Re: vocabulary

On 14 Dec 2004, at 11.22 am, Gary Shannon wrote:

> --- # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>
>> How do you create a whole lexicon? Particulary if
>> you want it to not be as
>> another.
>>
> <snip>
>
> I like to take a word in some language and then make
> small changes until I find one I like.
I find I don't like trying to find something I like, because to me what
sounds good as a sequence of phonemes doesn't always sound good as the
general sound of a whole language. CV syllables sound nice on their
own, but I wouldn't want a language that had no clusters! That's why
I'm currently going for an a posteriori language (based on West
Germanic).

For instance, I recently wanted a word for 'browser' as in
'webbrowser'. I look around at other Germanic languages (particularly
English) to see what words they've used, how they came about and so
forth. I don't mind borrowing from Germanic languages (mostly Danish,
but also German). In this case, 'browse' had an original meaning
somewhat like 'graze' so I coined the word 'graze' from the word
'grass' (as in Old English), added the equivalent of -er, evolved it to
match the orthography of Middle Føtisk giving _Græsier_ /gra:zi@r/ and
decided that given enough change, and compounding with _se_ (a prefix
indicating looking, searching etc. in MnF) it should mean 'browser'. (I
enjoy using <æ> for /a:/.)

Err... that is to say, I looked through the Middle Føtisk corpus (that
of all linguists and hobbyists in the world, I am in sole possession
of---remarkable!) for a word that could probably be the equivalent of
'graze, browse', and found _græsen_. Noting that the MF equivalent of
-er was -ier~-jer~-er~ire (depending on various factors), I postulated
that 'grazer' (while never actually extant) would probably be
*_Græsier_. I then decided that in Modern Føtisk, the compound
_sengræsen_ would've come to mean 'browse, idly search' and _Segræsier_
'browser'. (I quite like the way MF used <æ> for /a:/.)

Unfortunately I don't think I can remember how it's pronounced in
Modern Føtisk; I think of lost my notebook with the definitive MF > MnF
evolution... Probably something like [Sa:G] (one particular spelling
reform for MnF would thus advocate spelling it <Schiagh>; but it is
ugly and obscures the connection with [XE:] std <Grass> prop. <Che>;
but what connection is there?---the same number of elements are
retained; but just because you don't know the meaning of the
orthography doesn't mean you need to change it, and anyway, the
proposed spelling is *already* out of date, no-one's pronounced the [j]
for at least two generations, and [sC] has long-since been replaced
with [S] in [Sa:G]<[sCja:G]).

I suppose this doesn't help Number One though, by the sounds of it he
wants something a priori. And internal disputes of concultures that he
knows nothing of :)

--
Tristan.