tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 26 12:25:37 1997
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Klingon phonaesthemes (was Re: lom)
nuQum SuStel:
|English: loam (n) a loose soil composed of clay and sand, esp. a kind
|containing organic matter and of great fertility.
|
|Klingon:
|lom (n) corpse
|lam (n) dirt
|lam (v) be dirty
|
|Coincidence? Wrong? Really cool?
Another Okrandian quartet is:
jaw (v) chat [< English "jaw"!]
ja' (v) tell, report
jatlh (v) speak, say
joS (v) gossip [< Eng. "josh"!]
I wonder if there are any other groups like this in Klingon. These were
discussed on the conlang ("constructed languages") mailing list back in
December. In English (and other languages) there are groups of related
words which all begin with the same first and/or second letter. E.g.:
ghoul, ghost, gnome, gargoyle, goblin, gremlin, ghastly
glow, gleam, glitter, glisten, glare, glimmer, glance (of chemistry!)
flicker, flare (Ger. Glanz, (glaenzen), gluehen...)
sniff, sneeze, snore, snort, snuff, snuffle, snivel, snout, snot,
snook, smell .....
Quoting And Rosta <[email protected]> on conlang 12/09/96:
"These elements like GL, SN are called phonaesthemes. They are peculiar in
that they have independent meaning but combine to form roots (combining
either with other phonaesthemes (cf. shine, shimmer, glimmer, glitter,
flitter, flimmer, jitter) or with a cranberry morph (e.g. _ine_ in shine).
[Note incidentally than phonaesthemes needn't be word-initial.] In English
they are technically not productive, in the sense that if you take two
phonaesthemes and form a novel root, one can only make an informed guess
as to its meaning."
Of course, this doesn't mean that all words beginning with these elements
are related. ("Glove" and "glory" or "snip," "snug" and "snatch", for
example, don't belong in the above list.) But they are interesting
nonetheless.
We seem to have {l-o/a-m} and {j-a/o-}. Any other phonaesthemes in Klingon?
-- Voragh