Mipa aylì’u sì aylì’fyavi nì’ul More new words and expressions

Started by Toliman, February 29, 2024, 02:30:35 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Toliman

Mipa aylì'u sì aylì'fyavi nì'ul More new words and expressions
https://naviteri.org/2024/02/mipa-ayliu-si-aylifyavi-niul-more-new-words-and-expressions/
Posted on February 28, 2024 by Pawl

Kxì, ma frapo.

Zìsìtnuntrr Lefpom! Happy Leap Year Day!

A bit of explanation:

I realized there was a gap in the lexicon in the area of words relating to long and short. Here's what we've had up to now:

                                    TIME                          SPACE, PHYSICAL EXTENSION

SHORT                      yol                                pup

LONG                          txan (?)                        ngim

The problem is with txan—as you know, a widely used adjective meaning 'great' or 'much.' It can mean 'long' for time, when used specifically with the word krr. (Txankrr, by the way, is an adverb meaning 'for a long time.') For example, we have the iconic Yola krr, txana krr, ke tsranten, 'It doesn't matter how long it takes'—literally, 'Short time, long time, doesn't matter.' But what about 'a long speech' or 'a long song'? Txan doesn't work for those.

Instead, we have nun:

nun (adj.; RN: nun) 'long (of time)'

The paradigm is now:

                                    TIME                          SPACE, PHYSICAL EXTENSION

SHORT                      yol                                                    pup

LONG                          nun, txan (with krr)                    ngim

   Sunu oer Ralu, slä fìsäfrrfen peyä lu nun nìhawng.
   'I like Ralu, but this visit of his is too long.'

nunyol (n., NUN.yol) 'length (of time)'

penunyol (pe.NUN.yol) / nunyolpe (NUN.yol.pe) (inter.) 'what length, how long (of time)'

   Nga harmahaw penunyol?
   'How long were you sleeping?'

For completeness:

pengimpup (pe.NGIM.pup) / ngimpuppe (NGIM.pup.pe) (inter.) 'what length, how long (of physical extension)'

zìsìtnun (n., zì.sìt.NUN) 'leap year'

zìsìtnuntrr (n., zì.sìt.NUN.trr) 'leap year day'

On to other things:

Here are some more new words I hope you'll find useful, some of which stem from the contributions of the Lexical Expansion Project. (Irayo nìtxan!) I have quite a few more of these suggestions, which I'll get to for future posts. Here I'll also say something about a recent presentation I put together that I've now given a couple of times.

First, an idiomatic expression:

eltut heykahaw (EL.tut hey.KA.haw) 'be boring'

Literally, this is 'puts the brain to sleep,' heykahaw being the causative of hahaw 'sleep.' Compare this with the familiar expression eltur tìtxen si, 'be interesting,' which literally means 'awakens the brain.' (Question: Would you classify eltut heykahaw as vin., vtr., or neither? 🙂 )

   Tsasäftxulì'ul peyä eltut heykolahaw nìtxan.
   'That speech of his was very boring.'

For someone to be bored, as opposed to something being boring, a separate word is used:

skeykx (adj.) 'bored'

   Oe 'efu skeykx ulte new tivätxaw ne kelku.
   'I'm bored and I want to go home.'

nga'prrnen (vin., nga'PRR.nen, inf. 1,1) 'be pregnant (for people)'

This word came up in the recent talk I gave (see below). It's clearly a compound of nga' 'contain' and prrnen 'infant.'

   Zun ngal oey tsmuket tsive'a, zel am'aluke ivomum futa poe nga'prrnen.
   'If you saw my sister, you'd certainly know she was pregnant.'

To say someone is pregnant with offspring, just use nga' in a normal transitive construction.

   Pol pxeya prrnenit ngeia'.
   'I'm delighted to say she's pregnant with triplets.'

   Krra ngal oeti ngarma', 'efu pefya?
   'How did you feel when you were pregnant with me?'

