Re: Taxonomic list (and Re: poll 30? (long...Sal at her most voluble)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Herman Miller" <hmiller@...>


> On Thu, 29 May 2003 02:12:32 -0400, Sally Caves <scaves@...>
> wrote:
>  And even though I have the dictionary on the computer, most
> of what I have on Olaetian grammar and historical development of the
> language is still only on paper, scattered around in various folders and
> notebooks, in an old transliteration that's closer to the actual Olaetian
> spelling but doesn't match what's on the web pages.
That's the way it is with Teonaht.  Sometime, between the age of fifteen and
seventeen, I made a lengthy, alphabetized lexicon for Teonaht, which is now
a crumbling set of yellow papers.  But added to that are word lists, some of
which got recorded in the tattered yellows, some of which didn't.  What's
amazing, though, is how little the basic vocabulary has changed.  Teonaht is
still Teonaht, built up.  And then there are the words I invented for the
grammars, especially all the prepositional verbs.  They haven't gotten into
the on-line lexicon--not all of them.  The on-line lexicon is top heavy with
my most recent words.

> >At any rate, I've bitten off more than I can chew; I got tired of trying
to
> >enter these, ran out of time, so this will go up slowly, as the on-line
> >Teo-Eng has slowly increased over five years.  The list shows a
frolicsome
> >outburst for parts of the body, clothing, family, and the household, and
> >then a nauseated decline for foods, disease, sensations, a gung-ho pickup
> >for religion and concepts...almost nothing on sports and war.
>
> Interesting that they have separate male and female entries for hawks,
> ravens, mice, and other animals that don't fit the typical pattern
> (domestic animals, or animals frequently hunted).
Every common animal has a neutral name and a name (an extension, basically)
for the male and female--just as in English.  The grazing animals are -vond
(m) and -veldr (f) for horses, cattle, deer, bison, etc.  Predatory mammals
are -zem (m) and -lim (f) for the cats (cat, wild cat, great cat), and -veks
(m), -lim (f) for the canines: dogs, bears, wolves, foxes.  Rodents and
burrowing animals are -ocy (m, a word meaning "secretive") and -ycy (f. a
word meaning "sly"): rats, mice, rabbits, moles, chipmunks, even squirrels
and badgers, although technically squirrels don't burrow.  The birds are
divided into songbirds, fowl, waterfowl, seabirds, and raptors: songbirds
are -tond (m) and -tendr/-dendr (f. a word meaning "egg"); the dove has a
special female ending; vyo marrya means "female dove" (from Mary, visited by
the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove); poultry and most of the pheasants
(chicken, turkeys, peafowl, etc.) have -geks (m) and (-keky); waterfowl
(ducks, swans, geese, etc.) have -deks (m) and -dendr (f); seabirds (gulls,
mostly; also pelicans, cormorants, penguins) have -mar (m) and -miry (f).
Raptors and carrion birds (hawks, falcons, owls, eagles, buzzards, vultures)
have -raf (m. a word meaning "beard") and -ref (f).  Creeping creatures are
the lizards, the snakes, and most other reptiles and amphibians and I can't
remember their gendered endings.  Fish and shellfish are without gender
except for the female urchin whose ovaries we eat (Japanese uni), but sea
mammals are gendered like grazing mammals.  Most arthropods have no gendered
endings except for the spider ( -ref for the female), the queen ant, the
queen bee, and the queen termite which have the endings -uast ("queen"), an
ending also given to many of the pagan female gods. :)

> I'd like to "borrow" the
> idea of a word for "that which is both right and wrong"; it sounds like
> such a fitting concept for a Zireen language.
Be my guest!

> Actually, Zirinka has a very
> similar word, "vinê:", glossed as "mixed good/evil", but it really means
> something more like "both good and evil at the same time", as "good" and
> "evil" are not viewed as being diametrically opposed ideas, but they can
> exist in combination. I'm sure that some Zireen language must have a word
> for "both right and wrong".
Fun, isn't it. <g>

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/content.html
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teotax.html