Re: ,Language' in language name?

En réponse à Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>:

> Hi!
>
> How many people's conlang names contain the word for ,language' in
> that language?  I suspect that's around 100%, right? :-)
>
Well, far from for me at least:

- Moten: well, in Moten, the name is 'motenku|lu', with 'ku|lu'
meaning 'language'. But then, this word 'ku|lu' is used much like the -go
ending of Japanese, i.e. it's mandatory with language names. So in Moten French
is 'flansku|lu', German is 'dojtslanku|lu' (usually in Moten the name of the
language is derived from the name of the nation. Doesn't work for Moten
though :))) - 'moten' is never used alone in Moten, but only in two known
words: 'motenku|lu': the Moten language, and 'motenva': purple (the colour) -).
Moten itself doesn't seem to have a known meaning. But then again the culture
associated with Moten is unknown, since in its own internal history there is
only one known speaker of Moten, who seems to be completely amnesic except for
the knowledge of this language...

- Notya: okay, 'tya' means language :))) , but it's like Japanese -go, except
that in this case (and like 'ku|lu' in Moten), it can be used as an independent
word. I won't give here a translation of 'No', since it would take a whole book
to explain the concept it refers to :)) .

- Azak: meaningless word, but the word used in the language to refer to that
language. And I haven't the faintest idea what 'language' is in Azak :)) .

- Reman: derived from Latin "Romanus", so not related to 'language'.

- Astou: again a word of unknown origin, but the name the Dhastem used to refer
to their language. Since their culture has been extinct for millenia, little is
known about them, so maybe 'Astou' has a meaning, but I don't know which. What
I'm sure is that it doesn't mean 'language'.

- Tj'a-ts'a~n: means 'The Language' and is an abbreviation of a longer form
meaning 'the language of the Sky People'. That's how the Sky People refer to
their own language. It's true that they like long expressions for even simple
things :)) .

- Chasmäöcho: means "the good enough one". Not related to the word
for 'language' in the language (though that name escapes me at the moment).

- O: I gave it this name because I couldn't remember what was the name of that
language when I first invented it. AFAIK it's not related to the
word 'language'.

- Narbonósc: derived from the Latin word 'Narbonensis', and related to the city
Narbone (Narbonne *here*). Translated in English as 'Narbonese'.

- Itakian: a name coming from a misunderstanding. It's derived from an
exclamation in the language itself meaning something like 'big mouth!'. The
name for the language in the language itself is still unknown, but expect
something strange :))) . After all, the Itakians call other people "people" and
themselves "the others" :))) .

So 3/10 with a name containing 'language' (if I include the special case of
Moten).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.