Word Building is World Building

Lexember, the annual conlang community event where we create a new word and share it on social media every day for a month, has just finished. This time, I set myself a goal for the month, which was to create words which don't have an exact equivalent in English. I felt that doing so would make Khangaþyagon a richer language, and so it turned out. Here are the words I created this month, and some thoughts on what I have discovered while creating them.

1. khlatul (n) The space inside a hollow tree.

Khangaþyagon means "Magic language". It is the original language of Huna, and as other languages diverged from it, wizards preserved it for use in magic. The space inside a hollow tree is a liminal space, and as such may have some magical significance.

2. katost (n) billhook
(v) prune, pollard
katoston pruning

A little bit of fairly obvious polysemy here between the name of a tool and its use. I did quite a lot of this kind of polysemy over the course of the month. The -on/-ont suffix can be either a present participal or an agentive noun, both the form and the meaning varying irregularly from verb to verb (in practice, whatever I feel works best).

3. panne (adj) (of motion) smooth, fluid, easy

I already had words for smooth (referring to a surface) and easy (referring to a task), so here I've split up senses of English words and created new words that are more specific than their English translations.

4. skraða (n) Tree bark
(adj) rough

I made this word by stroking a piece of tree bark and letting the word come to mind. I turns out I already had a word, for tree bark, arkhap, but unlike skraða it doesn't have the polysemy with rough. So, a synonym and polysemy in one go!

5. havrin (n) person who barters services, especially a craftsman whose clients farm his land on his behalf.
(v) barter services
havrinont bartering of services

This began a sequence of words that takes us back into the time when Khangaþyagon was an everyday spoken language. In that time, barter economies were commonplace. Those who had specialist skills, such as blacksmiths or potters, were better employed working at their crafts than in the fields, so a You plough my field, I'll shoe your horse arrangement would exist between them and their neighbours.

Later on, as cash economies became more developed, the term would have shifted in meaning in Khangaþyagon's descendent languages. However, wizards, as a safeguard against selfishness, use gold and silver only for magical purposes, and do not use money. They use their magic to help people in exchange for bed and board, so they are havrinar.

6. kerun (v) barter goods
kerunont bartering of goods.

So, if I had a word that specifically meant "barter services", I needed one that meant "barter goods". What if you're bartering services for goods? You use the one that corresponds to the aspect of the transaction you wish to emphasise.

7. humost (n) work undertaken as payment; time spent working on a havrin's land; turn; rota

Under the You plough my field, I'll shoe your horse system, the farmers of a village would organise a rota amongst themselves so that the work on the craftsmen's land was shared fairly between them.

8. gaurrukh (n) person who evades his humost, freeloader
(adj) lazy, greedy

Of course, there's always someone who expects something for nothing, and this is what you call them.

9. kulesti (n) chalk downland

I very often think of the sound of a word first, and then run it round my head a for a while, thinking of a meaning for it (sometimes I do this while going to sleep at night, and the meaning comes to me when I wake in the morning). While I was doing that with this word, the images that came to mind were of walking in the South Downs...

10. shevras (n) a stimulus that triggers a memory.

...and that was the experience I created this word to describe.

11. þirras (n) red squirrel

12. aliþra (n) grey squirrel

For squirrels, I decided to make more specific terms than in English, so that the red species (native to Britain) and the grey species (native to America, an invasive species in Britain) had different names. On Huna, their ranges are disjoint, so the aliþra is no threat to the þirras.

13. sekhast (n) sickle, hook, crescent moon
(v) reap, harvest
sekhaston harvester

While the polysemy here is all perfectly natural, I already had a word kost which means "hook, sickle, crescent", so synonymy as well as polysemy here. "Hook" appears to be the primary meaning of kost, while "sickle" is the primary meaning of sekhast, which also has a verbal sense.

14. gulvash (n) bowl, goblet, gibbous moon
(v) share wine or mead, pass round
gulvashont sharing of wine or mead

Here I envisaged a big bowl of wine or mead being passed round the assembled company at a feast. Possibly such a feast is held when the moon is gibbous, and celebrates the completion of the harvest, which was begun on the crescent moon.

