182 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
182 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
|
---
|
||
|
|
title: "ReConLangMo 6: Lexicon"
|
||
|
|
date: 2020-05-22
|
||
|
|
series: reconlangmo
|
||
|
|
tags:
|
||
|
|
- conlang
|
||
|
|
- lewa
|
||
|
|
---
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Previously in [this series][reconlangmo], we've covered a lot of details about
|
||
|
|
how sentences work, tenses get marked and how words work in general; however
|
||
|
|
this doesn't really make L'ewa a _language_. Most of the difficulty in making a
|
||
|
|
language like this is the vocabulary. In this post I'll be describing how I am
|
||
|
|
making the vocabulary for L'ewa and I'll include an entire table of the
|
||
|
|
dictionary words. This answers [this
|
||
|
|
prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gojncp/reconlangmo_6_lexicon/).
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[reconlangmo]: https://christine.website/blog/series/reconlangmo
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Word Distinctions
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
L'ewa is intended to be a logical language. One of the side effects of L'ewa
|
||
|
|
being a logical language is that each word should have as minimal and exact of a
|
||
|
|
meaning/function as possible. English has lots of words that cover large
|
||
|
|
semantic spaces (like go, set, run, take, get, turn, good, etc.) without much of a
|
||
|
|
pattern to it. I don't want this in L'ewa.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Let's take the word "good" as an example. Off the top of my head, good can mean
|
||
|
|
any of the following things:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
- beneficial
|
||
|
|
- aesthetically pleasing
|
||
|
|
- favorful taste
|
||
|
|
- saintly (coincidentally this is the source of the idiom "God is good")
|
||
|
|
- healthy
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I'm fairly sure there are more "senses" of the word good, but let's break these
|
||
|
|
into their own words:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
| L'ewa | Definition |
|
||
|
|
|-------|------------------------------------|
|
||
|
|
| firgu | is beneficial/nice to |
|
||
|
|
| n'ixu | is aesthetically pleasing to |
|
||
|
|
| flawo | is tasty/has a pleasant flavor to |
|
||
|
|
| spiro | is saintly/holy/morally good to |
|
||
|
|
| qanro | is healthy/fit/well/in good health |
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Each of these words has a very distinct and fine-grained meaning, even though
|
||
|
|
the range is a bit larger than it would be in English. These words also differ
|
||
|
|
from a lot of the other words in the L'ewa dictionary so far because they can
|
||
|
|
take an object. Most of the words so far are adjective-like because it doesn't
|
||
|
|
make sense for there to be an object attached to the color blue.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
By default, if a word that can take an object doesn't have one, it's assumed to
|
||
|
|
be obvious from context. For example, consider the following set of sentences:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
mi qa madsa lo spalo. ti flawo!
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I am eating an apple. It's delicious!
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I am working at creating more words using a [Swaedish list][swaedish207].
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[swaedish207]: https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa/src/branch/master/words/swaedish207.csv
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Family Words
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Family words are a huge part of a language because it encodes a lot about the
|
||
|
|
culture behind that language. L'ewa isn't really intended to have much of a
|
||
|
|
culture behind it, but the one place I want to take a cultural stance is here.
