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Conlang words (was Re: conlang greetings? (was Re: Let me introduce myself))

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Friday, November 30, 2001, 6:12
nicole dobrowolski wrote:
> well i haven't taken any words from anime (and i must admit my anime > experience is limited to sailor moon, poke'mon, and 2 episodes of > ranma 1/2)
Ah, you poor deprived child! :-) I love Ranma. I've seen a little over half of it, I think.
> the word for evil is 'spike' after the > character spike from 'buffy: the vampire slayer'...
Another great show. :-) Is it written "spike", or is it /spajk/, written in whatever that would be in your orthography? There's a carnivorous plant on Kassi-planet called the _Laikka_. It's a rather large, nasty one. Unlike Earth carnivorous plants, it's not confined to insects, it eats large animals, and has even lost much of its photosynthetic ability. It's named after a character Lyekka from the show Lexx. Lyekka is a shape-shifting intelligent plant that eats animal protein. Since I suspect it'll be asked, the Laikka captures prey by means of a large leaf hidden by forest debris. If a creature steps on the leaf, it will snap close tightly (like a giant Venus flytrap), a sharp needle will puncture the creature's skin releasing a powerful paralytic (to prevent creatures with claws from damaging the leaf, or even escaping) and digestive juices will be released, filling the chamber and slowly digesting the creature. Once all the nutritional value has been extracted, the leaf opens back up, revealing mostly bones, which will be disposed of by scavengers, and debris will once again cover the leaf, which will not remain dormant until the Laikka becomes hungry again. This is one reason it's a bad idea to travel alone. A lone traveler stepping on a Laikka leaf is assured of death, but a companion with a knife can cut thru the leaf and pull out the victim, who will recover from the paralytic within an hour or so. Anyhoo, back to conlanging: Occasionally, when stumped for inspiration, I'll listen to Japanese songs and take words (or often parts of words, sometimes even the end of one and the beginning of another!) to use for words. For example, a song happened to contain the form "nakanai" (I won't cry) as I was trying to come up with a word for "to swear, to vow", and so I decided to make it _nakanai_! :-) I actually prefer when the meaning of the Japanese has little or no connection with the U. word. There's also a few names used, like "friend" is _s-lana_ (the s- is a gender prefix, hyphen isn't actually written, I just put it there for clarity), a distorted version of _Laura_ (which could come out as _lala_ or _lulla_), while fish used to be _l-idika_, a slight modification of _ilika_, the adaptation of the name "Erica" into U. phonology, the reason being that her screen name contained the word "fish" in it (the word is now _l-ika_). _K'issi_ ([keS'Si]) means "deceptively cute", after a friend, KC, who appears to be sweet and innocent, but isn't. :-) Oh, and _ambaa_ "silly" after another friend, Amber. -- "There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd, you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." - overheard ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42

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nicole dobrowolski <fuzzybluemonkeys@...>