Lexicon Building

[spanick]

NEXT: dangerous

hulpíu /ˈhul.pi.ju/ “dangerous” from hulp “snake” plus -iː “forms adjectives from nouns” plus –u “nominative”. Normally, the long vowel would take the stress however, because in this instance the primary stress must fall on the root, and secondary stress cannot follow immediately (feet are trochaic), the long vowel is degeminated to a vowel + consonant combination. /j/ is not an independent phoneme in Dnukta’u.

spilu /ˈspi.lu/ “dangerous, risky” from the root spVl- having to do with risk or danger plus –u “nominiative”

Next: custom, more, tradition

[Lich]

damiš [ˈdɑmiʃ] - custom, tradition, (cultural) habit

A diminutive resultative noun of damur "to bind, leash." Culture and various rituals are considered important in the relatively tribal Sharan society, so customs and traditions are seen as "binding."

Translate: paganism, or alternatively foreign religion/worship

[Soap]

damiš [ˈdɑmiʃ] - custom, tradition, (cultural) habit

A diminutive resultative noun of damur "to bind, leash." Culture and various rituals are considered important in the relatively tribal Sharan society, so customs and traditions are seen as "binding."

Translate: paganism, or alternatively foreign religion/worship

Apple PIE: *h₃ēgatinis
Lemonade: wēdapimis
Mandarin Orange: wĕháqìní
Strawberry Icecream: rēstiẓ
Raspberry Wine: lʷāgatṅt
Grape Soda: vēgatinis

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next:

amphibian

[Imralu]

Wena:

• nyangga - "frog", "toad"
  ngwobyu - "frog", "grasshopper"
  ndudu - "frog", "toad", "lizard"
  ndudu dye "frog", "toad" (lit. "round ndudu")
  nyazwa "frog", "crustacean", "aquatic snail"
  zwadobu "amphibian", "land crab" (any species that starts life in water then emerges onto land)

Next: jeans

[masako]

next: jeans

Kala:

kenuahaka - pants of denim

next: behave recklessly; without restraint

[Lich]

olmmagur tygöttel [ˈo̩lmːɑgur ˈtygø̞t:e̞l] - to behave recklessly, irresponsibly, lit. to behave without answers

Translate: transience

[masako]

next: transience

Kala:

tsipa - ephemeral; not constant; temporary; transience

next: nectarine

[din]

Tormiott (Rockall):

I initially didn't want to borrow the word, but I ended up with oupproparsi ˈuːpːɾopaɹˌsi (n) nectarine {+ oupp, naked + roparsi, peach [lit. of Persia]}.

As I thought this was a particularly ugly word, I decided that nettarin ˈnətːaɾɪn was a better option after all.

_____

next: curb

[Imralu]

Wena:

ndogevyo - kerb, curb (edge of road)
zyebi - curb, check, restrain, stop (tr)
zyezo (ya eme) wi zo vyo u nde i yu de i mwe zyevwi u lu hi - to lead (a dog) off the footpath and into the kerb so that it can do its business there.

(Yeah, apparently the third one is a meaning of curb as well. I curbed my dog thrice on our jaunt yesterweek.)

Next: curbstomp (or other brutal attack in conculture)

[Arzena]

Word: curbstomp

Wippwo: dos from Namidu dos 'strike, attack'

Next word: fermentation

[Daedolon]

Ungarhe: <fermentažž> ; ['fer.men.taʒː] ; "fermentation"

From Latin fermentātiō.

NEXT: unification

[hwhatting]

NEXT: unification

Tautisca: ainiti (Verbal noun of ainiten "unite, unify" < ainus "one")

Next: to walk

[Soap]

Next: to walk

Poswa:

pwap, the same as the word for buttocks. Thus one can say
Ramarpum puppi pwafi.
I walked down the street.

There are other words for finer shades of meaning, many of which are formed from compounds of roots that are otherwise obsolete in the modern language. For example nimpwep "to walk on one's tiptoes", despite its appearance, is not cognate to pwap. Neither is pumpwap "continuous walking; work, labor". However, pwempwap "to hike, march, walk forcefully" is cognate. A few other common words are žaepi "to avoid, walk around", požbas "to walk backwards", and pili "to walk around an entire area, explore, study". Anyone can add pumi "barefoot" or pappob "with footwear" to any of these words. These words are context dependent and would not be understood if used in bare form.

