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Re: Tiki and French

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Saturday, April 15, 2006, 3:36
Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
> I would guess so! This would impinge greatly > on technological terms, particularly those to > do with transport, communication and enter- > tainment. It might also be worth considering > that class structures were generally more > rigid in Europe a century ago than now, so that > if Dr. M were a learned gent he may not know > the terms for, eg, boot-polish, colander or > broom - since they relate to tasks he would > not himself ever have been expected to > perform ...
Well, over the years the gaps in the vocabulary would have been filled in, and new words added for new concepts (I assume Esperanto has some way of saying things like "computer" and "space shuttle", so Tiki would be the same as long as it has a community of speakers). But what I'm thinking of is differences in the meaning of basic vocabulary items over the last 100 years.
> Subjunctive? It was more important in daily speech > when my teachers were young, it seems, than it is now.
Probably so. Volapük has a lot of mood suffixes. It's reasonable to assume that Tiki would have subjunctive and conditional.
> "to know how to do or make" = "savoir faire"
Ah, how did I miss that one?
>>* Rather than having words for "hungry" and "thirsty", the French >>expressions "avoir faim" and "avoir soif" could be used. Thus, the word >>"to have" takes on a broader meaning than I was originally intending. > > > and "to need (something)" > = "avoir besoin de (quelquechose)".
This also fits with Dutch "nodig hebben" (Tiki "hebe nodo").
> Also the use of "faire" in: > "il fait chaud" & "il fait froid". > > French uses some other auxiliary verbs in places > that Germanic languages don't, and in ways that > don't exactly parallel Spanish, eg "falloir" & "devoir". > eg "Il nous faut partir maintenant."
That could be a useful distinction.
>>Potato is "earth apple", which coincidentally is what the Dutch word for >>potato means. > > > and (surprise!) exactly what the French phrase > "pomme de terre" means, too ...
That's what I was trying to say....
> Some idioms have a more Gallic flavour than others, > and it would be amusing to see them translated > directly into Tiki or simply lent to it: > > "Sacre bleu! Zut, alors ... Tant pis. Quelle espèce > de ... Cochon! Diable! Merde! Elle est une femme > d'un certain âge ... Selon lui ... le petit déjeuner."
I'm not even sure how I'd represent "sacre bleu", but "sutalo" might come in handy.