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

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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