Re: children & offspring (was Re: Origin of the word 'kivismi')

On Mon, 30 Apr 2001, J Matthew Pearson wrote:

> Tokana has a rich set of expressions to refer to young people, inspired in
> part by Malagasy:
>
>   pyi       "child (of someone), offspring"  [could be an adult]
>   kimi      "baby, newborn / toddler"
>   kimikal   "baby boy"
>   kimoiha   "baby girl"
>   mikoin    "pre-adolescent child"
>   mikal     "pre-adolescent boy"
>   moiha     "pre-adolescent girl"
>   kelis     "adolescent girl, young woman"
>   kalon     "adolescent boy, young man"
In Valdyan:

nute     "baby, infant", "toddler",
         also "son, daughter, descendant" (any age)
nuti     "offspring"
tanuti   "little kids, little ones" (ta- is the diminutive prefix)
lesne    "pre-adolescent child"
hanie    "teenager, adolescent"
razie    "young adult, young person"

and while I'm at it:

salne    "adult"
ruve     "old person"
(or ruvie)

If a person's gender is important, _ense_ "man" or _lyase_ "woman" is
used adjectivally.

> There's also the word "lati", which means a group of children playing,
> working, or sitting together.
I like that!

  Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas