The Dailies. January 27, 2023

The Dailies. January 27, 2023

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 27, 2023

  1. Hello! It’s been a good while, but I have some new words for Beldreni! As often happens, I started out doing some worldbuilding musing, realized I didn’t have a word for Thing X, realized I also didn’t have a word for Thing Y which would be handy, looked at existing words and came up with a useful new word which I had meant to use to create Word X… only to realize that nah, etymologically it would be great but the sound of it just didn’t work for me. So I ended up bringing in a loanword instead. As you do!

    unāli (postpos.) around; hāho tama unāli around our town

    gene (n) land, area, territory (Not used much in contrast with sea, then it’s usually chen, ‘earth, soil’ instead)

    fainu or fainugene (n) countryside, hinterland – Notably only used in the southern lands, the winter citystates. Fainu is contrasted with the city proper. It’s a loanword from Old Lumina and used to mean ‘subject towns’, ‘subjugated lands’. Perhaps derived from a root meaning ‘tribute’, or ‘shield’, or ‘roof, cover’… It’s close to the unrelated, wholly Beldreni word faine, ‘to worship’, and fainö, ‘divinity’, but the similarity might be why the synonymous compound fainugene is more common.

    tamagene is used to mean the whole of the citystate, both city proper and hinterland, whenever you feel the need to specify you mean that. Often enough you can just use tama, city, and it will be clear in context which you mean. Another word expressing that same whole is tajoma, with the infix -jo- expressing wholeness, entirety.

    ga-tama, bōti-tama is used when you want to be specific about the opposite – that you’re now only talking about the city proper. Again, often just tama is enough, but adding the prefix ga- ‘proper, real, literal’ or the noun bōti- ‘wall’ will add clarity.

    tamasuza is possibly just a historical word these days, though I’m not entirely sure. It’s used to signify the sole (male) ruler of a citystate. It can be something like a Roman dictator who’s gotten his powers through more or less legitimate ways, according to the traditions of the city, but it can also be an absolute ruler who’s seized power entirely by force.

    The second part of that compound is also new. Suza is one of several words that can be translated with English ‘king’. Today it’s chiefly used in historical texts or fiction texts – or metaphorical, like calling someone the king of chariot racers or tea merchants or the poetry festival. Suza is related to suban, ‘clan chief’, which I’ve mentioned before. (The first element, su-, is an archaic root meaning ‘to mark’. It can still be seen in other words like sulli, ‘mark, sign’, suletti, signature, sulimo, ‘agreement, treaty, contract’, and even sulon, ‘maternal grandfather’. I’ve said this before, but I just think it’s neat.) The second part of suza, -za, is a professional nominal suffix used in a number of words. It’s less common than the suffix -ío, -río with the same function, but still quite productive.

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    1. As you do! Yes, I relate very much.

      I love the distinction between chen and gene. Feels very natural. And they’re lovely sounding words too!

      I foresee lots of wordplay in poetry on that fainu / faine similarity.

      And I just love all the worldbuilding around su and suza and how that works! Lovely!

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