Linguistic Terms in Your Conlangs

[Jashan]

I thought we had a thread about this, but I couldn't find it.

I'm working on writing up a basic grammar of Lowan with what I've discovered so far, and for whatever stupid/awesome reason, I decided that the headings are all going to be in Lowan with English translations underneath. (I think my reasoning was, "Well, if this was a real language, and a real book about the language, they'd probably do something like that for 'flavoring'.)

Of course, being that the language is barely started, I'm having to come up with words for things like adjectives, orthography, and syllables -- which I don't think I've done for any language before, at all!

I think it'd be interesting to see how various conlangs name their parts of speech. For instance, I'm using English and Dutch as inspiration for "How might these terms be translated", but I"m sure there's many different ways to describe the same function of something. For instance, English (via Latin) adjective means "something thrown next to" something else; Dutch bijvoeglijk naamwoord is similar: an 'added-next-to name-word'. Lowan goes for agþēdand wor -- a 'describing word' or 'clarifying word'.

So, share your parts of speech in your conlangs! And give meanings for them (literal meanings) so we can see how your con people think about their parts of speech

Lowan (thus far)

gareþ - language ('[thing which is] spoken')

Ēngelsstage - Latin alphabet ('English characters')
līrstage - native runic alphabet ('read[ing] characters')
wanscap - 'normal' spelling standard/convention ('ordinary shape')
computerscap - spelling standard/conventions used in digital communication ('computer shape')
gastagscap - alphabet/orthography ('written shape')

drūje - sounds/phonemes ('sounds')
ōpen drūj - vowel ('open sound')
nar drūj - consonant ('narrow/closed sound')
wordesgascēg - word stress ('word pressure/striking')

nawor - noun ('name-word')
gaslag - grammatical gender/class ('sort, type, kind')
hwamekhei - grammatical number ('how-much-ness')
talkuneghei - grammatical countability ('count-able-ness')
drokkesscap - grammatical case ('function-shape')
agþēdande wor - adjective, adverb ('describing word')
dāwor - verb ('act/move/do-word')

[Edited: agþēdande wor now describes adjectives and adverbs, since Lowan doesn't really make a firm distinction; changed talferhai to talkuneghei to reflect a grammatical change in the language]

[MisterBernie]

In my latest rewrite of Baranxe'i grammar, I have Baranxe'i headings, as well, so I have a couple terms already at hand (plus a few I came up with for this one). The focus is therefore of course on grammatical terms I need for Baranxe'i, so no 'ergative', 'perfect' or 'aspect' yet :/

What I have now:

hefri’ẽ – language archaic term
hēvīr – language
hēva – to speak

auku – sound
- nirauku – vowel < nirā ‘open, wide’
- irsauku – consonant < irsā ‘difficult, hard, troubled’
-- xelauku – stop < xela ‘to stop’
-- ruxauku – fricative < ruxna ‘to flow’

baga – to write < to scratch, to scribe, to grave
bagasa – to write
aukubaŋ – letter
bagāðivahāŋ – writing system
kontbagasīr – orthography < correct writing

ran – word
haunuran – noun < haunu ‘name’
atmanran – verb < atmana ‘to do’
sinran – adjective < sin ‘quality, characteristic’
atmananran – participle ’doing word’
- atmananhaunuran – nouned participle
- atmanansinran – adjective participle
mēzurnran – personal pronoun < mēzurna ‘to act, to procede’
śeðukran – interrogative pronoun < śeðna ‘to ask’
jāŋuran – adposition < jāŋu ‘position, location’
- ŋalþjāŋuran – preposition < ŋalþ ‘front, face, façade’
- aśjāŋuran – postposition < aś ‘behind, following, after’
uðitran – affix < uði ‘towards, at’
- ŋalþuðitran – prefix
- aśuðitran – suffix
- mēzurnaśuðitran – pronoun suffix
haþaran – copula < haþa 'to be'

aŋu – number
- mutaŋu – singular < mā ‘one’
- aþrutaŋu – dual < aþrā ‘two’
- haŋutaŋu – plural < haŋā ‘many, a lot’

xaiġur – gender < sign, mark
da'inanā – animate < living
(da’inanā) aleisā – masculine < living male
(da’inanā) īnasā – feminine < living female
(da'inanā) mavalā – common < living common
mēda'inanu – inanimate < not living

