31st Lexember Word

imíke [iˈmiˑd͡ʑə̆], inalienably possessed noun: “back, behind; end“

Originally posted by 2mainstreamhipster

Well, of the year and this Lexember month at least!

So, a fitting word for what is the end of this Lexember event, imíke refers primarily to the back or behind of an object or building, to the end of a road, or to the end of a period of time. It’s inalienably possessed, which makes sense as the end is always the end of something, and it’s considered a location, which means it can be used directly with the case particles of location (like the locative ta).

So that’s it for this year! I once again greatly enjoyed Lexember (despite the flu) and will probably go back and read everyone’s entries in the future (and steal the best ideas ;-)). But without further ado, here’s the last Lexember example of the year:

Kaam só imík urhartéan mik!: “It’s the end of the year, let’s celebrate!“ (literally: “let’s celebrate on the occasion of the end of this year!”)

30th Lexember Word

peorrép [pe̞.o̞̽ˈre̞ˑp], alienably possessed noun: “writing, written words; document“

Originally posted by inabrush

Well, it is winter :P.

The Mountain Folk have had a complicated relationship with writing. Until just a few generations ago, they had no writing system, nor any will to create or adopt one, despite being very much aware of the existence of writing and its purpose. Basically, they viewed writing as a feeble attempt to correct what they saw as a weakness of the mind: the lack of an accurate memory. Having an oral-only culture, they relied on people’s memories to keep their tales and stories alive. They also valued trust and verbal contracts very much (and people breaking such contracts were punished severely).

The pride they had in their oral-only culture and their contempt for writing is reflected in their word for writing, which literally means “speech’s shadow” (in that writing is not speech, but a mere shadow of it, lacking the detail and richness of the real thing).

This attitude has changed of last. Realising that their culture was on the brink of extinction due to the campaign of “assimilation” they were facing, they decided that they couldn’t carry on relying on human brains alone to keep their culture alive and needed a more permanent way to record their folk tales, beliefs, and language. Haotyétpi is now also a written language, and teaching writing and reading forms a large part of the revitalisation efforts that must ensure the survival of the Mountain Folk’s culture and language.

Lexember Words 22nd to 29th

So, as you may have noticed, I’ve fallen way behind with Lexember. I got sick with the flu a week ago, and by the time I was better it was Christmas time and I was away from home and my computer. So I’ve only just started to get back on track. So in order to make things quick, I’ve decided to put all the missing words in one post, rather than make a post for each word. No GIF either, the process of choosing GIFs just takes too much time. This post will just be words, and short explanations. Well, besides this introduction of course! :P

22nd Word: pekrépe [pe̞kˈɾe̞ˑbə̆], inalienably possessed noun: “disease, sickness“

Guess why! :P Anyway, this word is etymologically transparent (sound changes just happen to have kept it and its components recognisable) and means “bad shadow” and harkens back to an old belief of the Mountain Folk that one’s shadow could somehow become “infected” (mostly by bad spirits) resulting in diseases of the mind and body. Modern Mountain Folk naturally know where diseases come from, but the word stayed, just like we still call malaria “malaria” despite knowing it doesn’t come from “bad air”.

23rd Word: urún [uˈɾuˑn], intransitive verb: “to tire, to be/get tired“

This verb refers to the general feeling of tiredness one gets from exerting oneself physically or mentally. Fatigue due to illness is also included.

24th Word: tamín [täˈmiˑn], alienably possessed noun: “riverside village, fishermen’s settlement“

The generic word for “village” is hár. Tamín refers to a specific subset of villages, those set next to a river, and exploiting that river for subsistence.

25th Word: harté [häɾˈt͡ɕe̞ˑ], intransitive verb: “to party, to celebrate“

This verb originally means “to go/be in a village”. The shift in meaning probably comes from the custom of celebrating the most important ceremonies in one’s native village, rather than where one normally lives, with the travelling back to one’s birth village becoming as meaningful and important as the ceremonies themselves.

