Re: Pejorative words (was: Introducing myself, and several questions)

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 03:32:48 -0500, Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
wrote:
>On Feb 19, 2005, at 8:50 AM, Jeffrey Jones wrote:
>
>> Steg, while we're on the topic of potentially offensive conwords ....
>> When the discussion of mythical beings (in conlangs) came up, I didn't
>> have anything to contribute. Yesterday, however, your "gabwe" came to
>> mind. I never remember how it's supposed to be pronounced, so I think
>> ["ga.bwe] when I see it. If borrowed into 'Yemls, it would become
>> ["gO.bwE:] (written {AbE}), which is awkward. Then I thought of
>> metathesis: gawbe. The nearest adaptation would be ["g_j&O.bE] (written
>> {GOP}). What do you (and Roger and others for that matter) think?
>
> Cool, i'm honored :)
> "Gabwe" - or more properly, Gáb-we - is pronounced /"ga:b.wE/ *all in
> Creaky Voice*.  |Gáb| = "Goblin", |we| = adjective.
> At least that's how it's pronounced in my main dialect, Standard
> Tierean.  In Old Byronese it's pronounced /N&m.we/, and in Proto-Goblin
> it seems to have been pronounced /Ng)a*mb).we*/, where /a*/ and /e*/
> represent vowels at the midpoints of the bottom and front sides of the
> vowel trapezoid, respectively.
That gives me lots of choices. For instance, /"ga:b.wE/ could become
["gA:.bu.E] (written {AObE}). I'll have to think about this now. Also
taking Roger's comment into consideration. Hmmm, maybe using creaky voice
will be traditional when telling stories about goblins?

> So what are you borrowing it into 'Yemls to mean?  "Goblin"?
Something like that. A legendary sort of being that's talked about,
especially by children, but nobody has reliably seen. "Goblin" seems to be
a close enough English equivalent, given its variety of usage.

Jeff

>
> -Stephen (Steg)
>   "you can confuse the enemy with syllogisms!"
>       ~ what philosophy majors do in the army