Arts and Crafts of Words and Tongues: opinions on language, writing, art, science, software, gaming, internet, culture, manga, anime, and whatever takes my fancy.
OK, so I’ve been very silent lately, and the Moten Word for the Day posts have been on involuntary hiatus for a while. I want to apologise for that, and to ask you all to bear with me for a while longer. Between my day job, my private life, and most of all my work for the LCS, I have little time for hobbies at the moment. In fact, I’m in the weird situation right now that conlanging is preventing me from conlanging!
This is not to say that I’ve done no work at all on Moten! Just nothing that I can show yet. Except for one little thing: I’ve updated the Moten dictionary again! :) It now stands at 706 entries (and a grand total of 1619 glosses!). Go ahead and click on the link to have a look at it! Still nowhere near enough words for normal daily use, but I’m slowly getting there :P.
In time, I’ll start the Moten Word for the Day posts again. But while you wait for them, don’t hesitate to have a look at the dictionary. I try to make each entry as informative as possible, but don’t hesitate to ask questions if you find some entry unclear! :)
Sorry for the last two empty posts. Somehow, the IFTTT recipe that I use to copy my TumblrMoten Word for the Day posts to Blogger is not working correctly. I'm looking into it and hopefully I'll be able to solve the issue quickly (we'll see when the next Word for the Day post goes online...).
In the interim, I've gone back and updated the empty posts with the correct contents. You can view them here and here
Thank you all for your understanding. I'm doing my best to ensure it doesn't happen again.
itelmungi /ite̞lmunɡi/, verb: “to be strange, to be weird; to be interesting; to be amusing, to be funny“
And if you think that’s a rather tame meme for this word, that’s actually on purpose. This meme search has produced some results I’ll never be able to unsee again…
So, here we have a word that is (fittingly) rather strange from an English speaker’s point of view. First of all, it’s a verb, yet all its translations involve “to be” together with an adjective. In other words, Moten uses a verb in a place where English would normally use an adjective! That’s not so uncommon actually: words between different languages do not need to line up in terms of parts of speech (this is true even between closely related languages: in Dutch, the equivalent of the verb “to need” is actually an adjective: “nodig”: “necessary, required”. To say: “I need it”, you have to say “ik heb het nodig”: ”I have it necessary”). But how do you handle the attributive use then? (i.e. how do you say “an interesting person” for instance?) That’s actually easy: just use a relative clause: itelmungi itos fokez (literally “a person that is interesting”). Relative clauses are very light in Moten (you just need to put the verb in the dependent form), and are quite common where English prefers adjectives.
Second, the different senses of itelmungi look all over the place. But actually, they do make sense when you think about it for a minute. First, the etymology of this verb is quite simple: it’s a compound of tel: “other“ and imungi: “to be different“. In other words, itelmungi means literally: “to be other and different“, which is pretty much what “to be strange” means :P. Also, things that are strange and weird are usually uncommon, and since we tend to be curious animals, uncommon things are interesting for us. Finally, something that is strange and weird is usually unexpected, and unexpected things are often a source of humour, which makes them amusing or funny :).
So you see, that word’s not so weird after all ;).
|notuk /ɲo̞tuk/, noun: “importance, noteworthiness; also as adj. important, noteworthy“
|notpuz /ɲo̞tpuz/, noun: “unimportance, insignificance; also as adj. unimportant, insignificant“
So… Once again, sorry for not keeping up with my Word for the Day series, but like the owl above, I’ve been swamped with important stuff to do, or maybe |notuk stuff to do ;). So please allow me to correct this by offering you two words today, both very important! :P
So, |notuk refers to the concept of being important or noteworthy, while |notpuz is its opposite, referring to lack of importance, insignificance.
As you may already know, Moten handles negation in a very idiosyncratic way, quite different from the way it’s handled in English. In particular, Moten has no productive way of forming opposites, i.e. it lacks something like the “un-” and “in-” prefixes in English. Opposites are usually just separate stems (like sezgo: “high speed” vs. bontu: “low speed”) that one just has to learn separately.
