----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Mills" <rfmilly@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2004 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: Weird little color system
> Trebor wrote:
>
> > Paul wrote: "I think the point was that in the languages everyone is
> > familiar with, if one is derived from the other, it'll be "left" derived
> > from "right", rather than dublex-wise."
> >
> > Why would it be more likely one way or the other?
> >
> In many traditional cultures, right is good, left is bad-- the left hand
is
> tabooed for many activities-- eating in particular, touching, handling
etc.
> etc.
>
> At least in Indonesia, the reasoning is that one uses the left hand to
clean
> oneself after going to the toilet.
>
> Though aside from E-o, I don't know offhand of any natlang where "left" is
a
> pejorative deriv. of "right";
The prefix mal- is not used to make pejoratives, but simply for opposites.
For pejoratives there are the prefix fi- and the suffix -aĉ-.
Jean-François