ēlāt – case < duty, role
- mēzutēlāt – nominative < mēzu ‘event, occurance; act, action’
- juŋkutēlāt – accusative < juŋku ‘given thing’
- uðitēlāt – dative < uði ‘towards’
- airnēlāt – genitive < airna ‘to own’
- ētiþutēlāt – instrumental < ētiþu ‘tool’
- jāŋuranēlāt – adpositional < jāŋuran ‘adposition’
- aśinutēlāt – temporal < aśinu ‘time’
ēlātbalba – to decline to break case
- ēlātbalbīr – declension


I still need to rewrite much of the verbal section, hence why I can't fill in 'tense', 'mood' or 'conjugation' right now

[Soap]

mappum "a word with another word infixed inside it"
mappup "a word infixed inside another word"

From borrowed terms meaning 'pregnant' and 'unborn baby'.

The word for alphabet, toppte, is a borrowed term for a collection of stamps (top), since that's generally what they had whenever the whole alphabet was together.

Linguistics wasnt really common in Poswob society, since most people couldnt even read, and most of their scholars were interested in other things. Hence most of the terms are loans even though Poswa as a whole is 98% native words.

[Ollock]

mappum "a word with another word infixed inside it"
mappup "a word infixed inside another word"

From borrowed terms meaning 'pregnant' and 'unborn baby'.

Awesome etymology. I may steal the idea of "fetus" = "infix" for an infixing language I'm meaning to get back to.

[Kvan]

mappum "a word with another word infixed inside it"
mappup "a word infixed inside another word"

From borrowed terms meaning 'pregnant' and 'unborn baby'.

The word for alphabet, toppte, is a borrowed term for a collection of stamps (top), since that's generally what they had whenever the whole alphabet was together.

Linguistics wasnt really common in Poswob society, since most people couldnt even read, and most of their scholars were interested in other things. Hence most of the terms are loans even though Poswa as a whole is 98% native words.

That would be great especially for polysynthetic languages, while they're not technically infixes, stacked together prefixes create prefixes in the center of words. This is great though. :]

[Lyhoko Leaci]

The ones that I have and remembered at this time. No particular order, but words that mean roughly the same thing in different languages should be next to each other.

potcor (Ancaron, "mouth character" language, also means "to speak")
spiik (Myonian, "language "from "to speak" corruption of root)
aomë (Zukish, "language")
spriiken (Myonian "to speak")
latancor (Ancaron, "latin character" - Latin alphabet)
cor (Ancaron "character," the native Ancaron logographic writing system, also means "to write")
marcor (Ancaron, "fragmented characters," the Ancaron alphabet)
al (Ancaron, "sound")
gadin (Myonian, "sound", "phoneme")
vyuul (Myonian, "vowel")
riima (Myonian, "tone", pitch accent, word stress)
om (Ancaron, "noun")
kiind (Myonian, "gender")
jhiendur (Myonian, "kind, type" grammatical case)
forjhiendur (Myonian, "for type" dative case)
mon (Ancaron, "adjective/adverb")
mom (Ancaron, "verb")
cormani (Ancaron, "cor change" - translate, translation)
trensliet (Myonain, "translation")
trenslieþen (Myonian, "to translate")
leetur (Myonian, "letter")
shiirleetur (Myonian, "cut letter" - diacritical mark)
cortio (Ancaron, "character stack" - "word")
word (Myonian, "word")
oc (Ancaron, "adposition")
tus (Ancaron, "number, amount")