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

Roger Mills wrote:

> Henrik Theiling asked:
> >Roger Mills <romilly@...> writes:
> >>
> >> anak is simply 'child'; 'son', 'daughter' require the words for
> male/female.
> >
> >Is there a distinction between `child' (young person) and `child'
> (offspring)?>
>
> Hmm, not to my knowledge, and I doubt it.....but I'm open to correction.
> I wonder-- how about Tagalog? (Barry?)
In Malagasy, "zanaka" and "anaka" mean "child" in the offspring sense, while
"zaza" and "ankizy" mean "child" in the young person sense--at least, that's
my impression, although I've never really worked on the issue.

As far as I know, there's no difference in meaning between "zanaka" and
"anaka", although the former is much more common.  There also isn't much
difference in meaning between "zaza" and "ankizy", although the latter tends
to have a plural referent.  In addition to meaning "child", "zaza" serves as a
base for forming various compounds:

  zazakely   "baby"  [kely = small]
  zazavavy   "girl"  [vavy = female]
  zazalahy   "boy"   [lahy = male]


> ObConlang:  confession time:  'child' in Kash is _ana, plural anala_ (both
> senses, at the moment, but maybe I'll work on that).
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"

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

Note that "ki-" is the diminutive prefix.  The formative "mi-", found in
"mikoin", "kimikal", etc., is derived from the word for "mother", and also
occurs in other words having to do with mothers, motherhood, or female
fertility:

  miamme       "grandmother (mother's mother)" [amme = mother]
  miahte       "grandfather (mother's father)" [ahte = father]
  misih        "menstruation" [sih = current, flow]
  misihsan     "menstrual blood" [san = blood]
  misilhamput  "menstrual cycle" [lamput = progression, sequence]

Matt.

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