However, Moten also has a relatively productive way of forming concept nouns (which are commonly used as adjectives) that allows for what looks like a semi-productive opposite formation. This way is based on the opposite pair duki: “solidness, fullness, completeness“ and puza: “hole, gap, emptiness“. These nouns are commonly used in compounds (I often call them “pseudo-suffixes” as they behave a lot like suffixes in these compounds, although they still exist as independent nouns), to form concept nouns referring respectively to the presence or lack of a specific quality. When used in such compounds, they are both always reduced to their short compound forms -duk and -puz, and they tend to correspond respectively to the suffixes “-ful” and “-less” in English (in meaning, if not always in actual use). This means in particular that a compound in -puz will usually be the regular opposite of the same compound in -duk.
This is exactly what is happening with today’s words for the day. |Not in Moten is a noun meaning “(abstract) source, origin”, but also often used to mean “cornerstone, principal part”, or as an adjective meaning “essential, main, chief”. When compounded with duki, it forms |notuk (with the d disappearing due to phonotactic constraints), literally “full of essential things”, i.e. “important”, while with puza it forms |notpuz, literally “lacking in essential things“, i.e. “unimportant”.
And since it’s important to be able to say what’s important and what’s unimportant (at least if you think you’re important), it was important for Moten to have such important words, and it was important for me to share them with you. See the importance? :P
My conlang Moten was featured in the latest episode of the Conlangery podcast! Yeah me! Please go and listen to me in my full French-accented glory! :P
izgeboj /izɡe̞boj/, verb: “to work on; to tire from; to suffer from”
In case you were wondering why I hadn’t resumed my Word for the Day feature yet. Anyway, today’s word is… let’s say relevant.
So, as you may already know, Moten has this strange feature I call “split-nominative”, in which subjects of transitive verbs are in the nominative case only when the subject is willingly acting. When the subject is more of an experiencer, or is undergoing the action, it will be put in the instrumental form instead. This is how a verb like ipe|laj, for instance, can mean both “to see” and “to watch”, depending on the form of the subject.
Now, izgeboj happens to be another one of those verbs which are translated differently depending on the form of the subject. When used with a nominative subject, it means “to work on (something)” (more exactly “to exert effort on something”). It’s a transitive verb, so an object is always implied, even if it’s not explicitly mentioned. If you just want to say “I’m working”, without referring to what you are working on, just put the verb in the middle voice :).
However, when used with an instrumental subject, the meaning of izgeboj shifts and is best translated as “to tire from (something)” or “to suffer from (something)”. Used in that way, it usually refers to physical tiredness or suffering. And the object, the cause of the tiredness or suffering, is usually an action or a physical item (in particular, it’s not used to refer to suffering from a disease).
If you’re wondering whether such a dramatic shift in meaning is realistic, just realise that French travail: “work, job” used to mean “suffering, torment” in Old French, and descends from the Latin word tripalium, which refers to one of the worst instruments of torture the Romans ever devised!
So, for thefourthtime in a row, I've participated in Lexember (check the links for a reminder of what Lexember is). Once again, I've hunted semantic holes in the Moten vocabulary, and filled them with words. And while Moten's vocabulary is still relatively small, I feel that with each Lexember event I get closer to having a usable language :). This time, I really focussed on everyday words, and I think it shows :).
Naturally, things change with time, and I adapted my participation to Lexember to the new situation. And by new situation, I mean my joining Tumblr and Facebook. In the previous Lexember events, I manually posted my words to Twitter and Google+. This year, I did things somewhat differently.
I always felt cramped by the nature of Twitter, which prohibited the long word descriptions I felt I needed to make. So this year, I wrote all my Lexember posts on Tumblr, which allowed me the space I needed while still feeling informal, and allowing the social aspect that is so important to Lexember (Lexember is very much alive in the Tumblr conlanging community by the way). Moreover, posting my words on Tumblr allowed me to automatically share them on Twitter and Facebook too, which I naturally did :). The only manual sharing I had to do was on Google+, as well as on a thread of the Conlang Mailing List :P. And besides that, as you may have noticed if you follow this blog or the Conlang Aggregator, my Lexember posts were also shared here. Automation is a great thing when it works ;).