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next:

anchor

[Imralu]

• Off topic: Soap, I just came up with the Wena word for buttocks before I saw your post and you might like it. It's bwebwe (pronounced ['bwe.bwe] by initiated men and ['pwe.pwe] by everyone else. It not only sounds like your word, and the kind of word you like, but also reminds me of German Popo, but it's simply a reduplication of bwe, meaning "back".

Wena: aula - anchor (loanword from Polynesian, Proto-Polynesian *tau-(la(ga)) cf. Kapingamarangi/Nukuoro daula, Nuguria taura... loanwords tend to be lacking any initial consonant, which goes back to the artificial, language-game, secret/ritual languagey history of Wena.)

Next: coral reef

[Soap]

• Off topic: Soap, I just came up with the Wena word for buttocks before I saw your post and you might like it. It's bwebwe (pronounced ['bwe.bwe] by initiated men and ['pwe.pwe] by everyone else. It not only sounds like your word, and the kind of word you like, but also reminds me of German Popo, but it's simply a reduplication of bwe, meaning "back".

Thanks. The vowel /e/ is somewhat rare in both Poswa and Pabappa, especially in word-initial open syllables, and is also absent in word-final position in Pabappa. I was hoping to be able to find a meaning, even a somewhat nonsensical one, for bwebwe or pwepwe in Poswa but I can't find anything that would work. The closest thing I can find, even with Poswa's powerful morphophonological sandhi rules, is pweppwe, a compound that would mean something like "fantasy plant". Normally a word ending in -we is likely to be a possessed object, e.g. "your X", where to produce pwepwe X could be a hypothetical word like *pwepwa.

/e/ is actually quite rare in my conlangs in general, but that's not due to any personal dislike of the sound, but rather is an artifact of them all having descended from a language with a vowel system consisting of /a i u ə/, with the scales tipped somewhat in favor of /o/ rather than /e/ in most of the daughter languages that developed larger systems. The situation was similar in Old Japanese.

Among the Wena people, what would people think if I was one of them and spoke entirely with voiceless consonants? Are there many men who are not initiated into the separate language register, or is this considered a social faux pas?

Next: coral reef

Im working on a side project based on fruit flavored languages descended from Khulls. This post is not as interesting as the one further up the page, however, because several of the words are identical or nearly identical to each other:

Apple PIE: pastakʷa
Lemonade: păppaka
Mandarin Orange: pantǎkwǎ
Cherry Jam:hattaka
Strawberry Icecream: psha (/psxa/)
Raspberry Wine: pastakʷa
Grape Soda: fastakwa

---------------------------
Below I've written the Poswa and Pabappa forms.

I'm not really sure about these words either, since the part that means "coral" is a homophone of a word meaning "to slip, slide" for at least 5000 years, and I have it marked "possibly bad" in the dictionary. If I keep it, though, it is actually cognate to the kʷa-type morphemes in the list above, showing that there are a few words in which Poswa and Pabappa actually lack a labial element that is found in related languages, though they usually also lack velar elements. The Gold language word which developed into Poswa šata and Khulls kʷă was hətă.

The Poswa and Pabappa forms are etymologically "coral wall", the reverse morpheme order of the fruit language words.
Poswa: šatablebblos

Pabappa:ada pampopi

--------next:
garden, small farm for one family only

[Imralu]

The closest thing I can find, even with Poswa's powerful morphophonological sandhi rules, is pweppwe, a compound that would mean something like "fantasy plant".

... and when we get down to it, isn't that really all buttocks are? *meaningful glance over lowered glasses*

I swear I don't understand my own sense of humour sometimes.

/e/ is actually quite rare in my conlangs in general, but that's not due to any personal dislike of the sound, but rather is an artifact of them all having descended from a language with a vowel system consisting of /a i u ə/, with the scales tipped somewhat in favor of /o/ rather than /e/ in most of the daughter languages that developed larger systems. The situation was similar in Old Japanese.

Ah, I hadn't really noticed that about Japanese, but now that you mention it, in the few words that I know of Japanese, /o/ does seem to be pretty common. And am I right in assuming your langs ended up with more o because of your love of labials?

