Re: Telek -- Invent a Language

On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> Fight linguistic extinction... invent a language!
>
> Telegdonnesned ba'kalym: tellaad sajmo.
[snip]
> The phrase grow a language was chosen to be a bit of a pun.  As the notes
> show, _tella_ means both 'language' and 'tongue' and the verb _sajmo_ can
> mean 'grow'.  So one possible way of translating the sentence would be
> "Grow a tongue" or also "Cultivate languages".  Thus, I chose to use the
> verb "wilt" instead of something like _nippol_ 'become fewer, lessen' to
> extend the gardening metaphor.  BTW, there is no word for "die" referring
> to animals.
Lovely!  I didn't do anything nearly so interesting..."language,"
"speech" and "song" are all expressed by the same word in Chevraqis.
Boring.  <G>

> Hmm... "Grow a tongue".  That sounds like an idiomatic expression for
> "speak up."  Woohoo!!  Since its a common expression, the object will have
> to be incorporated, so _tellasajmo_ '(A) express ones opinion, participate
> in a conversation'.
=^)  That's really fun.  I haven't even tried to tackle puns!  Now, would
a rude way to say "shut up" be something like "may your tongue wilt!"?
Or am I reading too much into this?  =^)

YHL