Re: Terms of Endearment

Chris Bates ortekera:

> I was thinking about terms of endearment, how many people have
> included them in their conlangs so far?
quite a lot of us, it seems. and so have I.

the only common term which I know of right now is vendi "dear". it also
happens to be an answer to your second question, as it is formed by
taking the root of the adjective vende "beautiful", and adding the
indefinite diminutive nominal suffix. the root does not exist as a
proper noun outside of this special usage.

someone who is aiming for eloquence might say ana i vánir "my love", or
maybe even go so far as ana i ále bantele vánir "my one, only and ever
greatest love", but that's quite a mouthful.

from the same root comes also the adjective vaníre "beloved".

and then there's árna "close friend".

> How many people have the distinction in their conlang?
I will, when I have had the time to find out what the actual word is.
the words above are only meant for love and affection, not likings.

> And finally, adjectives used as nouns. Do many conlangs/natlangs allow
> free use of adjectives as nouns?
as stated above :)

there is indeed some room for play within Nindára for this kind of
thing, as it evolved from a language of inflected concepts. in fact,
'creating words' by replacing suffixes with those of another word class
is a poetic device, though one which I have not yet had time to study.

---
Camilla
"ana de limine ninda yastiar"