Among the Wena people, what would people think if I was one of them and spoke entirely with voiceless consonants? Are there many men who are not initiated into the separate language register, or is this considered a social faux pas?

Well, it's not super common but it happens. There are men who don't pass initiation for various reasons or who don't even show up. There are also men who are deinitiated. If you're not initiated, you're basically not allowed to pass yourself off as if you are, and if you are, it would be very weird to pretend you're not, so basically the assumption would be made that you're a failed man. (The only time people use the other pronunciation is for direct quotations and imitations of people.) There's a whole bunch of things that non-initiate men are forbidden from doing (hunting and marrying are the main ones) and essentially they have to live more or less in the role of women, in a women's house, helping to raise the children of the house, prepare food, weave etc. They will not have any children (or at least any who they can be recognised as the father of). So, basically, might get made fun of, but not socially outcast or anything like that.

Im working on a side project based on fruit flavored languages descended from Khulls.

I've already smiled at their cute names.

garden, small farm for one family only[/b]

Wena:

The hardest thing is the concept of a family, since they don't really do the nuclear-family under one roof thing but have large houses for women and children and generally separate houses for men, at least in traditional Wena society. Anyway...

lyuvyamba - garden associated with a house (lyu "place", vya "plant", mba "house"

Next: initiation test/rite/ceremony

[masako]

next: initiation test/rite/ceremony

Kala:

makue - initiation ceremony; rite of passage

next: to demonstrate (as a protest); a demonstration

[din]

Tormiott (Rockall)

lailtauri ˈlɛːltoːɾə (v) to protest, to object, to voice disapproval, to voice dissent; to demonstrate (with preposition tior iccad); to disapprove of, to speak out against
- lait- lɛːt (pref) on purpose; with a certain goal or outcome; giving ... to
- lauri ˈloːɾə (v) to intend (to say), to mean (to say) (compare mîre); to want to express; to indicate

From which is derived:

lailtadauri ˈlɛːltɪˌðoːɾə (n) demonstration, protest, march (political) {passive from of lailtauri}

And for good measure:

laiccathi ˈlɛːkːɪθjə (v) to demonstrate, to show (how); to point out, to explain, to clarify (by showing; compare soiopp)
- lait- lɛːt (pref) on purpose; with a certain goal or outcome; giving ... to
- cathi ˈkɛθjə (n) hand; friend (also solopp or sôloppo); (v) to be all-purpose; to be multifunctional; to be practical, to be handy, to be useful, to be convenient

____

next: fish trap

[Frislander]

Ätara

yeñka (v, class-I) to seive, catch fish

Derived forms

yeñkak (n, ina) fish trap, seive
yeñkamek (n, ani) fish-trapper

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Next: firewood, kindling

[Imralu]

Wena:

zyavwo - fuel, firewood, kindling (From zya 'GDV' + vwo 'fire')
zyalivwo - kindling (with li 'begin')

Next: shiver

[hwhatting]

Next: shiver

Tautisca: trunten "shiver, tremble" < PIE root *trem-

Next: to cut

[Pogostick Man]

Next: to cut

Proto-Tim Ar-O *tlenhuʃ 'cut, split'
> Classical Ngade n Tim Ar cenús [ɬènús] 'divide, partition off, segment, demerge, write a sequel'
> Proto-O *twenwh 'cut, slice' > O tơnơ: /tənəː/ 'prepare food'

Next: will, command to do something

[Soap]

/e/ is actually quite rare in my conlangs in general, but that's not due to any personal dislike of the sound, but rather is an artifact of them all having descended from a language with a vowel system consisting of /a i u ə/, with the scales tipped somewhat in favor of /o/ rather than /e/ in most of the daughter languages that developed larger systems. The situation was similar in Old Japanese.

Ah, I hadn't really noticed that about Japanese, but now that you mention it, in the few words that I know of Japanese, /o/ does seem to be pretty common. And am I right in assuming your langs ended up with more o because of your love of labials?

Possibly, but only subconsciously. I mostly derive /o/ from other vowels rather than sound changes like /awa/ > /ō/ that would get rid of my favorite sounds. I love /a/ so much that in most of my main conlangs, it is entirely immune to sound changes except those that affect all other vowels (i.e. loss of an entire syllable). I love /a/ even more than I love back vowels like /o u ɤ ɯ/. Having said that, I dont really like front rounded vowels for some reason.

