Lexember 24
Welcome to the Lexember Challenge!
Every year, conlangers can take the opportunity for the month of December to challenge ourselves to add a new word to our conlang’s lexicon.
What word have you coined today? Any cultural or associated worldbuilding notes? Tell us about your inspiration!
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7 thoughts on “Lexember 24”
(Ah, nice and quiet at home now that the Christmas guests have left — and finally I can relax, with no more Christmas preparations to do!)
Okay, I have to ‘fess up. The truth is that while I have new words to present for Nahul, they mostly come from an old notebook I’d forgotten about and browsed through during Christmas cleaning. They hadn’t entered my files before. So, they’re not really the fruit of any imagination or analysis this month. All I did now was decide that ‘yes, I’ll use this’ and to some extent modify endings and forms, before putting them in my vocabulary file, making them “official”.
Stress on the last syllable, /-h/ after a stop denotes an aspirated stop, and /sh/ denotes [ʃ].
18. lo-char (v) ‘to rise’. The (regular) forms in past tense plural of this word, charas, charek and charár (1pl, 2pl and 3pl, respectively), are identical to the same forms for the (irregular) verb cha, ‘to break’. Can’t be helped! -Not sure yet if this can be used for only objects and natural phenomenons (as with Swedish “stiga”, which needs the preposition “upp” as verbal particle in order to be applied to humans etc); or if, like English, the bare verb can be used for both those things.
19. charan (n) 1) ‘something that rises’, rise 2) the first third of the long planetary year. Nahulans along with many others on the South-West Continent divide the year not only in four seasons, 108 months, and longer units containing several months; but also in three big pieces. This, the “rising” part of the year, from New Year’s Eve by the Winter Solstice to some point between the Equinox and the Summer Solstice, is the first third, comprising 36 months. (Come to think of it, I should come up with a name for that very time when the first third ends and the mid-third begins…)
20. an (n) 1) top, summit, zenith, 2) the middle third of the year
21. lo-mal (v) ‘to sink’ – intransitive
22. lo-malon (v) ‘to sink’ – transitive. The good old causative -on ending makes a transitive. (Swedish also has two different verbs for the itr. and tr. meanings.)
23. maloth (n) 1) ‘something that sinks’, 2) the last third of the year
24. thek (n) ‘coast’. Class II noun, as expected (inanimate ending with a consonant). Object singular: thekat, nominative plural: phithekat, object plural: phithekat, genitive singular theket, genitive plural phitheket.
I love how you wove in the time and the rising and sinking bits. Also splitting up the transitive and intransitive and the different meanings English lumps under “rise”.
And you always have such pretty words!
Thanks awfully!
Lēy /le:j/ = to have, possibly also to contain, not sure yet.
A great verb to have!
I like! Especially the idea of having and containing being potentially lumped.
Thanks!