Sometimes —perhaps too often— I don't find enough interesting ideas or meanings to create new words for my conlang's lexicons. While I have protolanguages (and proto-roots) for my most developed conlangs, there are occasions where I just can't derive a word from a proto-root for whatever reason; for example:
• The proto-root has been exploited too much.
• The proto-root gives too ugly or bland words.
• I just don't want to play with proto-roots (often to give a natural touch to a conlang, since not all words in a natlang derive from that language's mother tongue).
• I don't want the new word to be a loanword from another conlang but a native word with a new meaning for the loaned concept.
I will put here my questions or attempts at creating new words with different etymologies, specially when compared with their natlang counterparts, and others can do the same as well.
And to begin with...
Tomato
Hellesan belongs to a region of my conworld that has a certain amount of non-native plants and animals, and to create words for those concepts different solutions arise. One of them is the typical 'loanword solution', in which Hellesan takes the foreign language's native word for whatever concept and adapts it (hellesanizes it). If there's a foreign colang, there's no problem, and if there's no such language, I can create the word from nothing and it's done.
But this process is often too boring for me, since I like to give all words an original meaning.
Another option is to take the foreign concept, idea or thing but not the word, which forces the creation of a native word (like Greek καμηλοπάρδαλις, literally "camel leopard", to refer to giraffes, instead of adapting a foreign word, perhaps Semitic or Egyptian).
This is what happens with the Hellesan word for "tomato". Since the region where Hellesan exists is far from the land where tomatos are native, the fruit is imported, something exotic, and the name won't be a very ancient one. I could create a supposed native word for the fruit and then the hellesanized form, but as I said that's too boring. So the more funny option is to create a native word for the concept as a reaction of the receiving people/language to such an exotic newcomer, like Italians did creating pomodoro "golden apple" or the French did forging pomme d'amour "love apple", not to mention the funny German wolfpfirsich "wolf peach" (10 points to German for that nice meaning whatever it pretends to relate to).*
I needed, for Hellesan, to create a word for "tomato", and the first attempt has been the very dull gerolasc, which is the despective form for girole "cherry". Not a bad relation, that 'tomato = ugly cherry', but the meaning can be more interesting, like the examples I give above. A second attempt has given tabre guesalís "bloody pepper", for the very obvious ties with peppers (shape, colour) and the blood-like pulp tomatoes have and peppers lack.
*New World fruits and other stuff seems to be a nice pool to find imaginative popular names for the newly imported concepts in European languages, like the examples given above, to which we can add French pomme de terre for "potatos", etc. Not to mention variations of a native loanword within the same language, like the many name for "tomato" in Catalan: tomata, tomaca, tomàquet, tomàtic, tomacó, domàtiga...
• The proto-root has been exploited too much.
• The proto-root gives too ugly or bland words.
• I just don't want to play with proto-roots (often to give a natural touch to a conlang, since not all words in a natlang derive from that language's mother tongue).
• I don't want the new word to be a loanword from another conlang but a native word with a new meaning for the loaned concept.
I will put here my questions or attempts at creating new words with different etymologies, specially when compared with their natlang counterparts, and others can do the same as well.
And to begin with...
Tomato
Hellesan belongs to a region of my conworld that has a certain amount of non-native plants and animals, and to create words for those concepts different solutions arise. One of them is the typical 'loanword solution', in which Hellesan takes the foreign language's native word for whatever concept and adapts it (hellesanizes it). If there's a foreign colang, there's no problem, and if there's no such language, I can create the word from nothing and it's done.
But this process is often too boring for me, since I like to give all words an original meaning.
Another option is to take the foreign concept, idea or thing but not the word, which forces the creation of a native word (like Greek καμηλοπάρδαλις, literally "camel leopard", to refer to giraffes, instead of adapting a foreign word, perhaps Semitic or Egyptian).
This is what happens with the Hellesan word for "tomato". Since the region where Hellesan exists is far from the land where tomatos are native, the fruit is imported, something exotic, and the name won't be a very ancient one. I could create a supposed native word for the fruit and then the hellesanized form, but as I said that's too boring. So the more funny option is to create a native word for the concept as a reaction of the receiving people/language to such an exotic newcomer, like Italians did creating pomodoro "golden apple" or the French did forging pomme d'amour "love apple", not to mention the funny German wolfpfirsich "wolf peach" (10 points to German for that nice meaning whatever it pretends to relate to).*
I needed, for Hellesan, to create a word for "tomato", and the first attempt has been the very dull gerolasc, which is the despective form for girole "cherry". Not a bad relation, that 'tomato = ugly cherry', but the meaning can be more interesting, like the examples I give above. A second attempt has given tabre guesalís "bloody pepper", for the very obvious ties with peppers (shape, colour) and the blood-like pulp tomatoes have and peppers lack.
*New World fruits and other stuff seems to be a nice pool to find imaginative popular names for the newly imported concepts in European languages, like the examples given above, to which we can add French pomme de terre for "potatos", etc. Not to mention variations of a native loanword within the same language, like the many name for "tomato" in Catalan: tomata, tomaca, tomàquet, tomàtic, tomacó, domàtiga...
More about tomatoes and potatoes from Isharia:
Whimemsz came up with this, which appears in some webpages about tomatoes:
I don't know if that etymology is reliable, but it's rock'n'roll to me. So good that it deserves to be posted here.
Regarding potatoes Guitarplayer mentioned that grundbirne means "ground pear"". There's also erdbirne "earth pear".
And let's not forget the Latin malum persicum "Persian apple" for "peach", then reduced to persicum, origin of Catalan préssec, Portuguese pêssego and English peach, among others.
Looks like "apple" is an apt concept to name newly imported or exotic fruits and vegetables.
