Re: Arabic/English based conlang

On Apr 1, 2004, at 4:57 PM, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> I find the idea of a conlang with English derived roots and Arabic
> morphology interesting. If I give a list of roots and their basic
> meanings,
> would anyone who knows something of Arabic like to provide derived
> words
> according to Arabic patterns? (All roots given in CXS).
> NlS	English
> hlk	helicopter
> br\T	birth
> btj	beauty
> wrt	write
> spk	speak
> hmn	human
> hr\s	horse
> pln	plain
> knt	warrior
> brd	bird
> tSr	chair
> tbl	table
> srj	sorry
> hpj	happy
> Pete
This is exactly what happens when non-Semitic words get borrowed into
Semitic languages!
Hmm, using some of your words...
/bati:(j)/ = beautiful (male)
/bati:ja/ = beautiful (female)
/warata/ = 'he wrote' (dictionary form of the verb)
/tabl/ = 'table', plural /?atba:l/
/hurs/ = 'horse', and /bird/ 'bird' also with 'broken' plurals (i can't
think of the patterns at the moment though)
/tSajr/ = 'chair', plural /tSuju:r/

NatLang examples, from Hebrew:
root |?RGN|, 'to organize':
verb |le'argein|, noun |irgun| (an organization)

root |PSTR|, 'to pasteurize':
verb |lefasteir|, example phrase |hhalav mefustar| (pasteurized milk)

I'm trying to think of triliteral ones, but the ones that stand out the
most are the quadriliteral ones since there are very few native Semitic
4-consonant roots.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "it's history because it isn't happening anymore."
      ~ g