Month: January 2019

For Lexember I focused on my most developed language, Keševan. Here is a list of the thirty-five words I made in the month of December, with phonetic transcription and some etymological/derivational explanation.

Verbs are listed with their two principal parts. A noun followed by “-u” is a noun that forms its singular genitive in -u, a small and irregular class of nouns. It also seems that this font makes certain tildes look like macrons—all “macrons” are tildes in my phonetic transcriptions, i.e. they mark nasalized vowels.

Since Keševan is my oldest serious conlang, it is also my most standardly European one. This can be seen below in e.g. verbal prefixes derived from prepositions.

1. samba [ˈsãm.ba] n. ‘chicken’, from Rasal samba. Goes back to Proto-Borvic and has cognates in many other languages.
2. kombla [ˈkõm.bla] adj. ‘stony’, derived from kom ‘stone’ plus the very common derivational adjectival suffix -la/-al (the allomorphs depend on stress and phonotactics). In kombla, an epenthetic -b- intrudes between m and l. This type of epenthesis is very common between nasals and liquids.
3. iašta [ˈjaɕ.ta] adj. ‘juicy’, from iáš ‘juice’ plus a different adjectival suffix.
4. ravóig [raˈvojɣ] n. ‘pier, dock’, comes ultimately from vok ‘land, earth’. The prefix ra- simply means ‘to, toward’. Historically, the word had the suffix -ga, which is a highly productive nominalizer that generally means ‘thing associated with the stem’. Words in -ga have wide semantic meanings, both physical things and abstractions. The historical ravokga becomes > ravoiga > ravóig.
5. udevunga [u.deˈvõn.ga] n. ‘fastener’. Note that nasals are not velarized before velars. Here is another example of -ga, here added to the verb udevupse, udevumo ‘fasten’, itself from ude- ‘through the middle, centrally, or emphatically’ and fupse, fumo ‘touch’.
6. demne [ˈdẽm.ne] n. ‘masses’, from dem ‘many’ plus a collective nominalizer -ne.
7. razalga [ra.ˈzal.ga] n. ‘avenue’ (perhaps a more recent in-world addition to the lang). This word is built up very similarly to ravóig It has a -ga suffix and as part of the stem it has a ra- from the verb razaûze, razalo ‘approach’. Thus a razalga is a means of approach.
8. tómassa [ˈtõ.ma.sa] n. ‘work, labor’, from the verb topse, tomo ‘work’ plus a suffix creating abstract nouns.
9. elpu [ˈel.pɯ] n. ‘apple tree’, from elpa ‘apple’ and the suffix -u, which when added to certain fruits and flowers indicates the tree on which they grow, a feature I shamelessly stole from Spanish.
10. fal, -u [fal] n. ‘gust’, a noun formed by removing the verbal endings from faûse, falo ‘blow’. Nouns formed in this manner typically have singular genitives in -u, especially when the verb belongs to the -o conjugation class.
11. enfaûse, enfalo [ẽnˈfo:se ẽnˈfalɤ] v.t. ‘presage, foreshadow’, from the same verb as fal above with the prefix en- ‘before’.
12. šefíl [ɕeˈfil] adj. ‘underwater’, from še- ‘under’ + fi ‘water’ + -l
13. nuîča [ˈnwit͡ɕa] n. ‘plaque, panel; estucheon’, from nus ‘shield’ and the diminutive suffix -ča. Note that s before č completely disappeared but changed the quality of the vowel, diphtongizing it to [uj], which then shifted to [wi].
14. dumša [ˈdõmɕa] n. ‘luxury’, orginally from the Rasal word for ‘slow’, its verbal reflex in Keševan means ‘relax’ or ‘luxuriate’. The suffix -ša is another nominalizer attached to verbal stems.
15. eîla [ˈi:la] adj. ‘ready, prepared’. Ultimately derives from the Rasal verb éhase ‘to ride’ plus the adjectivalizer -la, which has already been encountered above, thus creating an adjective éhala meaning ‘ready to ride’, the meaning of which only broadened to mean any kind of readiness.
