Sing, sing a song, sing out loud...(was: Telek -- Invent a Language)

From: "Marcus Smith"

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> >Lovely!  I didn't do anything nearly so interesting..."language,"
> >"speech" and "song" are all expressed by the same word in Chevraqis.
> >Boring.  <G>
> I like the combination of "speech" and "song".  I wouldn't have thought of
> that.  It also shows the importance of singing to your culture -- I
presume.

Géarthnuns combines the two, too, but in a different way. The notion of
singing is expressed by a suffix, "-man". Thus, generic "sing" is "mölman"
(speak-sing), "bzhöl" (lament, mourn) can become "bzhölman" (sing a lament),
shkölman (sing a hymn)(praise-sing), ausüthman (sing an antiphon)
(answer-sing), and so on...

Originally, -man was restricted to verbs, but seems to be glomming onto
other forms as well with increased usage. "Zdíaman" (sing an introit)
([loosely] begin-sing ['zdía' is not a verb proper]), ngíman (sing, ref. to
birds)("ngí" is probably only onomatopoeic and has no meaning of its own
unless I back-derive). "Sing the blues", as it's not an indigenous term,
could probably be quasi-calqued as "sülíman" (blue-sing) when the time
comes.

Kou