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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) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html

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Danny Wier <dawiertx@...>