#Lexember post Two - Conlanging objects in the Calenyan world - Tent and Goat, Pot and Blankets

[aldersprig]

On par with a goat in terms of importance to the Cālenyena(*) is their tent, at least historically.

petep (first syllable is like the word pet, with the same e sound in the second syllable) - this is a base word for "tent."

(petepōk, which became pepōk over time, is "stone tent;" house.)

pazit is a goat (paw - zit)

geten is blanket, [and I need to figure out how I make things plural

gōt is a pot, generally a kettle for cooking over open fire, more generically any pot.

There is a Cālenyen saying:

Petep ō pazit, geten ō gōt: Tent and goat, blanket and pot.

It is meant to signify the needs in life (your tent and your goat) and the comforts (soft blankets and cooked food), but in later years also is a description of a separation of a couple - the soldier or worker gets the Petep ō pazit, the mother or home-keeper gets the geten ō gōt.

Comments

[clare_dragonfly]

Ooh, I like the saying! Fun :D

[aldersprig]

Thank you!

I said to myself, self, how can we make this more interesting than a list of vocabulary?

Short of making drawn vocab sheets, which is suddenly fun-sounding...

[imaginaryfiend]

Good luck figuring out how to make things plural!

I also liked you including a saying, fun way to keep it interesting.

I had another thought on possible words to include. How about geographic features like hill, valley, river, meadow, ocean ect.

[aldersprig]

Thanks! I like the sayings.

The major geographic features were once Gods in the world of those that became the Calenyena:

ohtek	Moon(large)
ahmek	Moon (small)
anek	Sun
ehzhet	Stars
ihlel	ocean
idez	earth
oonet	mountain
eetan	sky
uhpuhn	river

[thnidu]

and I need to figure out how I make things plural

Why? Many languages don't, and have no need to. Just for a few unrelated ones, I'll throw out ASL, Chinese, and Japanese.

[aldersprig]

Hunh. Good point.

Because I wanted to, I guess?

[thnidu]

Good enough! :-)

[thnidu]

If you want to, you might consider some different structures of grammatical number. For example, many languages have (and English used to have) a *dual* number, especially for things that come in pairs, like eyes and hands. Some languages also have *trial* and even *quartal* number, 3 & 4.

Some languages have *singulative* forms: the basic word means something like "a lot of X" or "an amount of X", and you need a derived form if you want to talk about a single bit of X. We have something like this in "raindrop" and "snowflake", but it isn't regular.

I could go on, but I won't.

[aldersprig]

... I was going to do that, and then I forgot.