Re: Terms of Endearment

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Bates" <christopher.bates@...>

> I was thinking about terms of endearment, how many people have included
> them in their conlangs so far?
Moi, waving hand.  If you can stand a little hsakra ("sugar") here are some:

    syta, "darling"
    coy syta "sweet darling"
    coy minka syta "sweet little darling"
    minka hwendl, "little baby"
    hwendlwet, "little baby"
    deluanhar, "female sweetheart or lover"
    amyeld, "male sweetheart or lover"
    hamyeld, ol bocaf, "kiss me, darling" (pronounced /'butSaf/
    coy bo:co, "sweet kiss"
    etc.

> There seem to be a surfeit in english:
And in many many langs.

> love, dear, darling etc. I don't know how many there are in other
> languages, I think french has mon cher / ma cherie but I don't know if
> it has many others
What???  The language of love?
minion, chou, petit chou, chou chou, mon amour, je t'embrasse, mon petit
X... just to mention the ones that come to mind most obviously.  Where the
heck is my French dictionary?

 (I have this dodgy horror story in which one of the
> main male characters is a frenchman in america, and he consistantly
> calls the woman he likes ma petite), and I looked up the spanish for
> dear and got querido/a which I thought was really nice lol (unless I'm
> wrong querido = wanted).
Te quero, "I love you," in Spanish.

>  While I was thinking about that I got onto "to love" and "to like". Do
> many natural languages distinguish between the two? French doesn't (je
> t'aime = I like/love you),
J'aime, and j'aime bien.  You can also say that something pleases you in
French.  Ca me plait.  "I like that."

 but spanish does (amo = I love, me gusta(n) =
> I like (lit it pleases me)), and a quick peruse of a dictionary suggests
> that Latin didn't either. How many people have the distinction in their
> conlang?
Y ravve, "I love," ry garne, "I like/am pleased with."

>  And finally, adjectives used as nouns.
Substantive adjectives.

Do many conlangs/natlangs allow
> free use of adjectives as nouns? English does but its restricted, there
> are only a few adjectives that don't sound wrong when used as nouns (ie
> the blond(e) the wise the old (the last two used only collectively)),
The rich, the poor, as in: "he steals from the rich and gives to the poor";
the indigent, the wealthy, the ignorant, the accused, the familiar, the
unfamiliar, the unwanted, the great unwashed, the hated, the feared, the
remaining, the deceased (lots of participles used as substantives), the
grotesque, the horrible, the abject, the unbelievable... there are a HOST of
English words that use the substantive adjective.  In modern English, they
are almost all collectives, though.  In Old English, you could use them
singularly: Se frod, se til, "the wise one, the good one."  The good, the
bad, and the ugly; the blind, the deaf, and the dumb... and on and on.


Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."


I'm coming along here slowly.   Hard to read, let alone answer all my mail.
I'm sure this has been answered.
Sal

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