Re: Double minimal pairs
From: | Herman Miller <hmiller@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, September 3, 2008, 4:11 |
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> "Don't let this happen to you. Order your Phonomatic(TM) Random
> Syllable Generator today, and keep your posteriori out of your a
> priori languages."
;-) one method I've used successfully to avoid English bias (or
anti-English bias for that matter) is to manually create a bunch of
words without meanings, then randomly assign meanings to them. A few of
the Tirelat words were assigned this way, including "kiv" meaning "cave"
and "ret" meaning "reptile". I never would have chosen words so similar
to English, but that sort of coincidence isn't entirely unexpected.
Tirelat has fewer randomly-assigned words than some of my other langs,
but some of them have become well-established, e.g.
ċakni "rich, wealthy"
drambi "sand" (later expanded to include "(ground) pepper")
kezyl "plant" (n.)
kinež "cup"
kwëna "to hear"
luġi "holy, sacred"
maraat "basket"
miłwi "soon"
mizu "onion"
nirik "cheese"
nusu "silent"
sënt "bone"
šmaj "always"
šuuru "door"
tadru "much"
taka "there"
tipa "to enter"
turma "hammer"
vaasa "lid, cover"
xiłki "planet"
zaaxĕn "cellar"
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