|
||
|
|
The major kinship word is kirta, or "is an infinite slice of an even greater
|
||
|
|
infinite". This is one of the few literal words in L'ewa that is defined using a
|
||
|
|
metaphor, as there is really no good analog for this in English.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
There are also words for other major family terms in English:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
| L'ewa | Definition |
|
||
|
|
|-------|-------------------------|
|
||
|
|
| brota | is the/a brother of |
|
||
|
|
| sistu | is the/a sister of |
|
||
|
|
| mamta | is the/a mother of |
|
||
|
|
| patfu | is the/a father of |
|
||
|
|
| grafa | is the/a grandfather of |
|
||
|
|
| grama | is the/a grandmother of |
|
||
|
|
| wanto | is the/a aunt of |
|
||
|
|
| tunke | is the/a uncle of |
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Cousins are all called brother/sister. None of these words are inherently
|
||
|
|
gendered and `brota` can refer to a female or nonbinary person. The words are
|
||
|
|
separate because I feel it flows better, for now at least.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Idioms
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
L'ewa strives to have as few idioms as possible. If something is meant
|
||
|
|
non-literally (or as a [conceptual metaphor][cmet]), the particle ke'a can be used:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[cmet]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
ti firgu
|
||
|
|
This is beneificial
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
ti ke'a firgu
|
||
|
|
This is metaphorically/non-literally beneficial
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
---
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I have been documenting L'ewa and all of its words/grammar in a [git
|
||
|
|
repo][lewarepo]. The layout of this repo is as follows:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
| Folder | Purpose |
|
||
|
|
|----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
||
|
|
| `book` | The source files and build scripts for the L'ewa book (this book may end up being published) |
|
||
|
|
| `nix` | [Nix][nix] crud, custom packages for the eBook render and development tools |
|
||
|
|
| `script` | Where experiments for the written form of L'ewa live |
|
||
|
|
| `tools` | Tools for hacking at L'ewa in Rust/Typescript (none published yet, this is where the dictionary server code will live) |
|
||
|
|
| `words` | Where the definitions of each word are defined in [Dhall][dhall], this will be fed into the dictionary server code |
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I also have the entire process of building and testing everything (from the
|
||
|
|
eBook to the unit tests of the tools) automated with [Drone][droneci]. You can
|
||
|
|
see the past builds [here](https://drone.tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa). After I merge
|
||
|
|
the information from the latest blogpost into this repo, I will put a rendered
|
||
|
|
version of it [here](http://lewa-book-devel.kahless.cetacean.club:43001/). This
|
||
|
|
will allow you to browse through the chapters of the eBook while it is being
|
||
|
|
written. Eventually this will be automatically deployed to my Kubernetes cluster
|
||
|
|
and the book will be a subpath/subdomain of `lewa.christine.website`.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I have created a system of defining words that allows you to focus on each word
|
||
|
|
at once, but then fit it back into the greater whole of the language. For
|
||
|
|
example here is `kirta.dhall`:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```dhall
|
||
|
|
-- kirta.dhall
|
||
|
|
let ContentWord = ../types/ContentWord.dhall
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
in ContentWord::{
|
||
|
|
, word = "kirta"
|
||
|
|
, gloss = "Creator"
|
||
|
|
, definition =
|
||
|
|
"is an infinite slice of an even greater infinite/our Creator/a Creator"
|
||
|
|
}
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
This is put in `words/roots` because it is a root (or uncombined) word. Then it
|
||
|
|
is added to the `dictionary.dhall`:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```dhall
|
||
|
|
-- dictionary.dhall
|
||
|
|
let ContentWord = ./types/ContentWord.dhall
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
let ParticleWord = ./types/ParticleWord.dhall
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
in { rootWords =
|
||
|
|
[ -- ...
|
||
|
|
./roots/kirta.dhall
|
||
|
|
-- ...
|
||
|
|
]
|
||
|
|
, particles [ -- ...
|
||
|
|
]
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
And then the build process will automatically generate the new dictionary from
|
||
|
|
all of these definitions. Downside of this is that each new kind of word needs
|
||
|
|
subtle adjustments to the build process of the dictionary and that
|
||
|
|
removals/changes to lots of words requires a larger-scale refactor of the
|
||
|
|
language, but I feel the tradeoff is worth the effort. I will undoubtedly end up
|
||
|
|
creating a few tools to help with this.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I will keep working on additional vocabulary on my own, but [here][vocab] is the
|
||
|
|
list of vocabulary that has been written up so far.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[vocab]: https://git.io/JfaeF
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Be well.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[lewarepo]: https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa
|
||
|
|
[nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
|
||
|
|
[dhall]: https://dhall-lang.org/
|
||
|
|
[droneci]: https://drone.io
|