For Khulls I did /u/ > /o/ except after a labialized consonant, and then /ə/ > /u/ unconditionally. /e/ can only arise from diphthongs, and these were rare to begin with.

Poswa uses similar sound changes, but they're much more conditional. Poswa spread from /a i u/ with a marginal /ə/ to /a e i o u ə/ (schwa is spelled "y") with all six vowels being well represented by having lots of polyconditional sound changes. My other conlangs aren't great at filling gaps like this except when they massively reduce their phonologies.

For Pabappa I did /ə/ > /o/ in most words, and to /i/ in a smaller number, while later deleting all word-final /e/.

Next: will, command to do something

I hesitated on this because I dont really have a word that unifies these two concepts. I could see a way through, though if I think of "will" as self-determination, in the sense that one is commanding oneself to do something.

For Poswa I have two words listed for "command", barpla and wišu, with no difference in meaning listed. The first one feels more military to me, and I might unify its etymology with a word for "captain, commander" that is right now not related to it. Simple sentences with these words could be

Barpšabo labompepi pabwepažwi, pappies!
I command you to clean your room, now!

Wišubom!
Because I said so!

Sorry if these sentences sound harsh, it's just the mood I seem to be in, I think.

Also, I'm not sure if the first sentence should have subjunctive mood or not. I used imperative for the "to clean; to pick things up" verb but subjunctive might make more sense. Poswa does not have an imperative subjunctive and I'm not sure such a thing is even attested in natlangs, so I figure I have to choose one or the other. The subjunctive form of "clean-2p.TR" would be pabwepažabwep. This would also change the word for "your bedroom" from labompepi to labompepep, since Poswa marks direct objects for the person and tense of the subject whenever the subject is not explicitly stated before the object (as is the case in almost all 1st and 2nd person verbs).

(The page on FrathWiki says that Poswa does have an imperative subjunctive, but it's marked "*STILL* WRONG, WILL FIX SOON".)

In Pabappa the corresponding words are parabla and wisir. The second would almost certainly die out in common usage because in inflected forms it would collide with the theoretical verbal inflections of a word meaning "pornography". The word for porn is a noun and the word meaning command is a verb, but I still think people would be uncomfortable with the collision. So I will stick with parabla. A sentence similar to the above could be

Poma parablaba labombebidip publisabu, poppis!
I command you to clean your room, now!

I used the imperative mood again here; the subjunctive would perhaps be publisabop but I'm not sure about this since it derives from the imperative and therefore rests on the proposition that a subjunctive imperative must have existed at one point in the past.

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next:
moss, algae, small green plants

[masako]

next: moss, algae, small green plants

Kala:

yosu - moss; lichen; coating [of tongue]

yosuhi would work for "small green plants"

next: to wrong someone, be unjust towards someone

[Frislander]

next: to wrong someone, be unjust towards someone

OK, this is gonna get a bit conworldy, in order to help explain the verbs in question and how they relate to the culture of the Ätara-speakers.

The Äwara have a sense (if not a completely formal written code) of "honour" and "justice". The honorable thing to do is one which helps your cult-house or clan as a whole, especially those things which are seen as duties to them; the dishonorable thing to do is something that counteracts the interests of said parties. Note that activity of some kind is required to ascertain whether something is honorable or dishonorable. For example, someone might be called upon to take part in an initiation ceremony into the cult-house. The honorable thing to do is to take part and fulfill the ceremony with all its proper rituals being conducted correctly. The dishonorable thing to do is to disrupt the ceremony in some way. However, if other circumstances prevent someone from participating (e.g. the death of either themselves or one of their relatives, which necessitates a mourning period of anywhere from a month to a whole year), then they have acted neither honorably nor dishonorably.

Onto the words themselves.

ktäbit v, intr, class-II "to act in an honorable fashion"

brekam v, intr, class-II "to act in a dishonorable fashion, do wrong (with the benefactive applicative)"

Note that, as mentioned above, when these verbs occur with the negative clitice =aañ/ñaa, the action is neither honorable nor dishonorable.

Example:

kamäkumbrekantä
ka-mä-kun-brekam=t
OBL-1-BENF-act.dishonorably=DIR
I did them wrong

Next: weed