Re: OT Perfect Climate (was Re: Not phonetic but ___???)
From: | Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> |
Date: | Friday, April 16, 2004, 6:55 |
I always found it striking that the same French word,
"chaud" has at least 3 different equivalents in
Russian:
- tjoplij (ex: a warm cloth = un vetement chaud)
- zharkij (ex: a hot day = une chaude journee)
- gorjachij (ex: a hot potato = une pomme de terre
chaude).
The fact is that in Russian, you just cannot use one
of these words instead of another. Every time I did
so, I was immediately corrected by my wife :-(
In French, there are other words, like "brulant" (very
hot, burning) or "bouillant" (for a liquid), but these
are much more specific. You can use "chaud" in a lot
of situations. There seems to be no such general
concept in Russian.
--- Danny Wier <dawiertx@...> wrote:
>
> Conlang-related. Tech will have plenty of words for
> various type of heat or
> cold: warm vs. hot, dry-hot vs. humid-hot,
> cool/brisk vs. cold/freezing,
> etc. I've decided to revive the 'Big Six' IAL
> project and give it as a
> lingua franca for Humans and Ogres alike, and since
> I really don't want a
> huge vocabulary for that, I'm probably going to say
> 'hot' and 'very hot'
> instead of 'warm' and 'hot'; likewise 'cold'/'very
> cold' instead of
> 'cool'/'cold'. Or an optional Esperantism meaning
> 'unhot' for 'cold', and
> vice versa, but I have so many issues with Esperanto
> (ESPECIALLY that damn
> mal- prefix) that would better be hashed out in
AUXLANG.
=====
Philippe Caquant
"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)
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