Because of this, I decided, this year, to handle my Lexember summary differently from other years. Rather than including and expanding the word descriptions here, I will just give the short definitions and link to the relevant posts. So, without further ado, here are all my new Moten words:
to fill, to fill up & to pierce, to perforate, to empty.
I'm really happy with my performance in Lexember this year. Many of the words above are really basic, useful vocabulary that really needed to be covered. Naturally, the Moten lexicon is still as full of holes as Swiss cheese, but the items I created this year are a big step towards filling the gaps. And for those who want figures, after this iteration of Lexember, the Moten lexicon counts 649 lexical items, and 1843 glosses. After the previous iteration, it counted 586 items and 1572 glosses. That's a growth rate of 11% and 17% respectively, for which slightly less than half can be attributed to Lexember itself. Not bad for just a month's work!
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Lexember this month. I know I say that every time, but this iteration was special: it was the first one I did on Tumblr, and it just feels like the perfect platform for it, possessing the casual atmosphere of Twitter without the crippling restrictions (crippling for me at least). And the ability to schedule posts helped me meet every deadline ;). Finally, I had a great time reading fellow Tumblr users' Lexember entries! Some of them were amazing! In fact, I think everyone did really well this year, whether on Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, Facebook or the Conlang Mailing List :P. Great job everyone!
So, all that's left for me to say is that I will happily participate again next time Lexember happens. So far it's only been a pleasant and useful experience, one I'm more than happy to repeat :). It's not often that I find it fun to create vocabulary after all, so such occasions must be cherished!
ipuzdu|l /ipuzduʎ/, verb: “to pierce, to perforate, to empty”
Bvaj “XXX” de kojpej, emekedelun puzdul!
(note: you may need to go to my blog page itself to play the video above)
So, not a meme for the last day of Lexember, but the most epic music piece I know :). Lifts me right up when I feel down! It does fit one of today’s words even :P.
So, to finish with Lexember, I decided to give you two words for the price of one again :). Although I did cheat a little: those words are both verbs derived from words from the last few days by adding istu|l to them. That little verb gets a lot of mileage doesn’t it? :)
Idukstu|l is a verb derived from duki, and thus simply means “to fill something (up)”. It’s strictly transitive. Ipuzdu|l is slightly more interesting. Being derived from puza, it means both “to pierce, to perforate” (i.e. to make a hole in something) and “to empty (a container)”. The meanings are obviously related (try and perforate a container without spilling its contents! :P). Like idukstu|l, ipuzdu|l is strictly transitive, and takes the thing being perforated or emptied as its object.
So, there you have it! Lexember is finished for this year! I really enjoyed this edition, and I hope you did too! Thank you all for following me until the end. I hope you enjoyed the words I created and their descriptions. Don’t hesitate to let me know what you thought of it all via my ask box! :) And one thing is certain, I will participate again in December 2015!
Finally, to everyone, Happy New Year! Imonuj |ledan!
Indeed! While safety margins are a thing, engineers do want to fit needs as strictly as they can. And it often comes back to bite them later ;).
OK, I just couldn’t have a full month of Lexember without giving an example of what I think is the coolest word formation pattern in Moten :). Really, it’s that rad!
So, think of all the things that are basically ranges, like age, height, weight, distance, good vs. bad (and everything in between), etc. Those usually have a name, as well as words referring to specific values (usually extremes) on them (for instance, related to age are the words “young” and “old”; related to weight we have “light” and “heavy”; and related to distance we have “close” vs. “far”). In English, the name of a scale is usually either unrelated to the words referring to specific values (see “age” vs. “young” and “old”), or related to only one of them (“height” is related to “high”, but not to “low”).
In Moten, while some scales also have unrelated names, most scales are named by taking the words referring to extremes on those scales, and compounding them together into a single word! For instance, from odun: “young” and ukol: “old”, one forms ukodun: “age”. In the same way, from sezgo: “fast” and bontu: “slow,”, you get sezbon: “velocity, speed”.
Dukpuza, then, belongs to that type of nouns. It’s a compound of opposites duki: “full” and puza: “empty”, and rather than referring to a specific (high or low) level of contents within a container, it refers to the concept of such a level itself (hence the translation “level” being probably the most accurate here, although dukpuza lacks many of the other meanings of English “level”).
