language

Go Not To The Imperials For Counsel

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“The word which is commonly translated as ‘Imperials’, referring to any of the Empire’s citizen-shareholders, is valmiríän in the original Eldraeic; curiously, it is not cognate at all to that nation’s formal name. From its roots, it could have the meaning either of ‘ordered self’ or of ‘self that sets in order’.

When asked if one translation or the other comes closer to the intended meaning, the valmiríän, infuriatingly, always answer ‘Yes’.”

– The Great Powers and Their People, University of Eö Press

The Horns of a Trilemma

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an-lorzhár íren-eloé aldamanyr – lit. “trapped between the gods”; this expression indicates that one is caught in a particular type of dilemma.  Recall, if you will, that in mainstream eldraeic belief the deities are iconic, partially-personified representations of fundamental principles: creation, knowledge, trade, love, invention, war, and so forth.  Thus, one who is “trapped between the gods” faces a dilemma not merely in choice-optimization, but in which of two dearly held principles in conflict they must adhere to, and which defy.

See also: an-lorzhár íren-eloé rian, “trapped between blades”, for lesser dilemmas where one must optimize for the least bad option, and an-yalcetár eloé qanlin quel, “cursed with an abundance of good things”, for those lesser dilemmas in which one must optimize for the best choice among mutually exclusive goods.

– A Treasury of Eldraeic Metaphor

Gendered Pronouns

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As you may have noticed from here, here, and here, I appear to have settled on using the ve/vis pronouns to represent the eldraeic neuter (but animate) gender, and the hse/hsis set to represent the hermaphrodite gender.

(Still no sign of what I may or may not use to represent “prenuptial catalyst” or “postnuptial catalyst”, though…)