++++++++++++
Meanings given to some fruits and vegetables:
Avocado: alligator pear (due to sound similarities)...
Common bean: little bean, little nun...
Maize: moor's wheat, bread-like...
Peach: Persian apple, Persian fruit...
Peanut: ground nut...
Pumpkin: turtle-like...
Potato: earth apple, earth pear, ground pear, earth tuber...
Sunflower: sun flower, sun turner...
Sweet potato: sweet potato, sweet earth-apple, tasty yam...
Tomato: golden apple, love apple, wolf peach, Paradise apple...
Whimemsz came up with this, which appears in some webpages about tomatoes:
"Be that as it may, in this oft-repeated version the name wolfpfirsich referred to the tomato's round shape, reminiscent of a peach, while the "wolf" modifier derived from the Germanic folk belief that werewolves could be called up using other members of the Solanaceae family, such as nightshade and wolf bane."
I don't know if that etymology is reliable, but it's rock'n'roll to me. So good that it deserves to be posted here.
Regarding potatoes Guitarplayer mentioned that grundbirne means "ground pear"". There's also erdbirne "earth pear".
And let's not forget the Latin malum persicum "Persian apple" for "peach", then reduced to persicum, origin of Catalan préssec, Portuguese pêssego and English peach, among others.
Looks like "apple" is an apt concept to name newly imported or exotic fruits and vegetables.
++++++++++++
Meanings given to some fruits and vegetables:
Avocado: alligator pear (due to sound similarities)...
Common bean: little bean, little nun...
Maize: moor's wheat, bread-like...
Peach: Persian apple, Persian fruit...
Peanut: ground nut...
Pumpkin: turtle-like...
Potato: earth apple, earth pear, ground pear, earth tuber...
Sunflower: sun flower, sun turner...
Sweet potato: sweet potato, sweet earth-apple, tasty yam...
Tomato: golden apple, love apple, wolf peach, Paradise apple...
Lilitika unfortunately has some of the most tedious fruit and vegetable names imaginable; they mostly boil down to a colour + a part of plant anatomy, like galotúze (yellow-leg/root) for potato, or bosekhrona (rich ovum/fruit.) The history of this is somewhat worth noting; prior to the Exodus they had no control over their food at all, and were fed a slurry of mixed plants of questionable nutritive value, since the native life on the planet was biochemically incompatible. The discovery of the source of their food occurred hastily in the aftermath of an extinction event that destroyed two empires, so in general the names were... rushed.
Soy was of course a major dietary component, being the only major protein source, and so soybeans have the rather curious name zeltere, a portmanteau of "truth" and "unit." This is contrasted with the word for meat, "(nept)ríñkolro," which is formed from three elements: nept- ("recovered"; "gone to the afterlife"), ríñke ("outward"; "excretion", also found in riñkedu ("urine") and riñksoinu ("feces")), and olro ("food"). In short, "rotting shit." (And you thought the vegans in your neighbourhood were obnoxious!) This was perhaps more understandable in a culture where cannibalism would be the only way of obtaining meat, but oddly, the word survives in some meat-eating descendant cultures, in the contracted form "nepro," which at the very least sounds like "food made from corpses."
Soy was of course a major dietary component, being the only major protein source, and so soybeans have the rather curious name zeltere, a portmanteau of "truth" and "unit." This is contrasted with the word for meat, "(nept)ríñkolro," which is formed from three elements: nept- ("recovered"; "gone to the afterlife"), ríñke ("outward"; "excretion", also found in riñkedu ("urine") and riñksoinu ("feces")), and olro ("food"). In short, "rotting shit." (And you thought the vegans in your neighbourhood were obnoxious!) This was perhaps more understandable in a culture where cannibalism would be the only way of obtaining meat, but oddly, the word survives in some meat-eating descendant cultures, in the contracted form "nepro," which at the very least sounds like "food made from corpses."
quoting Rhetorica, Kelatetía: Dis, Major Belt 1:[...] This is contrasted with the word for meat, "(nept)ríñkolro," which is formed from three elements: nept- ("recovered"; "gone to the afterlife"), ríñke ("outward"; "excretion", also found in riñkedu ("urine") and riñksoinu ("feces")), and olro ("food"). In short, "rotting shit." (And you thought the vegans in your neighbourhood were obnoxious!) This was perhaps more understandable in a culture where cannibalism would be the only way of obtaining meat, but oddly, the word survives in some meat-eating descendant cultures, in the contracted form "nepro," which at the very least sounds like "food made from corpses."
Tha reminds me of that meat created artificially. Or even better, that fake meat some Japanese scientists once synthesized from poop. Meat made from corpses could be a solution to lack of space to bury them, so it's a thing to be considered. The future is wild.
Easy, if they're connected globally through fast trade: flu season.
Otherwise maybe it's bad luck to take bodies out of the morgue until it's past a certain date. The date can be connected to a fable. Not the healthiest idea, keeping bodies around, but still...
Third option: a ceremony can only occur in early autumn, such as a rite of maturity or a challenge of succession, that tends to leave behind a lot of bodies.
Otherwise maybe it's bad luck to take bodies out of the morgue until it's past a certain date. The date can be connected to a fable. Not the healthiest idea, keeping bodies around, but still...
Third option: a ceremony can only occur in early autumn, such as a rite of maturity or a challenge of succession, that tends to leave behind a lot of bodies.
quoting Rhetorica, Kelatetía: Dis, Major Belt 1:Easy, if they're connected globally through fast trade: flu season.
"Flu season". It's funny to think about it right now.
A few days ago I decided I'm going to have four seasons and 6 minor seasons, the first ones marked by astronomy and climate, while the others are more determined by climate and biology (or biorhythms). And the minor season that falls in the last two thirds of nausard "autumn" will be named with that etymology.