balebale /bale̞bale̞/, noun: “sea, ocean, salt lake”
The pun is only marginally better than yesterday, but at least the picture is cute :).
So, the reason why I created the word bale yesterday? Just so I would have a source to today’s word! Yeah, languages can be quite roundabout can’t they? :P
Anyway, balebale refers to any kind of large expanse of salt water. I.e. it refers to what in English are called seas, oceans, and salt lakes. And no, there are no more specific words in Moten for various types of salt water expanses. It seems that to Moten speakers, it’s more important to know whether the water is drinkable, than to know whether the water feature is landlocked, just big, or freaking huge. To each their own :).
As for the derivation, balebale is simply the full reduplication of bale. Full reduplication in Moten usually means “all the…”, but such words are often subject to semantic shift, and it seems this has happened to this one as well.
In any case, you can’t argue that this word isn’t an everyday word! :P
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