Naturally, since languages abhor neat and symmetrical things, it had to be that dukpuza would develop another meaning, moving from the level of contents within a container to referring to those contents themselves (at least in general). But that’s language for you ;).
puza /puza/, noun: “hole, gap, lack, deficiency, emptiness; also as adj. empty”
I wish it was not so accurate!
So, today’s word is basically the opposite of yersterday’s duki. Puza's first sense is “hole, gap”, i.e. a hollow place or cavity, whether in a solid or on a surface. As an extension to that meaning, it also refers to the lack of something. And finally, it is used to refer to containers being empty of their contents.
Besides that, puza can be used, like its antonym, as a pseudo-suffix to form nouns that indicate a lack in something (much like words in “-less” in English). When used that way, puza always appears in its short compound form -puz, and the nouns formed that way are usually opposites of nouns in -duk (not always though. In particular, nouns ending in -som (which indicate ability or capacity to do something) will sometimes have opposites in -puz).
duki /duki/, noun: “solidness, fullness, completeness; also as adj. solid, full, complete”
Which is basically how I feel right now after so much feasting :). That’s the holidays for you!
Duki refers firstly to solidness, in the sense of lacking holes, being made of one piece. As an extension to that meaning, it also refers to containers being full, and to things in general being complete.
As such, it’s not a particularly interesting word (although it’s a useful one). I does actually get more mileage though, in that it’s commonly used as a suffix (I call such nouns “pseudo-suffixes”, because they behave much like derivational suffixes despite being full nouns) to form nouns that indicate possession of a certain quality (pretty much like “-ful” in English). When used that way, duki always appears in its short compound form -duk.
|no|som /ɲo̞t͡so̞m/, noun: “stability, presence, existence; also as adj. stable, present, existing”
To be fair, the man had worse issues than just that :P.
OK, I have no idea what the deal with this word is. First, its senses. Now, I’ve seen my share of polysemic words in Moten. And I get why “existence” and “presence” could feel related enough to use a single word. But “stability”? Yet here it is…
Second, its etymology. |No|som is a compound, and quite a transparent one at that. But it’s a weird compound. First, I will focus on its second part, which is the least weird :). Som, in Moten, is a noun with a lot of cultural baggage. And since I know so little about Moten culture, this means I have difficulties translating it. In my lexicon, I glossed it as “primordial essence”, “fundamental matter” and “source of everything”. It seems to be a philosophical concept that refers to the source of all energy and matter. But it also has a more mundane meaning of “energy, the capacity to do work”. In that sense, it’s commonly used as a suffix to form nouns that indicate capacity or ability, or other abstract but measurable concepts (an example of that is negzom: “power”, from |negi: “to do, to accomplish”).
So that’s how it’s used in |no|som. But there is one issue: som is normally added to verbal stems, while |not, the first part of |no|som, is a nominal one. It’s actually a noun, with various meanings like “(abstract) source, origin”, “(abstract) cornerstone, main part” or even “head (of a body)”. All things that, while tantalisingly not completely unrelated, are still rather far semantically from “existence” or “presence” (“stability” sounds about right, given |not's meaning of “cornerstone”. But |not is strictly abstract, while |no|som can refer to the physical stability of a building).
So there you have it. A weird noun, with weird etymology and weird polysemy :). It’s probably just a very old formation, which then suffered semantic drift while its components suffered a different kind of semantic drift. Still, it’s not your average noun :).
So, today’s Boxing Day, and since I’m lucky enough that the Netherlands also celebrate that one, I get to be lazy as one is supposed to be on that day, and just make a derivation from yesterday’s word :P.
Kelsin simply means “snowflake”. That’s it. Nothing special :). In terms of formation, it’s also quite simply the diminutive form of yesterday’s keli. The diminutive, in Moten, is often used to mark a unit or small quantity of something, and this is what it does here :).
keli /ke̞li/, noun: “snow (when falling from the sky)”
Literally…
Since people tend to be so obsessed with the idea of a white Christmas, I thought that this was a fitting word for today :P (although given the weather here white Christmases are quite rare where I live).
