Re: Different words for one thing

Sounds like the same as the "cow/beef" "pig/pork" distinction in
English!

On the flowing water topic, I vaguely remember hearing that it has
been theorized that Proto-Indo-European used the same word for
"living" and for "flowing water," the one being a metaphor for the
other, though I'm not sure in which direction, and that this lay
behind the etymology of the Greek word "hygieia," "health."


---------------------------------------------------------------
Ed doesn't know everything, but he hasn't figured that out yet.
Please break it to him gently.              edheil@postmark.net
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FFlores wrote:

> I just created some cool words in Wamen, my new
> conlang, that I'd like to share, since they show something
> that called my attention after the mandatory possession
> thread and related stuff.
>=20
> The words in question are two pairs, meaning 'water'
> and 'fish'.
>=20
> u    [u]      'drinkable or flowing water'
> huti ['PutSi] 'undrinkable water, unmoving dirty water'
>=20
> joki ['joki]  'a fish (alive and/or swimming)'
> fury ['furi-] 'a fish (dead and/or served as food)'
>=20
> The issue is: different names for the same thing when
> it's not quite the same. Do any of your conlangs or natlangs
> do this? As for Spanish, we have _pez_ and _pescado_ for
> the types of 'fish' above, but there's a common root there;
> _pescado_, being a noun, is the same as the passive participle
> of _pescar_ 'to fish'.
>=20
> As for Drasel=E9q, I have _fang_ 'right hand' and _dhung_ 'left hand',
> but the same word for both feet, eyes, etc., more or less the way
> that Spanish uses _dedo_ for both 'finger' and 'toe'.
>=20
> So, do you have any examples? How do you handle general statements?
>=20
>=20
> --Pablo Flores
>   http://draseleq.conlang.org/pablo-david/
>=20