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

On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, Sally Caves wrote:

> Let's see a list from some of you with at least twenty items
> in each of these categories:
>
>     1.  God, gods, angels, saints, and demons.
>     2.  Human family relationships.
>     3.  The parts of the body.
>     4.  Diseases of the body.
>     5.  Names relating to Church or Religion
>     6.  Names relating to Secular Hierarchies, the parts of Government
>     7.  The parts of trade and human craft.
>     8.  Days, months, seasons of the year, hours, minutes.
>     9.  The Quotidian things of life: clothing, houses, farming.
>   10.  The parts of the Natural World.
>
> That would make two hundred words.  What a challenge!
A 'wc' of my Valdyan-Dutch word list gives 1097 words so I should be
able to come up with two hundred, but twenty in each category...! In
English (also in Dutch) "father", "grandfather", "great-grandfather",
"ancestor" are four different words, in Valdyan there's one word
distinguished by different numerals; does that count as one or four?
"Twins" in Valdyan is the dual of "child"; is that a separate word?

And are plants and animals part of the Natural World, or is that only
for landscape and weather? What about things of the mind?

   Irina


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