So, keli is a word for “snow”. But it’s not a generic word for “snow”. Rather, it refers strictly to snow as it is falling from the sky. Once it’s settled on the ground (or your roof ;)), it’s referred to as |no, which also means “ice” and “frost” (as well as referring to temperatures lower than the freezing point. |No is a very versatile word :)).
Another way to understand this distinction: |no refers to snow as a kind of stuff, while keli refers to snow as a meteorological phenomenon. And indeed, the way to say “it’s snowing” in Moten is keli ivda|n ito, i.e. literally “(falling) snow is happening”, using the verb ivdaj, a special Moten verb meaning “to happen”, but restricted to weather phenomena only (i.e. rain, wind, storms, the sun, and indeed snow, among others).
Now, interestingly, while we have the word keli for “(falling) snow”, there’s also the word kele meaning “winter”, and it’s very tantalising to consider them related to each other. Yet I have no idea if they are, or if it’s just a coincidence that they look similar. Add to those two kel, which means “moon”, and you could make quite a few claims (was snow considered by ancient Moten speakers to be bits and pieces of the moon falling from the sky?), but it’s all pure conjecture.
By the way, if you’re wondering, “white Christmas” in Moten is konvoj Noel, literally “Christmas made of (lying) snow” (konvoj is |no in the instrumental, itself overdeclined in the genitive case to allow it to complete a noun).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy your day. Merry Christmas! Noel |ledan!
isfomstu|l /isfo̞mstuʎ/, verb: “to pour, to serve”
It used to happen to me all the time! But practice makes perfect ;).
Anyway, since today is Christmas Eve, and the drinks are gonna flow everywhere, I thought this was a fitting word :).
Based once again on istu|l, and on yesterday’s sfom, isfomstu|l is a transitive verb referring primarily to pouring liquids into some kind of recipient (usually for it to be consumed, but not necessarily). Pouring champagne into a glass, soup into a bowl, or water into a tub, these are typical actions that can be described using isfomstu|l.
However, probably because of the prevalence of pouring drinks intended for consumption, isfomstu|l has also taken on the meaning “to serve (sthg to s.o.)”. In that sense, it is not restricted to liquids, but can be used with anything that can be consumed (mostly food). Basically, it’s the catering word par excellence :P.
isfomi /isfo̞mi/, verb: “to flow; to float; to change”
That’s how I often feel my work flow looks like…
Anyway, once again we’ve got one of those polysemic roots, compounded with the fact that this one can be used as a noun and as a verb.
As a noun, the primary meaning of sfom is “flow, current”. In that sense, it refers strictly to liquid flows. For instance, the current of a river is sfom. Electric and air currents, on the other hand, are not.
As a semantic extension to the idea of the flow of a river, sfom is also used to refer to its course, or path taken, and to all paths in general. And because Moten has this permeating metaphor that equates time with a flowing river, this in turn has caused sfom to take on the meaning “period of time”.
Finally, sfom refers to water flowing not only horizontally but also vertically, i.e. it can be used to refer to rain. In that sense, it only refers to heavy rainfall. Light rain is referred to by the word tlap, which is probably of onomatopoeic origin.
As a verb, the primary meaning of isfomi is “to flow”, and is once again only used of liquids. As an extension to this meaning, isfomi can also refer to objects caught within or on the surface of a flow of liquid, leading to the meaning “to float”. Finally, the time metaphor appears again, and isfomi can also mean “to change, to evolve”, or more precisely “to change as a result of the passing time”.
In any case, isfomi is always strictly an intransitive verb.
(warning: the following discusses profanity and swear words without censuring them)
tneban /tne̞ban/, interjection: “damn, damn it”
Even when I double check, these stupid autocorrect typos keep getting through :(.
So, OK, technically I’m breaking the rules of Lexember, since this is not really a different word from yesterday. But since my 10th Lexember word was actually two words, I feel like I’m allowed a little leeway here :P. And I also felt this specific use of tneban was worth a separate post. It’s different enough that it can nearly be considered a separate word after all.
