Re: CHAT: coincidence

Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:

(I wrote:)
 consider Malay/Indonesian [tSumi] 'squid'
> > (at least one source of ink)...
>
> Malay uses 'sotong' for squid & cuttle-fish.  I don't recall
> ever hearing "cumi" in its place, nor does it appear in my
> pocket dictionary.
It must be an Indonesianism, I certainly heard it! It's listed in Echols &
Shadily's Indonesian-Engl. dictionary. (Actually it's only the 3rd meaning--
"cumi2 1. rabble, scum 2. stool-pigeon 3. squid"
Weird.

> > (Polyn. ika = Ml/In. ikan 'fish', one of the few words (like mata 'eye')
> > that is recognizable--with only minor sound changes--in almost every MP
> > language.)
>
> Yep.  But not all!
..
> Kadazan (**): sada, mato
>
Well, I did say "almost every..." :-))) That "sada" looks like it might
correspond to Tagalog et al. isda? 'fish' (*is@daq IIRC) found mainly in PI
languages.

> Perhaps 'ika[n]' is restricted to Malayic?
>
No. Reconstructed *iSekan or somesuch-- it must be AN. Only a witness in
Formosan lgs. warrants that 3-syl form with "*S" --which > s/S/h et al. in
Formosan lgs., h but mostly 0 in all the rest (so *ikan in Malayo-Polynesian
properly speaking.
> -----------------------
> ObConLang: I've noticed a slight tendency on occasion to
> avoid including word forms, however logically they might
> be expected, that occur in any other known language.
> Silly, or what?
(snip interesting musical parallels...)

> Question:  In coining vocabulary for your conlangs, do you
> A)  avoid using word-forms you know from other languages;
As a general rule, yes.  But---

> B)  deliberately reuse such word-forms;
it's been known to happen :-)) usually for personal/"humorous"/punning
reasons.  E.g. 6 of the nine numbers in Kash are stolen from various
Indonesian languages, I just happened to like their sound changes. Even "10"
(fola ~ -pola) is suggestive... A few others are deformed Malay, like
_vasir_ 'inherit' :: waris (actually arabic IIRC).

Partly out of laziness, I'm doing this more than I ought in Gwr, but with
amusing results. By the time a 2-syl form has gone through the sound
changes, it's quite unrecognizable: e.g. "*rúmah" would emerge as /lu@N/,
"*rumáh" as /dwa/, both mid tone. And working backwards, "rumah" would be
only 1 of several possible proto-forms.

Reply