Random Conlang: "Thanks" in Calenyen

[aldersprig]

Okay, so, because of reasons, I want to have an idiomatic "thank you" for Calenyen.

And, because thank you is such a loaded concept, I wanted it to mean, essentially, "good shot."

Like, the thing you say when your buddy just caught the enemy/the giant cat that was about to kill you with a well-aimed spear. It's a thanks for assistance, without acknowledging debt owed.

So we have "shot" in the sense of an aimed attack with a distance weapon: vettu

And then we have good, a modifier meaning skilled and accurate: -one (like the end of loan)

Vettutone, "good shot": "Thanks for the assist."

Comments

[thnidu]

I like this idiom.

Ah, whence the added "t"? My best professional guess is epenthesis, insertion of an extra phoneme in a word; in this case, insertion of a consonant sound to keep two vowels separate.

[aldersprig]

Oh, hey, there's a word for that.

I covered that in another post somewhere I think... ah here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1169538.html (I think somewhere else, too, since that's about loan words) but yes, the Calenyena will repeat the previous or following consonant when putting together two vowels, so as to buffer them.

[inventrix]

I don't think using an e to indicate a long vowel like in your -one there is something you've done anywhere else in the conlang; you might want to review it and check if there's a more consistent way of representing the sound (or find out if I'm wrong ;P)

[thnidu]

Yeah, between that and the double "t" I keep trying to pronounce it like Italian, in which "-one" makes something bigger. (In lingspeak, an augmentative suffix.)

[aldersprig]

Hunh, I'll look into that. Thanks.

[clare_dragonfly]

I love the idiom!