Kílta Lexember 31: lamerun "in due course, in good time"

It's the last day of Lexember, so a time expression.

lamerun /læˈme.ɾun/ in good time, in due course, in/at the right time < lamerin round, plump, ripe + -un temporospatial suffix

The adjective lamerin covers a wide range of meaning, but one primary sense is that of culmination after a waiting period. Thus, ripe, plump, right time, etc. The suffix -un derives adverbs of place or time. It's not incredibly common.

Ton në lamerun katihëstat no re.
ton në lamerun katih-ëst-at n-o re
2SG TOP in.due.course understand-INCH-INF be-PFV PTCL
You'll understand in due course.

Here's another example of Kílta using the inchoative where English would be content with a simple verb. I could, I suppose, translate this "you'll start to understand in due course," but a lot of the time it's clunky to capture Kílta's inchoative too fastidiously in the English.

Lorátin Naram mëli rum!
Happy New Year!

Kílta Lexember 30: omulutta "earthquake"

I'm not entirely thrilled that today's word comes out looking a bit like breakfast, but these things happen sometimes.

omulutta /o.muˈlut.ta/ earthquake < om earth + lúto move + -ta nominalizer

Kílta has two entirely different stems for English move, one transitive, one intransitive. I've used the transitive one here, focusing on the effect (the earth moves things), rather than the merely describing the event in isolation.

Luikin omulutta vima si tuëmo.
heavy earthquake city ACC pound.PFV
A terrible earthquake struck the city.

This is exactly the sort of example sentence I like best, if I can pull it off — it gives two collocational usage hints. First, a bad earthquake in Kílta is luikin heavy, and second, the verb for earthquake destructive activity is tuëmo pound.

Kílta Lexember 29: tetila "joint, knuckle; inch"

I already had the word tetila with just the meaning joint. I've decided to extend the meaning to knuckle — a common enough polysemy — and through that to also mean inch (the measurement).

Tetila has no etymology. You can specify knuckle if you have to by using ol hand:

Pácha si chokët, ol vë tetilur kwalo.
table ACC hit.CVB.PFV, hand ATTR joint.PL hurt
After I hit the table my knuckles hurt.

To measure precipitation (the occasion for today's Lexember efforts), a secondary predicate construction is used:

Hëru tetilur mai mechuhítat no re.
hër-u tetil-ur mai me(ch)-uhít-at n-o re
8-PL joint-PL LAT CIS-snow-INF be-PFV PTCL
It will snow eight inches here.

Time and measurements are my hardest time learning natural languages, and not my favorite part of language invention. I'll get to the metric system eventually.

Kílta Lexember 28: oléla "gloves"

More winter weather vocabulary today.

oléla /oˈleː.la/ gloves

This is an eccentric reduplication starting from ol hand. A few pieces of paired clothing get not entirely predictable forms like this.

Samma vë oléla në vurël no?
fur ATTR gloves TOP where be.pfv
Where are the wool gloves?

Even though I've taken up weaving as a rage-absorbing hobby during The Covidities, and have added weaving vocabulary to Kílta, I hadn't yet committed to a word for wool. The polysemy I picked, from the already existing samma fur, is a common one. Two words settled with one example sentence.

Kílta Lexember 27: káhutiëha "bureaucracy"

Nearly all Kílta words are internally generated, either from derivation of existing vocabulary, or generated from scratch using my word shape generator. I do have a few borrowings, though, and those are confined to two main domains: places, especially country names; and very ancient cultivated plants and foods, with a few ancient technologies. Most of the borrowings that aren't contemporary place names come from languages of the ancient Near East, such as Sumerian via Akkadian, and some Egyptian. A few terms from from the Silk Road, for which I usually turn to Sogdian. Monta or something like it for dumplings, for example, shows up all along the silk road.

Today's word starts with káha paper, which is from Sogdian:

káhutiëha /kaː.xu.tiˈə.xa/ bureaucracy < káha paper + tiëha authority, power, rule

Tiëha is a usual compound element for -cracy words.

Iminachin káhutiëha katama si útauno.
RED-big bureaucracy workplace ACC dominate.PFV
A huge bureaucracy dominates work.

A representative of the bureaucracy is of course káhutiëhil a bureaucrat, the original word with the agent noun ending -il tacked on.

Finally there is káhutiëkkis, a piece of bureaucracy, piece of bureaucratic work, which could be paperwork or one of the many procedural rituals that warms the hearts of the process-oriented. A light verb construction with salko put, place generates the meaning assign someone a bureaucratic task:

Hiëmma si tirëtiu, nalaiku káhutiëkkisá si salko.
hiëmma si tir-ëtiu, nalaik-u káhutiëkkis-á si salk-o
revenge ACC give/1-PURP.CVB.PFV, further-PL bureaucratic.task-PL ACC put.PFV
To get revenge, he gave me more bureaucratic tasks.

