Writing by Jesse M. Brown

My name is Jesse, I live in Vancouver, BC. I'm a writer and language nerd. My etymology posts Personal blog Brother's art blog Stuff I've had a hand in

[wheel-of-fish]

[jessembrownwriting]

Same ;(

[ikthfantasy]

The first 5 pages of our comic, “The Saviour: A Story of Ikth”

You can pick up the full comic at gumroad.com/l/VAzfr and see more stuff like this at patreon.com/ikthfantasy and facebook.com/ikthfantasy

[kirkegarde]

I made a tumblr account for Ikth.

I’m gonna be using the tag #ikthfantasy

[jessembrownwriting]

I released two huge projects today!

One is a comic that I’ve been working on for years, called the Saviour.

The other is the pilot episode of a fantasy-western RPG podcast, set in the same fantasy world as the comic.

I am exhausted but elated.

[jessembrownwriting]

The Saviour: A Story of Ikth

A young commander, cut off from the bulk of his army and pursued by a murderous enemy, must make a difficult choice: abandon his wounded soldiers and attempt to escape, or risk a likely death fighting alongside them, and hope that reinforcements arrive in time. The Saviour is a standalone story in an ongoing series, set in the fantasy world of Ikth, by Paul & Jesse Brown.

The comic I’ve been working on for over a year!

[jessembrownwriting]

Ikth RPG Podcast Pilot Episode

Jesse, Paul, and the rest of the group play through the initiation scenes for their characters in the pilot episode of this story-driven, fantasy, old-west RPG podcast.

The pilot episode of my Ikth fantasy RPG podcast!

[jessembrownwriting]

The Saviour, my first comic set in my original fantasy world, Ikth, is very near completion!  All that remains is to put in the text!

Additionally, the first episode of my narrative RPG podcast, also set in Ikth and loosely tied to the comic, is ALSO very close to being released!

I am so excited!

[jessembrownwriting]

Hey everyone! I will be at VanCAF 2017 with @paulbrownart, promoting Ikth! We'll be sharing a spot with @lunglessart, at N6 in the Gym. Come say hi to us! We'll have prints, and a VR headset for you to (cautiously) put on and look at a 360 painting.

[spraak-och-lunnefaaglar]

So here’s a folder containing grammar from every language I can think of!

Enjoy it and tell me if you have anything to add to it!

[jessembrownwriting]

This is wild.

[jessembrownwriting]

It’s not writing, but it’s creative expression!  I drew @kiaracake ‘s character for our upcoming game; an elf sniper in Ikth’s western frontier.

[haviary-deactivated20180108]

the fact that the Russian language doesn’t have articles makes me go ??????????????? because in a native English speaker’s head it sounds like a hilarious shitpost type thing

 so when you ask someone “Где водка?” it translates to “where is the vodka?”

 but in my horrible backwards english brain if I don’t see any articles I assume they aren’t there, so yelling “ГДЕ ВОДКА” translates to “WHERE VODKA” like some kind of drunken maniac who you definitely should not give vodka to

[leupagus]

Speaking as a Russian-American who speaks the language and knows a fair share of Russian-Russians, even if Russians did have articles they would still slam open the door yelling “WHERE VODKA” at all times.

[jessembrownwriting]

#fun fact I became really good friends with one of my teachers  #and she and I would drink and she'd complain about articles ALL THE TIME  #she hated them in all the other languages (bc of course like an asshole she spoke French and Italian and Spanish too)  #but English articles angered her the most  #I'm still not sure why  #but every time she forgot a 'the' and corrected herself  #she would say 'the' in the most hilariously resentful tone I've ever heard in my life  #good times 

English has inconsistent articles, which might be why your teacher hated them so much.  Like, there is the (singular, definite), the (plural, definite), a/an (singular, indefinite), and then...   nothing for plural indefinite.  Also there are 2 pronunciations for “the”.

[sumerianlanguage]

Sumerian insults

The Sumerians were big on putting one another down, and the language has quite a few mean insults! This post will give you some examples of useful Sumerian insults and how to use them, in case you need to tell anyone off in a dead language.

Sumerian insults I’ve found useful include uzuh “unclean person”, igibala “traitor”, and shabarra “bastard”. Less intense ones would be hara “rascal, ruffian”, lutumu “dishonest or unreliable person” or nungarra “foolish, disorderly (adj.)”. Many Sumerian insults refer to a person’s bad activities or behavior, like nibulung “pompous”, ninggu “glutton” and lunamtagga “sinner”.

My personal favorite insults in Sumerian are agaashgi “most awkward person” and sangdu nutuku “idiot”, which literally means “(one) not having a head”.

