Mark Rosenfelder

Mark Rosenfelder also known as Zompist, is an American amateur linguist and computer programmer, 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
• If you're the sort of person who likes absolutes, you want them even if all your other convictions change.
  • What's wrong with libertarianism
• Rejecting Chomsky is almost a full time job. He keeps changing his mind, so you have to study quite a lot of Chomsky before you know all the stuff you can reject.
  • What is syntax?

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