15. spirraþ (n) hay
(v) make hay, dry out
spirraþont haymaker

Harvesting brought haymaking to mind.

16. kiþur (n) land that is suitable for grazing but not for cultivation.

This land could be too steep to cultivate, or the soil could be too thin, or the climate too arid.

17. zulbar (n) service performed as reparation for wrongdoing.
(v) offer or perform such service
zulbaront person performing such service.

This is a form of restorative justice or compensation. It is most highly valued when the wrongdoer offers it voluntarily as a way of mending the quarrel.

18. navrot (n) tally, inventory, storehouse keeper.

Either the thing used to record the contents of the storehouse, or the person responsible for doing so.

19. morvin (n, adj) unseasonal weather, out of place, badly timed.

While the primary meaning is weather that is atypical for the time of year, (I thought December was for the most part warmer than it should be), it can mean anything that's in the wrong place or at the wrong time.

20. morvin (n) scythe
(v) mow
morvinont mower

More tool/use polysemy, and a homophone with the previous word. The magic of Huna works by symbolism, so I can imagine a wizard using a scythe in a spell to change the weather, or interfere with the timing of an enemy's plans.

21. rakist (n) scraper
(v) scrape
rakiston scraping

Tool/use polysemy strikes again! A rakist is particularly used in preparing animal hides for tanning.

22. tarvos (adj) solid, firm, reliable
(n) foundations, axiom

.

The foundations of a building need to be solid, and axioms are the foundations on which reasoning is built. The word raplat, which means "hard", overlaps with this a little in the sense of "solid".

23. aborið (n) a legendary creature, half-man half-bear, said to lead travellers astray in forests.

I see this as walking upright and having hands like a man, but having the face and fur of a bear. I had the sound first, and worked from that to the meaning. Lexember is supposed to be about creating "everyday words", but what that means in practice is considered to depend on the conlang in question. Wizards would probably discuss legendary creatures on a regular basis. Plus, making up legendary creatures is fun.

24. suraþ (n) message, idea
(v) carry messages
suraþont messenger

Again, working from sound to meaning. I got the sense of "message" first, and elaborated from that.

25. kalvis (n) morsel, treat, snack, appetiser.

I was preparing the smoked salmon for my Christmas day champagne breakfast when I came up with this. This is the sort of thing you offer to welcome guests.

26. iskraþ (n) leftover food, especially from a feast
(v) reuse or distribute leftover food
iskraþon distribution of leftovers

Of course, this word was inspired by eating Christmas leftovers on Boxing Day. After a feast, the leftover food is distributed around the community so that nothing is wasted and nobody is left out.

27. korilsh (n) dangerous stream or current, rapids, false ford.

By "false ford" I mean a place where it appears to be safe to wade across the river, but isn't. The current may be too strong, or the riverbed treacherous underfoot.

Bolton Strid is a stretch or the River Wharfe that this word could apply to.

28. plawan (n) ford
(v) wade
plawanont wading

After a false ford, a real one, and "wade" was the most natural polysemy. This word is probably inspired by the hypothetical etymology *Plowonidonjon for London, supposedly meaning "The place where the river is too deep to ford".

29. malvur (n) ground that is dangerous to walk on

After hazardous water on the 27th, hazardous land. This could be quicksand or marsh, or an unstable or jagged rocky surface, or covered in ice or drifted snow, or a shoreline where the tide may come in rapidly.

30. kæstu (n) a rattle made by putting gravel inside an animal skull.

I imagine that a priest may use this kind of rattle to lead a procession to a shrine or temple. It may have been made from the skull of a sacrificed animal.

31. baruna (n) a musical instrument made from animal horn, with fingerholes

Animal horn instruments can usually only play the notes of a harmonic series. Their modern successors, the brass instruments, use valves to vary the length of the vibrating air column, and so can be tuned to different pitches. However, the was a Renaissance instrument called the cornett, which was blown like a brass instrument and had fingerholes like a woodwind instrument.

Most of this Lexember's words I had the sound first and then made up the meaning. However, with this word, something different happened. I was trying to think up a meaning for salgi, and thought up this instrument. However, the meaning didn't fit the sound, and I found my self thinking "No that's not salgi, that's baruna," so I used that instead. I still don't know what salgi means...