So, while many people seem uncomfortable discussing this subject, it’s still a fact that all languages have profanity and swear words. They may vary in their propensity to use them (Japanese seems to be rather mild in that regard, while Spoken French seems to have elevated swearing to an art form), but they all have them. As for what is used for swearing, well, the usual suspects seem to be bodily functions, especially those related to sex and excretions, with blasphemy as a close second. Some languages also have their own idiosyncratic swear words (Dutch, for instance, seems to have a fondness for diseases, especially cancer, typhoid and cholera).
Anyway, what I’m getting at is that if you’re developing a naturalistic conlang, you will, at some point, have to think about profanity. And that’s something that’s kept me busy in Moten. Fortunately, with yesterday’s word, I finally have a basic Moten swear word.
Basically, since Moten speakers seem to elevate peace (|la) to a high level of virtue, it simply makes sense that its opposite will be seen as pejorative, making it a prime candidate to turn into a swear word. And indeed, for Moten speakers conflict and war are seen as vulgar and undesirable, and swearing by calling them out brings in the shock value a swear word should have.
So tneban can be used as an interjection. When used that way, it’s a generic swear word. Although I translate it as “damn” or “damn it”, it’s actually a bit stronger than that. I’d say it’s between “damn it” and “shit” in terms of profanity.
Tneban can also be used as an adjective, in which case it corresponds to “(god)damn + noun” in English. And then there’s the expression tneban ba, which I’d say is between “damn you” and “fuck you” in terms of strength, depending on context.
In all cases, tneban as a swear word is used when people feel angry at something. That makes it somewhat different from its usual translation “damn”, which in English can also mark surprise rather than anger.
tneban /tne̞ban/, noun: “war, warfare, conflict; bad health, also as adj. unhealthy”
Other relevant memes just looked too depressing…
Anyway, I know this is the time of “peace on earth” and all that, but it’s difficult to talk about peace when you can’t talk about war. And while Moten already had a word for “peace” (|la, a very important concept to Moten culture), it lacked one for “war”. This is now solved thanks to the word tneban.
Basically, tneban is the full opposite of |la. And since |la refers not only to peace but also to good health, tneban refers not only to war and conflict, but also to bad health. And like |la can be used as an adjective to mean “healthy”, tneban can be used as an adjective to mean “unhealthy” (Moten speakers seem to consider a peaceful society to be equivalent to a healthy organism. There are worse metaphors :P).
And if you wonder whether tneban is related to yesterday’s itneboj, the answer is “yes”, but not in a productive way. There is evidence that as some point, Moten had an agent suffix -an(a). That suffix isn’t productive anymore, but it’s left its mark on the language in the form of various nouns ending in -an which still look related to verbs, although semantic drift has somewhat changed their meanings from straight agent nouns. Other examples include linan: “bird”, from |li|n: “to fly” and oskan: “event, show” from joski: “to happen, to proceed, to last”.
itneboj /itne̞bo̞j/, verb: “to hurt, to injure, to damage”
I think the red sliver is still too wide.
Itneboj is a transitive verb, so it refers strictly to the action of damaging something or someone, rather than the result of that damage. In other words, it means “to hurt” as in “I hurt my leg”, not as in “my leg hurts”. Unlike English verbs, Moten verbs are very strict when it comes to valency.
Another thing to remember is that itneboj refers strictly to physical damage. Hurting someone’s feelings requires another verb.
I hear outside doesn’t even have checkpoints and implements permadeath in such a way that you can only ever play it once! Who let people release reality when it’s obviously still in alpha?!
So, I had a word for “inside” (melag), but not one for its “mythical” antonym. How silly! (pun intended) This is now corrected, with the word sili referring to the exterior or outside (of whatever we are talking about).
Generic location words like melag and sili are quite important in Moten. Since Moten lacks adpositions, and its cases do no allow precise positioning, the way it handles marking precise location is by making use of such words in adverbial phrases, with a noun phrase in the genitive case in front of them. For instance:
umpevi (mo)meleag: “in the house” (literally “in the inside of the house”);
umpevi (mo)siledin: “(moving) out of the house” (literally: “to the outside of the house”).
They can naturally also be used on their own, as in the annoyed mother’s staple: siledin!: “(go) ouside!” :)