Re: Survey(?) of ConLangs' Calendars and Colors and Kinterms

At 1:54 PM -0700 20/10/05, Tom Chappell wrote:
>What kind of calendar does your conlang and/or conculture include?
The Neo-Khitanese adopted the so-called French Revolutionary Calendar
in the early 1800s. It's been in use since then, except during the
imperial restoration of 1895-1920 and the Japanese occupation 1941-45.

It has twelve months, named after their characteristic
weather/climate; they don't exactly correspond in meaning to the
original French names -- Kamchatka's climate not being France's.
Unfortunately they don't rhyme in Khitanese, either. Each month has
30 days, and there are five "feast days" at the end of each year (the
Feasts of Virtue, Genius, Labor, Reason, and Rewards; in leap years
there's added the Feast of the Revolution). The new year starts on
the autumn equinox (theoretically), but by convention on our
September 22nd.

Each day of each month has a unique name -- trees, flowers, birds,
grasses and herbs, minerals, fishes, tools, that sort of thing -- but
hardly anyone knows them; usually just the number (1-30) is given. A
'week' is ten days long, three weeks per month; the end-of-year feast
days don't belong to a week and are not numbered.

In the 1920s, following the revolution, there were some slight
changes or additions. Among other things, as part of the
nationalization of industry and the labor market, the week was broken
in half and each of the five days assigned a color code. Each worker
belonged to a particular color group, which indicated which day was
their day off work. Thus, two one-day 'weekends' per ten-day week.
(Basically the same as a system tried out in the USSR around the same
time, but benefiting from a much smaller labor force to coordinate).

It's been pretty stable since then, so far as I know. The color-coded
work week fell by the wayside in the late 1960s, not so much due to
the political and social turmoil of the times as much as increasingly
fluid work habits. It's still on the books, but only really relevant
to those working in heavy industry, government offices or projects,
or the military.


>What set of monomorphemic color terms does your conlang and/or
>conculture include?
Well, not counting secondary and derived color terms (restricted to
animals, etc., or clearly extensions of terms for other objects or
substances; both of which there are lots), I've got:

sarlama			gray (light)
ïgjama			gray, yellowish gray, gray-yellow
ñigjeme			black, blackish, gray (dark)
ditkeme			blue
lüpcürin		blue (dark), green (dark), dark brownish-green
culma, culrïn		blue-green
ñörin, ñögdö		green
kongdomo		brown (dark), brownish-black
kaktama			yellow (usu. light)
horïn			red (bright; crimson)
liperin			red (dark)
jagarïn			pink, pale red
curïma			purple, violet-red
bagdarïn		white (also "clear")
gïltarïn		white (v. bright/pure)

Some of the irregularities, gaps, and specific color ranges in these
"basic color terms" are because of encroachment from secondary
lexemes. For example, the basic term for "gray" is nowadays
<pïngalak>, literally "ashy, ashlike"; the usual and original word
for "red" is <fulama> which is transparently etymologically derived
from "alder bark (used for red dye)", and so forth.

Kin terms -- can't put my hands on them right now. Basically a
Sudanese kinship terminology model, where there are distinct terms
for each combination of genealogical distance and lateral dimension.
--

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