Re: Lexeme Request: Water and Fire

Arthaey wrote:
<<
BTW, you labeled both your lists as "Fire." Which one was supposed to
be water? :)
 >>

Oh, oops!  The first list was "fire"; the second "water".

Henrik wrote:
<<
May I ask what do would need a list of these words for?
 >>

Two reasons, actually.  There's a general idea that words in a
given conlang will be assigned based on "feel", and that this will
often cause words for, for example, "water", to all have liquids,
glides, open syllables, etc., so that a really strange word for
"water" would be [blOrkp@sk].  In fact, when Sally (Caves) gave
a talk at Berkeley a few years back, one of the people in the
audience said that "all these" languages are all mellifluous and
"pretty" sounding, and that there was no variability to them,
and that there were no languages with complex sounds, like
clicks, in them.  At this point, I brought up that I had a language
with clicks, and Eve Sweetser pointed out that sound symbolism
(which is what he was getting at) isn't uncommon at all in natural
languages, so why should it be in created languages?

Anyway, for my talk, I wanted to get a large list of words, so
that first I could show how this assumption is accurate, with a
small sample (e.g., the Kamakawi word for "water", [lelea],
just fits right into the old stereotype).  Then, however, when
you expand the list, I wanted to show that the idea that a created
language will always tailor words is really just a myth.  And,
I think if you look over the submissions so far, I think that
summation is rather accurate.

Incidentally, I was just looking for common words, but some
of the terms people have come up with are really fascinating!
For example, I like the idea of having a lexeme like Mike Poxon's
word /arauro/, which is a fire that's large enough to inspire
awe, as a forest fire.

-David
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"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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