Elcari language


Posted by Gareth Wilson on 18:33 9/5/02

In reply to: (none)

I just read your comments on the elcari language. It sounds fascinating, how far have you got with it? I've been playing around with your morphemes and I've guessed that _nebd_ means "miner" and _maku_ means "theft", although I'm open to correction.


Mark responds:

Last I checked, the grammatical sketch had grown to about 17 pages. It's decidedly weird, which was my intention for a non-human language. There's still some important parts missing, though.

Your words are correct, though I'd adjust the glosses. Ebd is an excavation of any kind; a mine would be a substyle. And mak is specifically stealing property; it could also be translated 'invade'. Stealing moveable objects is qilten.

Here's another nice word for you: gnqêtw 'father'. The initial g- is a masculine prefix (feminine is ch-); the final -w is an honorific, and the verb qêt is 'beget'.

If anyone's wondering what Gareth is referring to, by the way, it's to this rant.


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