Re: Bell

>From my perspective, I am curious how others have handled the question of
onomatopoeia in their conlangs in general. How do they develop in natlangs.
What prinicples could apply from the study of natlangs that could be applied
to the development of conlangs?
Thanks,
Scotto

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu]On
Behalf Of Roger Mills
Sent: Thu, December 22, 2005 1:43 PM
To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Bell


Charlie wrote:

> My source for senjecan vocabulary does not have a word for "bell," as
> in "ding=dong."  Does anyone have a compound word for "bell" in his
> conlang?  For that matter, how do your conlangs say, "ding-dong"?
>
Kash is based on onomatopoeia--

tañ [taN] sound of a large bell; andañ a large bell
tiñ sound of a small bell; etiñ a small bell; titiñ to ring (of a bell)--
it's marked (vi) in the dictionary, but ought to be (vi,vt)

You could probably say tiñ-tiñ, tañ-tañ or tiñ-tañ for "ding-ding,
ding-dong" etc.

A Carillon would be _kakambrandañ_ 'set of bells'; hand-bells (if they have
them) would be kakambretiñ; the set of tubular bells used by orchestras (if
they have them) would likely be: cindarinda tiñ 'musical-scale +bell'

And there probably ought to be also: tatañ to ring (a large bell, maybe
"peal"). There could also be causatives-- runditiñ, rundatañ?? 'to ring,
make ring (trans.)'-- but referring to things other than bells I think.
Somewhere in the to-do list is an expression for "to ring the changes" both
lit. and fig.

Probably deliberately IIRC, the words for 'hammer(ing)' are similar:

triñ 'light hammering, tapping', trañ 'heavy hammering' with similar
derivatives.

Reply