I don’t know if the Sumerians used any insults regarding specific foreign groups, but lukurra “stranger, enemy” is a pretty common negative word for anyone not Sumerian.

Make sure to know that, to insult just one person, use the subject pronoun zae and the singular verb form -men, as in Zae haramen “you are a rascal”. It’s important to use zae because otherwise it might be interpreted as (ngae) haramen “I am a rascal”, which is not what you mean. To insult several people, just take the noun and add -menzen “you (plural) are”, e.g. Haramenzen “y’all are rascal(s)”. In sentences with the verb “to be” you don’t specifically pluralize nouns (and a video on plural pronouns & verb me forms is coming soon!) Also note that if you’re using an insulting adjective, make sure to attach lu- “person” before it: Zae lunibulungmen “you are (a) pompous (person)”.

Now go forth and insult away!

[rusalkii]

I’m now very tempted to change my blog title to agaashgi.

[exsecant-blog]

How do you insult yourself in Sumerian?

[rusalkii]

Going off OP’s blog, you’d say “ngae [insult of choice]men”, where ngae = I and -men = am. So, using my new favourite word, “ngae agaashgimen”. But this is wild guesswork from two examples, so you might want to confirm that with someone who knows what they’re doing (that is to say, not me).

[exsecant-blog]

Crap, I only skimmed OP and it turns out what I wanted was right in there. Whoops. Ngae nungarramen.

[sumerianlanguage]

Yep, the sentence structure for “I am (a) Y” is Ngae Ymen. But don’t forget that, because nungarra is an adjective, you have to attach it to a noun and say “I am a foolish person” — Ngae lunungarramen.

[adora-korra]

the verb “can” is so fuckin weird

for starters, most verbs have a “to” like “to love”, “ to want”, “to fight”, but you can’t say “to can”. in fact, you’d say “to be able to”.

which brings me to the fact that “can” is basically a random substitute for “to be able to” depending on the indicated time ???

like for example:

Past: I wanted Present: I want Future: I will want

Past: I was able to (or I could, it depends) Present: I can Future: I will be able to

like you can say “I can go to the store” but you can’t say “I will can go to the store” you have to say “I will be able to go to the store”.

and like technically I guess we could replace the present “can” with “to be able to” and it would work but just sound hella awk like “I’m able to go to the store”

PLUS it doesn’t get conjugated AT ALL

ex:

I want, he wants I fight, she fights BUT I can, he can You can, she can

IT NEVER GETS AN “ S” it’s never “he cans” or “she cans”

like I’m sure there’re very logical yet bizarre and fascinating linguistic reasons for all this but just like whatthefUCK “can” ????!??!??

[panda-robot-deactivated20170222]

“Can” isn’t a “full-fledged” verb. It’s a modal/auxiliary verb like could, would, should, may, must, might and will. All of these have the same quirks that you talk about.

They generally have specific temporal meanings so they can’t be used in some tenses. They don’t conjugate for person either!

they all have to go with another verb, even if the verb isn’t pronounced. Generally if you say “I can”, it’s understood that you can X because of context

[allthingslinguistic]

My favourite thing about modals is that they originally come from full verbs (”can” has the same root as “know”, “will” is related to “be willing”), but we also have a set of currently-being-created modals that still have a pretty transparent relationship to their full verbs: gonna, hafta, wanna, gotta.

[the-positive-princess]

Do not apologize to me for your bad English. There is nothing to be sorry about for learning to speak English. It’s hard. You are trying your best and I’m proud of you.

[jessembrownwriting]

Beast is a noun that I’m sure you’re all familiar with.  It is a somewhat archaic word for a generic or undefined creature, especially a wild one.  When it entered the English language from the Old French beste, it replaced the Old English deor, which until then had been the generic word for a wild creature.  In common English parlance, animal is now preferred over either.

(x) (x)

[jessembrownwriting]

Grandiloquent is an adjective meaning “spoken or expressed in a lofty style, often to the point of being pompous or bombastic”.  It comes to English by way of the Latin Grandiloquus from grandis (big) and loquus (speaking).  It is a ridiculous word, used to describe ridiculous people.

     (x) (x)

[jessembrownwriting]

Gerund is the form of a verb which ends in -ing, and is used as a noun.  It comes to English by way of the Latin Gerundum, "to be carried out," Because of the word’s association with Latin, in the 1700s, the phrase Gerund-grinder was used as slang for an instructor in Latin grammar... or a pedant.  (x)

[htg17]

Frost giants - comission for http://jessembrownwriting.tumblr.com/