The Dailies. January 25, 2020
Did you work on your language today? Create any new rules of grammar or syntax? New progress on a script? New words in your lexicon?
On the other hand, do any excavating or reading or enjoying stuff you’ve already created? Do you have any favorites to share?
How did you conlang today?
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3 thoughts on “The Dailies. January 25, 2020”
Some worldbuilding first:
I used to think that if the peoples on the North-East Continent had the same chronology, they would use the date when the Great Peace Treaty was signed as their starting-point (300 Earth years and 30 of their Years before the present). Now, though, it seems that while that date is indeed one often cited by chroniclers, the main ways of keeping track of Years is through shorter eras. Kind of like in Japanese history, a bit, but also I am sure very different.
One of the points agreed to in the Great Peace Treaty was that the city-states would take turns in deciding the names of eras. However, it was not stated who would decide when the eras begin and end. And the eras are not of uniform length: the six eras that have started and finished since the Great Peace Treaty are between 3 and 6 of their Years (30-60 Earth years), while eras from further back in time could be both longer and shorter than that. Perhaps it’s the priests who decide new eras? Perhaps there is a practice and pattern to when they start and end that everyone knows, so it wasn’t necessary to put it into the Treaty? I don’t know yet!
But at least I now have words for era and name of era, plus etymology!
okēmi ‘era’ (East Beldreni)
okim ‘era’ (West Beldreni)
okimiimal ‘name of an era’ (miimal=’name’)
This comes from the Old Lumina word aokema’i, (emphasis on the penultimate syllable), which is a’kami in modern Lumina.
This in turn is a compound of Old Lumina aoke, ‘tree’, and ma’i, ‘time’.
So an era is “tree-time”, etymologically.
I also came up with the word niigos, ‘decide’. No etymology yet.
And ailu, ‘since’ in the temporal sense; ‘ever since’.
Sentence sample:
Okimiimal to, Heirasulimo Ba ailu jogar tama(-dao) niigosyan sakatogluya.
In formal style, this means, “
Ever since the Great Peace Treaty, all the city states (with the plural prefix -dao optional, since plural is inferred by jogar, ‘all’) take turns deciding era name(s)”.
Glossed:
era-name TOPIC, peace-treaty big since all city (-PLUR) decide-INF.FORM together-turn*-PRES.FORM.
*As mentioned in an earlier post, ‘turn’ in the sense of a place in order, not in the motion sense.
One more phrase:
Gukusu okimiiletmal o fetedde? What will the next era name be? (still formal style)
(The infix -et-/-let expresses ‘next’.)
This is so utterly delightful! I love all your worldbuilding notes, btw. It really makes it come together.
Thank you!
When I’ve been out of the conlanging groove for a while, it’s usually worldbuilding stuff that get me back into it!