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Re: Vocab #5

From:Danny Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Saturday, April 27, 2002, 2:04
> 1. coffee / bitter drink / culturally distinctive drink
Techian Elves do consume /q'aHw@/; they usually call it by their Arabic name. But since coffee is widely grown in Ethiopia and Kenya, maybe I should use the Ge'ez name. What is it by the way? They like to mix in not only milk and sugar, but various spices and cream liqueurs (those who don't abstain from alcohol that is) as well as chocolate and almonds. However, Techian coffee is even stronger and more potent than espresso -- it's basically Turkish coffee, in other words.
> 2. tea / herbal tea
/tSaj/. The French name /t'e:/ is not widely used -- it's considered pretentious and snooty to use excessive English and French loans in one's speech. Techians also like to spice their tea and mix in fruit juices, especially citrus. (The grapes and dates are usually reserved for raisins and wine.)
> 5. milk
Since I've only completed the phonemic stage of Tech development and added various loanwords (mostly from Arabic and general Semitic), and have no real grammar, I can only say the word may be a derivative of the root |m-l(i)-q'| "to suck". Maybe /mliq'@/. Now I do have a word for honey -- /mal/ (/ml/ in construct form). That's used to sweeten tea as well. The word /mliq'@/ for "milk, sweet milk" could be considered a play on words. ~Danny~

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John Cowan <jcowan@...>