 me. Maybe he knows better - if anyone can find him - would be really delighted to hear from him. That having been said to contextualise 'pompetus' into a working OED I'd say something along the lines of: "Sarah said I'm me. Sod everything else. Just love me for what I am. Escape from the pompetus..." Imagine an imaginary Sarah saying that to you. To hell with the pompetus...enough. By the way should it be spelled "pompetus" or pompatus" ? Interested - over 2 U.