Re: word choice process (was: Announcement Follow-up)

On Saturday, August 4, 2001, at 10:12 AM, Henrik Theiling wrote:

> "Wade, Guy" <Guy.Wade@...> writes:
>> How did you come to choose those words?  For that matter,
>> how does anyone choose their words?
>
> I usually write a small program that knows about the phonotactics of
> the language and can be invoked with some parameters (e.g. length of
> the word (sometimes in morae, sometimes in syllables)).  Then it
> produces 100 examples and I choose one that I like most.
>
Lucky person.  :-)  It's been way, way too long since I did programming.

I tried the LangMaker.com program but it always crashed on Win98, so I
gave up on it.  Which was a pity; when it did work it looked quite
interesting.

> With Fukhian, though, I also used to borrow from natlangs, but without
> general (sound shifting) rules:
>
>     mes   < fr. maison  -- house
>     ihmin < fi. ihminen -- human being
>
(fi = Fijian?  meep?)  What natlangs do you tend to borrow from--is there
any system or do you borrow as it suits your fancy?  :-)

For Czevraqis, some of the words are derived freeform-style from Korean:
sa [sa] < Kor. sam -- 3
na [na] < Kor. na -- first person pronoun (though it does decline rather
differently)
ako [ako] < Kor. hago -- also, too
aju [adZu] < Kor. achu -- quite, very
maroni [ma*oni] < Kor. manhi -- lots, many

For the bulk of words (using triconsonantal morphology) I just pick a
likely-sounding trio of consonants.

For other, "irregular" words (i.e. those that I made up for the "language"
  before I actually systematized anything), I picked (more) likely-sounding,
  um, sounds:

jenar [dZena*] = shortsword, dagger
jenaczen [dZenatSen] = from jenar aczen or "sword game"; the Game of Blades
tiraczen [ti*atSen] = from tiro aczen or "general game";
   the Game of Generals, a chess-analogue (borrowing elements
   from Burmese, Japanese and Chinese chess--the rules, alas, are not quite
   finalized since Joe never did get to put the thing entirely through its
paces)
vaesaczen [veIsatSen] = from vaes aczen or "blood game";
   the Game of Blood, or war; also known as aczericzen
aczericzen [atSe*itSen] = from aczen ri aczen or "game not game"; the Game
   That Is Not a Game, or war (again)
vaezenar (veISena*] = from vaes jenar or "blood blade"; a sword of
execution,
   specifically referred to that carried by magistrates

These early inventions are sort of contrived, but what the heck, I like
irregularities.  :-)

YHL

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