The Dailies. January 4, 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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Hullo! Long time no see! Last time I posted here was back in May, I see. I haven’t been in a strong conlanging mood for a good long while.But the other day I noticed something about Japanese which made me think about Beldreni again (I’ll post about that point later, need to get things straightened out – it might not be about Beldreni at all in the end) which made me come up with new character names which also led to new Beldreni words in the process.
Stress is on the penultimate syllable as usual for this language.
iifu (n.) ‘crest’, like the top of a wave, the comb or tuft of feathers on some birds’ heads, the colourful outcrop on some lizards’ heads (including the widely domesticated lizard species peidel)
Derivations:
ifustu (v) (itr) ‘increase’ – possibly also used in the transitive sense. Note that the long [i:] has disappeared here into a short one.
naifustu (v) (itr) ‘decrease’ – again, possibly also used in the transitive sense. Now the [i] has become part of the diphthong.
mūriifu (v) (tr & itr) ‘climb, go up’ (as in climbing a mountain/going up a hillside, but not climbing a tree. From mū, ‘go, walk’)
jūsen (n.) the name of a species of tree common in the southlands, esp on the western half of the continent. The city of Meren features many of them on the streets and in groves, orchards etc. In my head they look somewhat similar to willows but are also reminiscent of poplars.
narafe (v.) ‘flap, flutter’.
Narafu a nickname based on narafe, where -u is just a nominalizing suffix common for nicknames in West Beldreni
dūze (n) ‘bone’
dūzeniki (n) the name of a scavenger bird that sometimes uses bones from other dead animals to strengthen its nest, which has led to its being particularly associated with morbid imagery and metaphors
-niki (n) a morpheme used in several bird names, not sure yet what it stands for
soboniki (n) the name of a specific bird with a big red crest. The first part of its name comes from the same root as sōbi, ‘effort, care’; perhaps because it flies far north in the summer and far south in the winter, or due to the large elaborate nests it builds.
sakalökrau (v) ‘belong together’, ‘go with each other’, ‘have things in common’. From saka- , general prefix expressing togetherness, like English/Latin co-, plus lökrau, ‘belong’, itself from lö- ‘by, close to, adjacent to’, and krau, ‘hold’. In the sample below we see the verb in formal negative form: sakalökran.
Now I want a word that means ‘nickname’…!
Sample (in formal style):
Kobemimal to Iifu wai. Lanti to, tol lö kotösi uru kāri vas soboniki rai. Iifu saeki lai gūmai tes wai. Vurimimal vas Jūsen sati wai. Meren ho tama ki, jūsen ho sen hemomo wai. San ‘iifu’ ma ‘jūsen’ sakalökran…
“My birth name [lit. ‘seed name’] is Iifu. The reason is that on the day before (my) birth, (my) mother saw one soboniki bird. It’s a bird with a red crest. My first Winter Name was Jūsen. In the city of Meren the jūsen tree is common. But ‘crest’ and ‘jūsen’ don’t belong together/don’t have anything in common…”