There are a few arguments in the English translation that aren't explicit in the Kílta. Because the verb tiro give is only used when the recipient is a first person argument, that sets up the reasonable interpretation for the rest of the sentence.

Kílta Lexember 26: aroccha "boots"

Another seasonally appropriate word for people living in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.

aroccha /aˈɾot.tʃa/ boots, by default the full pair; no etymology

I entertained a few etymologies (relating to: foot, leg, to wrap), but nothing was satisfying, so I ultimately decided on an altogether new word.

Mechuhítirë so! Aroccha si relësti re.
me-uhít-irë so! aroccha si rel-ëst-i re
CIS-snow-IPFV ASSEV! boots ACC carry-INCH-IMP PTCL
It's snowing! Put on your boots.

The particle re is used to make imperatives less face-threatening.

Except for an attributive to maybe define the purpose or other qualities of them, there doesn't seem to be much call for special vocabulary around boots.

Kílta Lexember 25: ësta "gift"

Kílta has two separate roots for give, one when the recipient is the first person (me, us), one when the recipient is the non-first person (you, him, her, it, them). When terms are derived from a give word, though, the non-first person recipient one, ëcho, is the one used.

ësta /ˈəs.ta/ gift, present; bribe < ëcho give + -ta nominalizer (with some sound changes)

Emanur në rëtu ëstur si niëmo.
child.PL TOP much.PL gift.PL ACC receive.PFV
The children got many presents.

The usual give verbs, ëcho and tiro, can be used for giving a gift, but the light verb expression ësta si salko (lit., "put/place a gift"), is also regularly used, especially if the gift is not a physical object. With dative for recipient, ablative for the gift.

Ha në ël kë vúkur si ësta si salko.
1SG TOP 3SG DAT silver.PL ACC gift ACC put.PFV
I gave her some money (as a gift)

The adjective luikin heavy is used for a big gift that possibly incurs reciprocal social obligation, and lapin empty for a "small token," a minor gift.

Given the appropriate context, ësta also means a bribe.

Válekos në ëstur së si niëmirë hír.
sinecure-holder TOP gift.PL also ACC receive.IPFV PTCL
The sinecure-holder was of course also taking bribes.

The clause-final particle hír indicates that the statement follows naturally from what has come before.

Kílta Lexember 24: sussorë "woolgathering, abstracted, absorbed"

A simple but useful adverb today:

sussorë /susˈso.ɾə/ woolgathering, abstracted, absorbed, no etymology

This is almost always used with a posture verb (sit, stand, lie, hang), whether as a predicate or an attribute.

Ton në huchë sussorë sunko tul?
2SG TOP again wollgathering stand.PFV Q
Are you woolgathering again?

Ha në sussorë rinërin mauta si auttët, auníta si chaso.
1SG TOP wollgathering sit.PCPL.PFV cat ACC touch.CVB.PFV, startle ACC do.PFV
I touched the abstracted cat and startled him.

Kílta uses participles for things like relative clauses, "the cat that was woolgathering."

Kílta Lexember 23: lurusanil "parasite"

Another charming word today:

lurusanil /lu.ɾuˈsæ.nil/ parasite < lur breath, "energy" + sano eat + -il agent noun 

The breath, lur, in Kílta is also used idiomatically to refer to one's personal energy. Usually this is for the personal feeling, but I've grabbed it here for a more general sense.

Maras në lurusanilá si kacho tul?
kitten TOP parasite.PL ACC suffer.PFV Q
Does the kitten have parasites?

Kílta prefers kacho suffer to possession when referring to parasite infestation.

The adjective is lurusanohin parasitic.

Lurusanohin ús mácha si chuvët, akkalët, errelo.
lurusanohin ús mácha si chuv-ët, akkal-ët, er-rel-o
parasitic wasp spider ACC hunt-CVB.PFV, capture-CVB.PFV, TRANS-carry-PFV
A parasitic wasp hunted, captured, and carried away a spider.

Kílta Lexember 22: mënsekwa "restroom"

More household vocabulary today:

mënsekwa /mənˈse.kʷa/ restroom, bathroom < mënso wash, clean + -e/ikwa room/building suffix

An altogether transparent derivation.

