Lexember 24, 2021
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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5 thoughts on “Lexember 24, 2021”
For Firen:
sen, v.[patientive, intrans.] to delay, to hesitate, to stall
Zekůseneskni Tuddupo daitifče gůrenvůmmaolusao met fanzaimnaoto.
PP-HAB-delay:DISS-P3pA bee-DEF:PERSON:ABS forever-D-ILL CONT-language-build:SBJ-start-A3pA this sky-turn-ing-INE
Bee waited for forever to start conlanging this year.
Well things came up at the beginning of the month, and then days turned into weeks and the month is nearly over already, but, I did finally decide to come and do the last few. The inspiration for this word should be fairly obvious. It’s been such a long time since I did any conlanging that I had to re-familiarize myself with Firen.I’m not totally sure that the grammar in this sentence is actually correct, particularly daitifče, which means something like “into eternity” and is not a particularly close match for the semantics of English “for forever”, which isn’t even the original thing I wanted to translate; and it also feels like there’s something missing from gůrenvůmmaolusao, even as long as it is already. (Firen is a very verb-heavy language, isn’t it?) Unfortunately, I don’t have any words already for “long (time)” or “to start”, so those might get to be my next couple of coinings.
Also, happy holidays!
I love this! Verb-heavy languages are delightful. Happy holidays and conlanging!
Even with the uncertainties, that’s a great sentence to be able to say, and all too relatable!
Question: what does DISS stand for here? I couldn’t find it on Wikipedia’s page of glossing acronyms.
DISS is for the dissatisfactive mood, which is potentially a unique feature. It just indicates that the speaker doesn’t like the situation they’re describing. It’s kind of the opposite of the deontic mood, which is for describing something the speaker would rather be true.
It almost certainly comes from an adverb *(d)esk in the isolating proto-language, (I haven’t really put much thought into the proto-language for Firen because Firen itself is meant to be a proto-language for the tentatively-named Fulren, so I can’t really say much about it) meaning something like “sadly” or perhaps “alas”, that got grammaticalized into the verb form.
Very cool!