Re: Naming conventions

Dave Rutan wrote:

> I have a question regarding an Alien Conlang I'm working on. This
> conlang best resembles Solresol in that it has one ten syllables from
> which all the words are derived, (Solresol had seven.)
>
> Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on how to name things
> such as an alien race which is already named in other languages.  If it
> comes down to naming them as 'Members of System GIV3.3,' how is that
> handled?
>
> Has anyone else ever done something like this?  Any advice appreciated.
>
On my planet Cindu, there are 3 sentient "human" species-- (1) the Kaç [kaS]
which means 'person' > people, by extension; to be really precise they call
themselves _e kaçila_ (DEF +kaç+pl) The People. (2) the Gwr (which means
'free' in their language), (3) the Lang-lang (which means 'children', in
full 'children of the volcano god(s)' presumably after some place of origin;
they're considered "primitive").

The Kaç and Gwr are in contact with aliens, in fact aliens of various sorts
live on the planet as emissaries/functionaries of the Galactic Union, which
is based loosely on Le Guin's Ekumen. So far I've stolen the planet Hain
from her, and the Hainish are called kehayin in Kash and in Gwr something
similar no doubt, [hayN]+people (haven't worked on that area of their vocab
yet :-( ) We Terrans are, or would be, called ketera-- ke- is an old prefix
that means 'person who...' or nowadays something like '-ite'. The aliens in
general are called keyopor (ke+opor 'outside') or less respectfully
ketracindu 'non-Cindu-ites'.  The most interesting ones (to the Kash) are
the ones from an oxygen-poor planet who are slightly blue in color and use
telepathy exclusively (don't waste breath talking...)

LeGuin's planet Gethen/Winter would be _kesen ['kEsEn]_, the people kekesen;
in some Kash langs. it could actually be the correct (?) ['geTen ~'gETEn].

FWIW, the Kash sometimes call the Gwr _feliyoç_ 'fools (neuter pl.)' very
non-PC nowadays; otherwise they're keyangur.  The Gwr have a variety of
terms for the Kash, most of which involve the syllable kah 'lazy'. There
isn't a lot of love lost between the two, but they only have economic wars
these days.

Reply