The verb nuto means impel, urge, set in motion. It's used in the detransitive form, with a middle-like sense, to express the need to visit a restroom:

Ha në mënsekwa mai nutiso.
ha në mënsekwa mai nut-is-irë
1SG TOP restroom LAT impel-DETR-IPFV
I have to go to the bathroom.

In normal daily usage, absent other context, just nutiso by itself means the same thing.

Kílta Lexember 21: kwailëmës "sadist"

Kílta has a family of derivations centered on -ëmës "caretaker, cultivator." The word for doctor (or veterinarian) is esëmës, from es health. Today's words start with that:

kwailëmës /kʷaɪ̯ˈlə.məs/ sadist < kwailo hurt + -ëmës "caretaker" derivation

Kwailëmësá útan si ontirë.
sadist.PL matter ACC conduct.IPFV
Sadists are running things.

The light verb expression útan si onto is a fixed idiom meaning "run things."

The standard adjective derivation for -ëmës nouns is -ëmarin. For both the noun and the adjective form, the intensifier word is ívin (adv. ívui) savage.

Ívui kwailëmarin íhamal si ruiso.
savagely sadistic law ACC bind.PFV
They passed a deeply sadistic law.

Kílta Lexember 20: kuima "snail"

I realized that I didn't have a word for snail, which, I'll admit, isn't a word I use a lot, but sometimes you need to translate a conlanging meme.

kuima /kuˈi.ma/ snail, no etymology

Kuimur rëtu sotur së ën tuimata nen vëcho.
snail.PL many kind.PL also this swamp LOC remain.PFV
Many kinds of snail live in this swamp.

A word I do use more often, however, is slug, which is just lapin kuima a naked snail.

Lapu kuimur në ekiccha si sanár vëcho vukai!
naked.PL snail.PL TOP cabbage ACC eat.CVB.IPFV remain.PFV PTCL
The slugs keep eating the cabbage!

A converb + vëcho is a light verb expression that means continue to, keep on, etc. The post-verbal particle vukai indicates the speaker's displeasure about the situation. 

Kílta Lexember 19: ósa "form, shape"

More from my terrible backlog:

ósa /ˈoː.sa/ shape, form < onna build, fashion + -sa a "non-productive" nominalizer

This takes the attributive/possessive particle vë to indicate a particular shape, and prefers vurpin what kind of to just plain vurin which when asking about shape.

Ën mika vë ósa në uchin no.
this stone ATTR shape TOP strange be.PFV
The shape of this stone is peculiar.

Like many attributes, it is carried rather than simply had,

Mium në vurpin ósa si relo?
toy TOP what.kind.of form ACC bear.IPFV
What's the toy's shape?

I've decided to push on the meaning a bit for a few compounds to refer to states of matter. I almost never talk about that, but since I'm here and the idea occurred to me, I might as well add them:

ahëkósa - gas ("wind-shape")
matusósa - liquid ("water-shape")
saispósa - solid ("wood-shape," where wood is often "matter")
luëkusósa - plasma ("fire-shape")

I am not going to worry about Bose-Einstein Condensates for now.

Kílta Lexember 18: válusórin "ambitious"

The English word ambitious apparently only started to take on positive senses in the 1600s. The Kílta word reflects a deep ambivalence about it, suggesting a certain aggressive, grasping quality.

válusórin /βaː.luˈsoː.ɾin/ ambitious < vál privilege, perq + -ór-in adj. derivation meaning fond of

In new derivations and compounds Kílta will make an effort to avoid sequences of heavy syllables. It's not completely precious about it — there are, after all, roots that have HH patterns — but it will try. In the case of the -ór-in suffix, the usual ligature to add a light element -ar- is too echo-y, so the noun compounding ligature -u(s)- is preferred here.

Válusórin kattëkës në avur nalaikin kata si chasëtiu máko.
ambitious boss TOP 1PL further work ACC do.PURP.CVB.PFV want.PFV
Our ambitious boss wants us to work more.

There are a few common collocations I worry about when generating new words: intensity, approval, good/bad for a purpose. There are others, but those are pretty core. A simple very is usually available, but not very interesting, and in many natural languages, not even usual for many words. Approval for this word is unlikely for Kílta, but I'm going with mákohin covetous as the main term for intense ambition (adverbialized if necessary). Using these collocations is one of the main things I try to do in my example sentences in the lexicon.

The noun is válusóras ambition. Certain actions might expose ambition, which is indicated with ráno signal, gesture, point (out).

Sím vë lár në mákohin válusóras mai ráno.
3SG ATTR word TOP covetous ambition LAT signal.PFV
What he said exposed his intense ambition.

Kílta Lexember 17: líkkis si salko "feed"

Today is another phrasal creation, made up of words that already exist.

