Re: Conlang Journal and being a fish

Quoting Josh Brandt-Young <vionau@...>:

> Whew! I just read through my remaining 400 new messages to make sure no one
> had given you these languages yet. :)
Me neither.  Here's Phaleran:

  Hwei  t'unu
  1SgS  fish.ABS
  "I am a fish"

Also:

  Hlaswâšyei         þemonkanâku     on unaio!
  fight.TR.DYN.2SgSC language.PL.DUR of destruction.ABS

  Otmùswašyei         þemonkana!
  create.TR.DYN.2SgSC language.PL.ABS

A couple points.  "Fight" here, with the dynamism morpheme,
implies a protracted kind of fight, not a street brawl.
_þemonka_ is the closest word Phaleran has for this sense
of language, meaning "colloquial speech".  _stor_ "patois,
dialect" generally means only a social inferior kind of
dialect, specifically one that is substandard.  _pasahyâx_
refers only to elite standard languages, which doesn't get
the feel of the English either.  _unaio_ means something like
obliteration, effacing, and does not have the incomplete
sense that the English word "destruction" often does.  ("language
death" would not be something a Phaleran would say.)

Am I too late to have have Phaleran on the current T-shirt?

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637