Re: TECH: Testing again, some new on-topic content (was Re: "Language Creation" in your conlang)

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 17:05:33 -0500, Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>
wrote:

> What would be another way of expressing an idea similar to "bureaucracy"
> in
> a conlang?  I mean what words are likely candidates for compounding to
> give
> the desired meaning?
I'll do my usual trick of pulling the literal etymology. It might help IE-
derived langs, and it may inspire non-IE langs.

Hold on....

(time passes)

... TA-DA!

-cracy "system of government" < Gk kratos "strong" < PIE kAer "hard"

Hmph. That wasn't much help.

(more time passes. multiple books are shuffled)

... TA-DA-DA!

bureau "desk with drawers" < Fr "office" < Fr "desk" < Fr "cloth covering
for a desk" < OFr burel (dim) < OFr bure "coarse woolen cloth" < VLat bu:ra
< LLat burra "coarse wool"

(Is this related to Gk bursa "skin, hide"?)

Alternatively, OFr bure < buire < VLat burreus < Lat burrus "red/brown"

(I'd guess a connection to PIE bher "brown", except PIE bh > Lat f)

Nuts. That lot didn't help either.

Maybe Oreg^ "to travel in a straight line" > re:g^ "lead(er)" > Lat re:x
"king" could spawn a word for "method of leadership" > "system of
government".

I can't find a PIE root related to "shuffling large piles of paper in a
nearly meaningless fashion", I'm afraid. It may have been a fashion that
arose after the Proto period ;-)

Bah.

"Hard wool"?

Bah again.

I've been much less help than I'd hoped to be.

Sorry for wasting your time,




Paul

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