Speedwords hare (was: Some new Brithenig words? Narbonosc help?)

At 10:10 pm -0400 23/5/01, Herman Miller wrote:
>On Wed, 23 May 2001 16:00:41 -0500, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>
>wrote:
>
>>On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 06:21:45AM +0000, Raymond Brown wrote:
>>> Just for fun, you might like to consider how 'cheese' and 'hare' turn up in
>>> Speedwords.
>>[snip]
>>> Hare is _zovrap_
>>> <-- zo = animal
>>> to which we add the "associative suffix" -v, to get _zov_ which must be a
>>> "rodent", according to Dutton.
>>> We can then take the word _rap_ (fast, quick, rapid) to form the compound
>>> _zovrap_ "rapid rodent", i.e. hare.
>>>
>>> Thinks: hares are not the only rapid rodents I've met.  Rats & squirrels
>>> seems to travel pretty fast IME.
>>
>>IIRC hares and rabbits aren't rodents, but lagomorphs.
>
>How old is Speedwords? Lagomorphs were once classified as a suborder of
>rodents (Duplicidentata).
Its origins are in the 1930s; it reached its final form in 1951.

Ray.

=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================

Replies