Mark Rosenfelder

Mark Rosenfelder is an American amateur linguist, creator of a fictional world called "Almea".

Sourced

• The language organ evolved on Tuesday; language was invented on Wednesday; and everyone else in the world was eliminated on Thursday.
  • Mocking the w:Proto-World language hypothesis in an essay
• No matter where Woody goes, he never seems to leave 1955.
  • Discussing the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• It’s a little too early to play curmudgeon and complain that the kids today don’t have the patience to read long web pages.
  • About the paradigm change from static web pages to blogs.
• How did an entire ecosystem develop around dungeon exploration?
  • About Dungeons and Dragons creatures
• I kind of wonder if people who are outraged at the movie saw the originals when they were 13-years-olds and didn’t realize that "cheesy" was registering as "awesome".
  • About Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• A good skeptical mind doesn't waste itself on drugs or ideology, and prefers to break the rules in our minds, in the form of humor, rather than in real life.
  • From an elegy to the Dysfunctional Family Circus
• A nation needs clear rules on what happens in the case of a disputed succession. Surely there’s a Queen’s Bedchamber Mace or someone who knows.
  • Discussing the results of the 2010 UK election

Fictional sayings

• What harms no other is not sin.
  • A saying in Cuzeian theism
• The invariable sign of doctrines invented by men is confusion, contradiction, absurdity, and obscenity
• Idleness, theft, and viciousness dishonor your mother who in pain bore you.
  • Some of the original tenets in Jippirasti, another Almean religion
• If he met resistance he threw men at it; if the obstacle was insurmountable he went around it; if the odds were hopeless he trusted in Jippir (God)
  • About a leader of the Tžuro
• Words are devils, which may lead a man to pick up a sword; but they can never teach him to use it.
  • A saying by Nyekhen, an early Almean general who became a culture hero

Unsourced

• Some creationists suggest that Noah took not dogs, wolves, and foxes on the ark with him, but only one animal which after the flood generated all the species of canines. This is actually stupider than simply saying "God just did it; don't ask questions." It seems to come from a worry that, after all, canines do seem to be genetically related; but then it sweeps away the genetic relationship to felines, primates, birds, chordates, etc.
  • On the theory of evolution