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Re: LeGuin (was: a 12th century conlang)

From:John Fisher <john@...>
Date:Friday, March 26, 1999, 23:19
In message <19990325.222220.9614.3.draqonfayir@...>, Steg Belsky
<draqonfayir@...> writes
>On Fri, 26 Mar 1999 02:56:46 +0000 John Fisher ><john@...> writes: >>.......... >>kristasi: Christianity >>ivri: be Jewish > >> 8. Days, months, seasons of the year, hours, minutes. >>sartan, elentan, avotan, wodean, thortan, ivatan, ivrian >>Sunday, Monday, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday > >Is _ivrian_ related to _ivri_, above?
My goodness! That's really careful reading. Yes, you're right - the -_tan_ or -_an_ element means "day". It used to be _ivritan_ but I changed it, becasue _ivrian_ is stressed on the first syllable, according to the rules, which I thought sounded better.
>Is there a reason that you made the word for "Jew" based on _`ivri_, as >opposed to _yehudi_?
I suppose I could think of something, but not really. I just liked the sound. But I like to leave odd things in the language, as not much of its "history" is known. For example elsewhere in that list is the word for king/queen: _melcwa_. _cwa_ is an enclitic and the stem is _melc_. And given that all Elet Anta measure words are loans (the old measure words being "lost"), how come _hora_ is the word for "hour", and "lira" a pound (sterling)? _Ivri_ acts like an ordinary name-of-people word, so we have _Ivrial_ "a Jew", _Ivria_ "the Jewish people", _Elet Ivri_ "the Hebrew language", _Von Ivri_ "Israel (the country)". "Iva ludis Antayara, cwar la brelen Ivriala" - "Loarna helps the _Antayar_ who protects a Jew". -- John Fisher john@drummond.demon.co.uk johnf@epcc.ed.ac.uk Elet Anta website: http://www.drummond.demon.co.uk/anta/ Drummond ro cleshfan merec; fanye litoc, inye litoc