Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Kílta Lexember 1: këllekunaima "cave"

The Lexember 2020 Season is upon us! I have no particular theme for this season, apart from the ever-growing backlog of words I want to create for Kílta.

Today's word is cave. I was briefly tempted to coin a unique root for it, but to be honest my interaction with caves is not frequent. Since this is a personal language I do try to take into consideration just how often I'm going to use a word. I thought about various compounds, and settled on naima mouth for the final element, since that is already used as an entrance to places.

Këllekunaima /kəl.le.kuˈnaɪ̯.ma/ cave < këlleka hill, mountain + naima mouth

It's not enough just to coin the word for me most of the time. I want to spend some time thinking about prototypical usage. The normal motion in a cave is generally downward, so hímo go down, descend is the main verb for wandering a cave. For entering the cave, just use the inchoative.

Ilivëstët, útan li këllekunaima si tëtti hímësto.
iliv-ëst-ët útan li këllekunaima si tëtti hím-ëst-o
rain-INCH-PFV.CVB matter ABL cave ACC a.bit descend-INCH-PFV
It started to rain so they went in the cave a bit.

The expression útan li "from (that) matter" is an idiom for so, therefore.

I'll need to think more about how to express a cave-in.

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