Since we distinguish between prrnen 'infant, baby (person)' and lini 'young of an animal,) we likewise have separate words for pregnant.

nga'lini (vin., nga'.LI.ni) 'be pregnant (for animals)'

tìnga'prrnen (n., tì.nga'.PRR.nen) 'pregnancy (for people)'

tìnga'lini (n., tì.nga'.LI.ni) 'pregnancy (for animals)'

kakmokri (adj., kak.MOK.ri) 'mute'

Compare this with other kak– words like kakpam 'deaf' and kakrel 'blind.'

tìkakmokri (n., tì.kak.MOK.ri) 'muteness'

nìkakmokri (adv., nì.kak.MOK.ri) 'mutely'

Kllkxolem fo nìkakmokri luke fwa 'awa lì'uti plltxe.
'They stood there mutely without saying a word.'

säfpìlyewn (vin., sä.FPÌL.yewn, inf. 3,3) 'communicate'

This is a compound of säfpìl 'thought' and yewn 'express, convey.' Communication is expressing and conveying your thoughts to others.

tìsäfpìlyewn (n., tì.sä.FPÌL.yewn) 'communication' (colloquial pronunciation: tsäfpìlyewn)

   Txo po lu kakmokri, fyape säfpìlyewn?
   'If he's mute, how does he communicate?'

pamtseovi (n., PAM.tse.o.vi) 'musical piece'

   Awnga tìng mikyun aylì'uluke a pamtseovir ko!
   'Let's listen to some music without words.'

pxawtok (vtr., PXAW.tok, inf. 2,2) 'surround'

This word and its syntax are based on tok. Rather than occupying a place in something, however, here you're occupying a place around it—that is, surrounding it.

   Pxawtolok snanantangìl yerikit.
   'The nantang pack surrounded the yerik.'

ehetx (n., e.HETX) 'excuse'

ehetx si (vin., e.HETX si) 'make an excuse, make excuses'

   Furia nga ke tsan'ul, var nga ehetx sivi nì'aw.
   'Regarding your lack of improvement, you only keep making excuses.'

ken (adp.) 'despite, in spite of'

   Ken tìnawri peyä, ke flolä.
   'Despite her talent, she didn't succeed.'

   Ken fwa lu por 'awa nari nì'aw, lu Mati taronyu aswey.
   'In spite of having only one eye, Mati is the best hunter.'

räptulì'u (n., räp.tu.LÌ.'u; RN: räptùlì'u) 'coarse or swear word'

räptulì'fya (n. räp.tu.LÌ'.fya; RN: räptùlì'fya) 'coarse, vulgar language'

These compounds derived from räptum, the adjective meaning coarse or vulgar. Unlike N + lì'u compounds such as kemlì'u, syonlì'u, and tilì'u, where the stress is on the first syllable, this ADJ + lì'u compound has stress on lì'. That stress pattern has contributed to the m of räptum dropping over time.

nìräptum (adv., nì.räp.TUM) 'coarsely, vulgarly'

   Fyape yawne lu fkoru tute a frakrr voìk si fìtxan nìräptum?
   'How does one love a person who always behaves so coarsely?'

To refer to speaking vulgarly or using vulgar language, the expected plltxe nìräptum has evolved into a shorter idiomatic form:

plltxe räptum (idiom) 'to speak vulgarly, use vulgar language, swear'

katìng (vtr., KA.tìng, inf 2,2) 'distribute'

   Eykyul ayswizawti katolìng ayhapxìtur tsamponguä.
   'The leader distributed the arrows to the members of the war party.'

tìkatìng (n., tì.KA.tìng) 'distribution'

tsyang (n.) 'swarm'

You can speak of tsyang ayhì'angä, 'a swarm of insects,' but also metaphorically of tsyang suteyä, a swarm of people. The difference between snahì'ang, a group or collection of insects, and tsyang ayhì'angä is that the latter conveys a somewhat negative feeling, in that the insects are experienced as annoying and perhaps threatening. Sna– is neutral and doesn't have that connotation.

luan (vtr., LU.an, inf. 1,2; RN: luan) 'owe'

Luan refers to having a moral obligation to give something to someone.

   Fol ngeyä tsmukeru luan tskoti amip.
   'They owe your sister a new bow.'

   Oey voìkìri alewnga' luan oel ngar tìoeyktìngit.
   'I owe you an explanation for my shameful behavior.'

Among a very helpful collection of items for clarification (irayo, ma Txonpay!), there's a list of 37 flora and fauna I need to post here along with stresses and derivations so they can be entered into our dictionaries. I was waiting for them to appear on Pandorapedia so you'd be able to see the pictures and read the detailed descriptions. I'm sure these will be available at some point. In the meantime, since these names have already been made public via the video games, I'll get to them in the next post.

One more thing: Some of you may have seen and heard the recent talk I gave to the lì'fyaolo' on the topic of language and thought, concentrating on the (in)famous Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. After that presentation, I revised and expanded the talk a bit before I presented it to the University of Victoria (Canada) Underlings, UVic's student-run undergraduate linguistics club. (I love "Underlings"!) If you missed the original talk or wanted to refresh your memory and also see a bit of new content, you can watch the revised presentation here (Google drive link).

Hayalovay, ma eylan!