Re: Tiki vocabulary

Larry Sulky wrote:

>
> The slang meaning for "cool" of "calm" and...well, you know, "cool",
> was in use even in the 1800s. It didn't acquire the ejaculatory sense
> ("awesome!") it now also has until later, but there were equivalents,
> though I can't think of any at the moment. :-) In ilomi (and this is
> quite by natural evolution through participation of other ilomi
> enthusiasts, not any forethought on my part), the word for the colour
> 'black' has come to have the slang meaning of "cool" as in "with-it",
> "calm", "in the know". Presumably the etymology would trace back to an
> equating of 'black' with 'quiet, calm, steady'.
True, there's no reason I have to use a unique word or phrase for this
idea; Tiki could reuse an existing word in the same way that English
adapts words like "cool" or "awesome". I'll keep the definition around,
but leave the word blank for now until I figure out what to do with it.

>>But then a 3-syllable word ending in -ba could be
>>misinterpreted; "maliba" (marimba) could be analyzed as "mali-ba"
>>(likely to be a husband?). Different stress patterns might help, but
>>with both suffixes and prefixes in the language, I'd need to distinguish
>>between the three possibilities "ma-liba", "mali-ba", and "maliba"
>>somehow. Perhaps all suffixes could be two-syllable roots ("beke-bale"
>>for "fragile").
>>
>
> Unless you are going to really institute self-segregating morphology,
> I would recommend that you just go with a plausible and consistent
> stress rule, which will help, and accept that sometimes it's going to
> be ambiguous.
Probably just as well; it may turn out that the alternate meanings are
just as unlikely as the misinterpretation of "maliba" (which probably
was a later addition to the vocabulary in any case; probably most of the
3-syllable words are later additions).