Re: Opinions on English

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>Obconlang: how are units of time handled in conlangs?  And I've been
>wondering how many natlangs have 7-day "weeks," and what other
>day-groupings are common.>

Kash:
On Cindu, the day has 20 hours (aro, pl. arosh), of 50 minutes, (nasa, pl.
nasash). The day begins at midnight, called aro angasi (... beginning), or,
aro mesa (... one), or 0100 in officialese. (Yes-- that could be confusing
to us)

"What time is it?" :  fiyan aroni? ,or, aroni fiyan? (how much/many hour-of
it)

"It's 8:10/ten after eight":  aroni fanu (i) mepola (...eight (and) ten)
0810- you can also say "teka" (tick, or "o'clock") instead of aroni.
Since 50 is not evenly divisible by 4, they have no real way of specifying
"quarter of an hour", though you could say e.g. "fanu ri kuha" eight at
(one)fourth".  Rather, they  specify 10min. intervals with "kunim"(fifth) ,
which in Terran time would actually be around 17 mins.

The half-hour is called "angunjo" (half) -- sana (i) angunjo "9 (and) half"
=
0925; you could be precise and say sana (i) rofola nim.*
Noon (1100) would usually be "aro cindero" (< cini+lero mid day) or else
"aro folames" (11) , since cindero can also refer vaguely to the 2-3 hour
period around mid-day, siesta time in the tropics.
After the half-hour, up to about :30 or :35, it's still "hour plus (no. of
mins.)";
thereafter you take away from the next hour.  So 1440 would be "folanim
kandi mepola" fifteen front 10, or folanim rambas mepola ..15 take-away 10;
again to be precise, "folaha (i) hafola"*.  Little children find 1444
amusing-- folaha hafola ha.
"Aro lus" (last) is 2000, or else teka ropola (tick twenty)-- teka preceding
ro/ropola is general, due to a language constraint on two r's in a row.

*In the terms for 20-90, all have "hardened" -pola except 20 and 40; all but
fussbudgets use -pola in every case.

I suspect the Kash and Gwr, being relentlessly decimal,  count 400 degrees
to the circle, so each of the twenty time zones covers 20 degrees.
Unfortunately I drew maps based on 360 before realizing this.

I think I've posted on their calendar before, but if elsewhere, a recap:
pehan 'year' 464 days (their day = approx 25+ Terran hours); 20 aro to the
lero 'day', 50 nasa to the aro, 100 tiki to the nasa.  16 ashurak 'month' of
29 lero.  There are 28 numbered days (4 sotero ~trelo of 7 days), with an
unnumbered, free day, cinjurak, between 14 and 15.  Days 1,8,15,22 and also
non-working days, in addition to various religious and political holidays.