Re: updates from me and a question or 2

In a message dated 12/28/2002 3:08:41 AM Pacific Standard Time,
fatula3@ATTGLOBAL.NET writes:


> Every now and then this phenomenon has come home, as I find some old
> language project from years and years ago, only to find that one word is
> the
> same in a completely unrelated (and often, very different) language that
> I'm
> working on now.  It could be unconcious memory, but it could also be that
> some things just have a sound that goes naturally with them in my mind.  If
> only we all heard the same sounds... or maybe I'm just hearing things.
>
 Oh, I hate that! When you've developed enough words for your vocabulary, it
will only be a matter of time before two words in the SAME language will
sound suspiciously similar. I made up most of my Kankonian words entering
them in the lexicon immediately without remembering them afterwards. The word
for "word" was made up fairly early on, and it was "arik". Then, eventually I
got to the word for "tongue". The sounds I decided sounded perfect for the
concept of "tongue" were "arig". Then, when I went to the Kankonian-English
section of the dictionary to enter "arig", guess which word I found right
next to the place I was about to put it! The things that come off of your
tongue! Another fairly early creation was "shta" (to measure). Later I came
up with "shta" for the preposition "worth", and when I went to the
Kankonian-English glossary, was I surprised! ("Shta" turned out to be a very
useful verb BTW, and I remember the word well. It's what you use to indicate
age, so that "Wan shtaas 56 oiras" means "He measures 56 years," or, He is 56
years old.) But what is it about /Sta/ that makes the sounds sound so
connected with attaching numbers (measurements or costs) with things? I
explain "arig"/"arik" and "shta" on my page as due to the "atavistic" nature
-- a coming-out of long-forgotten human instincts in the creation of all
words -- of the language; in fact that's how I make them all up. But I don't
see what it is that my mind likes about that combination of phonemes, sh, t,
a.