26th Word: saér [säˈe̞ˑɾ], transitive verb: “to enter, to go/come in“

Here we have another commonly used verb of motion.

27th Word: saériwe [säˈe̞ˑɾɪ̆ʋe̞̽], ditransitive (causative) verb: “to put in, to place inside“

As explained before, verbs referring to putting things in a certain locations are causatives of verbs of motion in Haotyétpi.

28th Word: wessó [ʋe̞ˈsːo̞ˑ], alienably possessed noun: “boat, ship“

This word refers mostly to small to midsize boats used on rivers and other waterways, although it can also be used to refer to larger, seafaring ships.

29th Word: peón [pe̞ˈo̞ˑn], alienably possessed noun: “speech, language; word“

There is another word for “language” in Haotyétpi: asotyétpi. But that word refers to language as a conceptual entity, an object one needs to know how to handle in order to communicate with others. Peón refers to the more mundane words themselves, the actual speech as it is spoken or externalised in any way.

21st Lexember Word

ankesocúp [änd͡ʑe̞̽zo̞̽ˈd͡zuˑp], nominalisation: “right side, right area”

Originally posted by heartsnmagic

Couldn’t find anything relevant, so here’s a puppy :).

So, today’s word is to socú what yesterday’s word was to hayré: a nominalisation referring to the environment of the speaker, rather than to a specific object or location. And really, there is nothing more to say about it that hasn’t been explained yesterday :).

Serí! Ankesocúp wataspá mo!: “No! Put it on the right please!”

20th Lexember Word

ankehayrép [änd͡ʑe̞̽ɦɐ͡ɪˈɾe̞ˑp], nominalisation: “left side, left area”

Originally posted by 2mainstreamhipster

Well, she’s looking in the right direction in any case.

Today’s word is simply a nominalisation of the verb hayré: “to be on the left”. However, it also uses the prefix anke-, which is worth mentioning. With nouns, and some verbs, anke- indicates that something is not what it appears to be, i.e. it means “pseudo-, mock”. However, with many verbs, it indicates instead that the entire environment of the speaker is involved, rather than a specific object. In this case, for instance, it indicates that what one is speaking about is the entire left side of the surroundings, from the point of view of the speaker (generally) rather than the left side of their body.

Ankehayrép wataspá ken: “Be a dear and put it on the left.”

19th Lexember Word

aspá [äɕˈpäˑ], transitive (causative) verb: “to put, to place“

Originally posted by artemispanthar

Hey, it’s not so often I manage to work in a GIF of my current favourite cartoon :P.

Interestingly, this verb is simply the regular causative form (albeit one using an old, nowadays non-productive causative suffix) of the verb ás: “to be, to exist“, a verb also used to mark location. In other words, aspá literally means: “to cause to be (in a certain location)“. This is in fact a common characteristic of Haotyétpi: that it does not have a single verb for “to put”, but instead uses the causative forms of various position verbs, depending on the situation. In particular, aspá is only used when putting things on flat, non-enclosed surfaces (the floor of a room does count as “non-enclosed”, by the way).

Like many commonly used verbs, aspá has a plural form, used when the object of the verb is plural: armó.

Kaáspi seásyo aspán mik mare n’ ás?: “Where should I put this?“

18th Lexember Word

socú [so̞ˈd͡zuˑ], intransitive verb: “to be right, to be on the right side; to go/turn right“

Originally posted by tamamushis

Of course, today’s word had to be the counterpart of yesterday’s hayré. We talked about the left side, so now let’s handle the right side, shall we?

I actually have little to add in this case. Everything I said yesterday about hayré is valid for socú too. That includes the stative and dynamic meanings of the verb, me being unaware of secondary meanings of this word, and the absence of (in this case) positive connotations for the right side in the Mountain Folk culture.

This does not necessarily mean that they consider lateralisation to be irrelevant (in fact, I know that they do). The Mountain Folk simply do not consider one side to be inherently “better” or “worse” than the other.

No example this time either. I simply lack the inspiration.