16. éîlase, eîlo [ˈi:lase ˈi:lɤ] v.i. ‘get ready, prepare’, from eîla, cf. above, with the simple attachment of verbal endings.
17. iûzunta [juˈzõnta] adj. ‘indifferent’, literally ‘not drawn (to one side)’, from a participle of zupse, zumo ‘draw, pull’ and the negative prefix il-, which is slightly disguised by sound change.
18. čel [t͡ɕel] n. ‘part’ < Rasal. tyela, in turn from the verb tyese ‘take’ plus a nominalizing -la (homophonous with but separate from the adjectivalizing -la already seen in this list).
19. buzatse, buzato [buˈzatse buˈzatɤ] v.t. ‘encourage’, from bu- ‘along, together, parallel’ + zatse, zato ‘push’.
20. idrazma [iˈdrazma] adj. ‘dreary, dull’. This is a borrowing from modern Calintese, spoken on a large island south of Keševa. The Calintese language has been in contact with Keševan for millenia and huge numbers of loanwords have crossed in both directions at all stages of history. This particular word comes from drazm ‘funeral, sad, dreary’, in turn from ancient drazmi ‘deathly’, from the verb meaning ‘die’. Note that the Keševans have added i- and -a to the word since their language has little tolerance for consonant clusters on word boundaries. Fun fact: idrazma is cognate to žait ‘corpse’, borrowed centuries earlier from a Calintese word from the same deathly root.
21. ášraîna [ˈaɕrẽna] n. ‘sight, apparition, vision” (something seen), from one of the suppletive roots of the verb ‘see’ plus the nominalizing suffix -aîna, which usually means an instance of the verb’s action.
22. udemeûse, udemelo [udeˈmjuse udeˈmelɤ] v.t. ‘surround’, from ude- (cf. above) + mel ‘round’ + verbal suffixes.
23. masse, mano [ˈmas:e ˈmãnɤ] v.t. ‘feel’, from a Rasal word meaning the same. A very old word.
24. naûdra [ˈno:dra] n. ‘gladness, cheerfulness’, from nal ‘glad, cheerful’ and the nominalizing suffix -ra typically added to adjectives. Note the changes nalra > naldra > naûdra.
25. lusavze, lusavo [luˈsavze luˈsavɤ] v.t. ‘complete, achieve’, from lu- ‘through’ + savze, savo ‘carry’.
26. inkopse, inkomo [ẽnˈkopse ẽnˈkõmɤ] v.i. ‘freeze, petrify, turn to stone, become immobile’, from im-, a prefix that has many meanings but here indicates becoming the root, plus kom ‘stone’ and verbal endings.
27. zav [zav] n. ‘shaft or ray of light’, from Rasal zava ‘id.’
28. dagne [ˈdagne] n. ‘chandelier’, from dag ‘candle’ and the collective suffix -ne. The etymon of dag is an archaic verb meaning ‘to stay awake’ plus the suffix -ga, which here has lost its final vowel.
29. halla [ˈhal:a] adj. ‘divine, godly’ from Rasal hyálala, transparently made from the root hyal- which has to do with all manner of godly things, and the adjectivalizing suffix -la.
30. gurta [ˈgurta] adj. ‘brown’, from the passive participle of a verb meaning ‘burn’, since burnt things are darkish and brownish in color.
31. sampevze, sampevu [sãmˈpevze sãmˈpevɯ] v.t. ‘reflect (as a mirror)’, from san- ‘after’ + pevze, pevo ‘turn back’.
32. zeûse, zelo [ˈzjuse ˈzelɤ] v.t. ‘hope, wish’, from Rasal zélase.
33. lunda, -u [lõnda] n. ‘birth’, from the verb lundze ‘be born’. The word is derived in the same way as fal, listed above.
34. ošamu [oˈɕãmɯ] n. ‘cherry tree’, derived from ošám in the same way elpu is derived from elpa (see above).
35. ošám [oˈɕãm] n. ‘cherry’. I confess I made up this word on the spot and I have no etymology for it! By its form and semantics it’s probably a borrowing.
36. eil [ejl] n. ‘shirt’. The Calintese éyal ‘garment’ was borrowed into Rasal as éyala and the meaning narrowed.