Re: NATLANG: Scary Document

Emaelivpeith Andreas:
>More on-topic, on of the more attractive features linguistically of the
good ol
>and thankfully dead Soviet Union was the prevalence of officialese abbrevs
made
>of the first bits of the constituent words, eg _Sovnarkom_, _SmerSh_, _GULag_.
>Unfortunately, I've not managed to force similar habits on any of my conlangs.
>Is anyone doing so for his/her conlang?
Asha'ille is a bit obsessed with this process, actually.  For example:

    |tikleisha|
    (I can't remember the original phrase, but this was the first such word)
    Lit:     "and so the mind echoes"
    Means:   "ditto" or "GMTA" (great minds think alike)

    |mmashenkal|
    Phrase:  mmav mlaerml shalnen vel'mlayml shalndas kel
    Lit:     "one's soul moves toward our collective soul".
    Means:   Said when someone dies.  It is believed to be literal truth rather
             than a euphemism like the English phrase "to pass away."  It is
             only meant euphemistically when said about a non-Cresaean who was
             dear to a Cresaean.

    |pavemásh|
    Phrase:  palaem vel'vedá mmavásh
    Lit:     "grains through the wind"
    Means:   "vowel"

    |kishalédhiv|
    Phrase:  kishalníriv shalnen ne ledhel
    Lit:     "the soul disremembers the body"
    Means:   "to decay, rot"

And there's a host of words that can be translated as varieties of "of course":

    |jjhen|
    Phrase:  jhor'no t'jhen
    Lit:    "it is truth"
    Means:  "yes, of course"

    |vilavnik|
    Phrase:  vik'llavni n'o kik
    Lit:     "now I know it"
    Means:   "aha, of course"

    |jotnin|
    Phrase:  llavjotopni n'o
    Lit:     "I should have known it"
    Means:   "doh, of course"

    |daepniko|
    Phrase:  llavdaepni vao'jhor no t'jhen kao
    Lit:     "I already knew that is it true"
    Means:   "obviously, of course"

    |chekyivojhen|
    Phrase:  che'kyitiv vao'jhenillevnilet
    Lit:     "pretend I believe you"
    Means:   "no, of course not" (heavily sarcastic)

Most native Asha'illens know most of the full phrases that a word is based
on, too.  However, the compressed word is _not_ considered slang or overly
casual.  In fact, the full phrases have a very literary quality to them and
are thus not normally used in everyday speech.


--
AA