Memories
From: | H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> |
Date: | Thursday, February 12, 2004, 21:21 |
Recently, my informant & I were discussing memory words in Ebisédian, and
I learned that memory-related terms in Ebisédian are quite complicated.
First of all, there's memory itself, which is of (at least) two distinct
kinds:
1) _suPi'_ [su"p_hi] - memory in general, usually short-term memory or
memory of trivia.
2) _Pee'i_ ["p_h&:?i] - hindsight, memorial, experiential memory:
referring to the recollection of past events and their instructive
value, or the memory of the things that have happened so far that
brought one to the current point. This implies an accomplishment of
some sort; a musing on past events. (If this sounds complicated, you
haven't seen how ugly the inflections of this word are yet... they
are of the obnoxious 2nd declension, and are highly irregular even for
2nd declension nouns.)
Secondly, there is the act of committing something to memory:
_kus0'Pe_ [ku"sAp_h&] - to memorize, to commit to memory, to keep in mind.
Thirdly, there are the acts of recollection, which are quite various:
1) _j0'kre_ - the common, everyday term for "remember" or "recall".
2) _sa'Pi_ - to be reminded of, to recognize (based on past experience).
This verb carries a connotation of seeing a past event or experience
inwardly. The difference between _j0'kre_ and _sa'Pi_ is that the
former is more casual and superficial, whereas the latter is more
subjective.
3) _fa're_ ["Par`&] - to recite, to deliver a speech or message (from
memory). This verb is used primarily in relation to education.
Now, Ebisédian has an interesting way of expressing the difficulty of
recollection: when one is unable to immediately remember, one would have
to "jog one's memory", to use the English idiom. The Ebisédian equivalent
of this is the idiom _kesi'ty soPu'_: "to search the memory" (from
_kesa'ti_, to ponder, to seek (mentally); and _suPi'_), with the idea of
the memory being a vast terrain where one must comb through to find the
thing one tries to remember.
All this pondering over memory has bumped up the lexicon word count to
532... I seem to be on a word-coining spree right now.
T
--
Freedom of speech: the whole world has no right *not* to hear my spouting
off!
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