Re: Tidbit from my conlang

H. S. Teoh wrote:
>I've been working on my conlang's lexicon a bit today, and thought you
>might be interested in a few of the most recent entries:
>
>k3Tai'
>        regular neuter noun; stem k3Taa'.
>            (1) "Strength", "power", "force", "urge", "motivation".
>            (2) "Dynamon": technical term used to describe that which
drives
>                change in Ferochromon physics.
>            (3) Linguistic term for the instrumental case.
>
For Kash:  (1) shaka 'strength, power, force (implication: physical)'--
'urge, motivation"-- quite likely two separate items since the "urge" to do
something is not necessarily the same as "motivation" to do s.t.(this could
be derived from _om_ 'reason, cause, basis').  (2) We cannot discuss
physics; shameful gap in my education.  (3) No Cindu lang. that I know of
has a marked instr. case; the concept will no doubt involve the verb umit
'to use' or the derived prep. yambit 'by means of'.

>gi'bi
>        regular neuter noun; stem gi'b3. "Meat", "flesh",
>        "substance", "constituent", "essence". Refers to that which gives
>        strength or substance to a frame or structure. It is often distinct
>        from  the contents of a structure; e.g., the flesh of a person as
>        that which constitutes the essence of the person and gives
substance
>        to the skeletal frame of the person, as opposed to the food
ingested
>        by the person, which is regarded as "contained" by, but not part
of,
>        the person.
Very interesting, and requires more research.  Certainly "meat"(as food) is
distinct from "flesh, substance"; "constituent" seems to depend on "...of
what?"  I recently found the words for "matter", "cell", "(blood)
corpuscle", which are compounds based on _hoca_ 'to break apart; noml. akoca
part, component of s.t.'.  The "essence" of a human being, of course, is
_haniyu_ 'soul, mind, consciousness'-- I'm not sure we know what the
physical essense is, yet-- "flesh and blood" or Spanish "carne y hueso"??
Certainly distinct from the miscellaneous contents of the body (the organs)
or things ingested.

Cf. also:  ange 'tree' :  hañange (hañu < haniyu) 'wood'

Some Austronesian languages have compounds meaning "true man" or "ripe man"
(as opposed to spirit or child), which seem close but different. (*tau mataq
'ripe man' is the source of Oceanic taNata (Haw. kanaka) et al., just FYI)
>
>ObConlang: how would you translate the above words into your conlang? It'd
>be interesting to see how easy/hard it is to convey the same kind of idea
>in another conlang (or natlang for that matter).
As you can see, not straightforward.  The Kash (like me) suffer from
literal-mindedness.