Re: CHAT: Austin in Mid November (bats and wolves)

On Sun, 24 Oct 1999, Sally Caves wrote:

> I've been reading up on werewolves (new project) and taboo
> deformations.  In order not to utter the totemically dangerous
> word "wolf," people in Europe came up with epithets, or verbal
> deformations.  Gray-leg, Strangler--hence warg, varg in the
> Germanic languages.  How many of you have werewolf legends in
> your conlangs, and do they go by epithets?
>
Broi is near the equator, so wolves are rare to non-existant, but
all over the continent were-animals are well-knows. Some are benign,
like the were-cats and were-apes, others can be benign or not,
like the were-foxes. Others again, like were-tigers and were-lions,
are sublimely indifferent to human interests. Indeed, the only part
of humans that interests them is the steak-part. There's absolutely
nothing one can do against were-animals - they, like the gods, are
far more powerful than mere humans.

As for the linguistic angle, there are no special names for the
werekind - were foxes are just foxes, were-cats cats:

_ca'fentir, quna ka, yo quna qenan tan do munmun, quna adan ga,
ali ga, ali! alat-alat ga, quanyi laushnaha logh_

'Yesterday, there was this cat, that cat, it tried to make love to me,
that cat was a human, it's true, I swear! I was afraid like a kitten
in the rain.'

_Do seri fentane? Hanri ga, hanumir edo galon karinze, sumas ka da
do angalan. Hanumir gheban-gheban_

'Have I told you? A week ago, an ape entered my house, wine it asked
me for. Apes are thirsty...'

(All in Southern Colloquial)

From which we can conclude that, 1. Charyans don't have any special
names for were-animals, 2. if you tell a strong tale in Charya, you
should expect to be bested and 3. your companion will find a way of
forcing you to pay for the next round.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt