Re: relay 1: Czevraqis vocbulary details, 1/3

On Thursday, August 23, 2001, at 11:32 AM, Jesse Bangs wrote:
[Jesse]
> Very, very interesting.  Knowing some of this stuff might have changed my
> translation!  I especially like this root:
>
<chagrined look>  Sorry--I most certainly didn't mean to screw anyone up.
But typing in all those derivations would have made me *ridiculously* late
and I didn't want to hold up the relay more than the few extra hours I
took, though I have to confess that deriving morphemes madly in the 3-hour
car ride down to Clifton Park from Ithaca occupied me greatly.  I must
remember to bring my conlanging notes with me next time I have to make an
extended journey.  ^_^

Incongruously obconlang: Anyone have license-plate games or the equivalent
for their conlangs?  <G>  (Or whatever mutilation thereof.)  Scrabble?

<musing>  Scrabble in Czevraqis...that would *definitely* screw up some of
my friends.  <EG>

>> derahu: to balance/cast a shadow
>> adj: balanced
>> state: balance, void
>> doer (prof): philosopher, monk (more Buddhist than medieval style)
>> doer (cas): shadow-caster
>> tool: shadow
>> emphatic: the state toward which creation strives
>> diminutive: inner choice, acceptance (though not necessarily
>> without
>> bitterness)
>
> Wow!  The state form is the one that occurred in the relay, if I remember
> correctly, and I translated it with the word /kaved/ in Yivríndil,
> literally "nothing-place."  If I had known this I might have used
> "shadow-place" or even "natural-place."  Also the interpretation of "the
> state toward which creation strives" depends heavily on culture: is it
> entropy, perfection, balance, destruction, or what?  Fascinating.
Yup; as Irina points out in her reply to your message :-) it can sure vary
*within* cultures.  The three "major" religious divisions I have worked
out so far are: Qenaren, Avren Old Sects and Avren Splinter Sects, and I'm
sure there are canonical, heretical and just plain incomprehensible
interpretations of "deroha" ("the state...") within each, not to mention
whatever hazy understanding Joe Average Czevraqis-speaker-off-the-street
has.

Qenaren religion is vaguely polytheistic (mainly focusing on a birth-death
god and a change god), animistic, and has tendencies toward animal worship;
  practices vary from person to person, shrine to shrine.  The "state
toward which creation strives" is interpreted idiosyncratically from
individual to individual.  A soldier might say, in perfect sincerity, that
it is Death, which completes all things, or Memory, which preserves them
(imperfectly).  A cynic might say it is Ruin.  Certain monks might say
that the state of striving itself is what the universe strives toward.
(Of course, most people don't claim to understand the monks.)  The notion
of a "static" deroha is, however, extremely rare.

The Old Sects and Splinter Sects of Avre would say that deroha is the will
of the Firebird (sun-god of justice), but of course the god's will is
theirs to interpret.  The main difference between the two dates to the
fall of the theocracy that united Avrezin: Old Sects follow the old forms
of religion, prophets and gongs and burnt-offerings, advocating (quietly)
the return of religious dominance in the political sphere.  The Splinter
Sects are anything that isn't an Old Sect.  (Rough comparison: the
Catholics vs. whatever umpteen different flavors of Protestantism.)

I suppose if I had to emphasize anything, it would be that the notion of
"fulfillment"/striving in itself *in Qenar* does not have an automatic
positive or negative connotation.  Quick example: a murderer's notion of
that striving is generally not socially acceptable.

And I'm sure foreigners come to the language with their own odd ideas of
what "deroha" ought to entail, and their own positive or negative spins on
it.  :-)

Jesse, Irina, I look forward to seeing how this thing mutated in your
texts!  And in everyone's after that, too, of course.

YHL

Replies