In the existing Kílta corpus there are already a very small uses of the word sanëlo, which is just the causative of sano eat, for feed, but I don't like it. I've decided that sanëlo is confined to industrial or mechanical feeding, as well as experimental settings where we might say we're feeding (culturing) bacteria or whatnot. Force-feeding a prisoner, or as a form of torture, would also use sanëlo. For normal feeding:

líkkis si salko feed < líkkis food + salko put, place; with the dative for the recipient

Ton në ké mautur kë líkkis si salko tul?
2SG TOP already cat.PL DAT food ACC put Q
Have you fed the cats yet?

Every once in a while, you have to do this sort of lexical retconning when something that seemed like a good idea at the time turns out later to not be what you want. The light verb expression here is more in the spirit of the language.

Kílta Lexember 15: lapin líkkis "junk food"

A phrasal entry today, from words that already existed:

lapin líkkis junk food < lapin empty + líkkis food

Nothing too exotic here.

Ha në lapin líkkis si kwilë sanët, ichunëho hír.
1SG TOP empty food ACC too.much eat.CVB.PFV, feel.unsatisfied PTCL
I ate too much junk food and feel gross.

Ichunëho is defined as feel unsatisfied despite normal consumption. It can be used with non-food items, such as a book that didn't live up to expectations, but when used in reference to actual food it implies that not only are you not satisfied, you don't feel well.

The postverbal particle hír is used for narrative cohesion, and means something like as you'd expect. It is used more often in Kílta than I use as you'd expect in English.

Kílta Lexember 14: kiummin "spooky, eery"

And old one from my ever-growing list of words to create:

kiummin /kiˈum.min/ spooky, eery, creepy

It has no etymology.

I wanted a particular word to intensify this notion, beyond just very. Physical sensations are good place to go for this, so I went with inesui "icily."

Ummul në kinta kiummin no.
forest TOP night spooky be.PFV
At night the forest is spooky.

Eman në inesui kiummin máha si cholat máko më re.
child TOP icily creepy story ACC hear.INF want.PFV NEG PTCL
The child didn't want to hear a super creepy story.

I'm leaning toward making any statements about other people's internal state (mental or otherwise) require the particle re, which hedges it a bit.

Kiummin is a good match for topicalized infinitive clauses:

Ël tu si mítat në kiummin chaso.
3SG those ACC say.INF TOP spook do.PFV
It got spooky when she said that.

Kílta Lexember 13: issét "footpath, sidewalk"

Basic vocabulary again today:

issét /ˈis.seːt/ footpath, sidewalk < issa road, way + -ét lexical diminutive

Kílta has normal diminutives which can be used freely on anything, as well as fossilized diminutives which only occur as (non-productive) word derivation elements, sometimes without the non-diminutive root being used in the language at all.

Avur në issét nen erniënto.
avur në issét nen er-niënt-o
1PL TOP footpath nen TRANS-depart-PFV
We left on the footpath.

Uhítot si issét li úri avësso.
snow ACC sidewalk ABL just.now remove.PFV
I just removed snow from the sidewalk.

Kílta Lexember 12: chítas "regret, remorse"

Today's word has a modestly interesting etymology, but it kicked off a bunch of new polysemy for some adjectives:

chítas /ˈtʃiː․tas/ regret, remorse < chíto bite, chew + -as abstract nominalizer

Part of the motivation for this is that chíto also means sting when insects do it.

As is normal with emotion nouns, the verb relo bear, carry is used when one's experiencing it. I use the ablative li for the matter about which one has regrets, and the dative kë for a person who has been wronged.

Mannur në nirika li chítas si relo më.
3PL TOP war ABL regret ACC carry.PFV NEG
They don't regret the war.

Ëlá në atta kë chítas si relo.
3PL TOP father DAT regret ACC carry.PFV
They have regrets about their father.

Regrets have standard lexical collocations, generally adjectives, like: sincere, deep, etc., so I needed to cover that a bit. For a sincere regret, I just chose tásin true. That word is also used to mean something like equal to the task, which is more the sense I was drawing on here.

For other intensity terms I went back to the original meaning of chíto bite, and went with nútokin strong for deep regrets. Kwimin weak can mean mild regret, but more carries the sense of insincere regret. I'm not going to give examples of all of them, but one should give the flavor:

Nútokin chítas ël si sikwa mai nuto.
strong regret 3SG ACC house LAT impel.PFV
Deep regret(s) sent him home.

Nuto covers urge, set in motion, impel, etc.

Kílta Lexember 11: insen - "sink, basin"

More basic household vocabulary today:

insen /ˈin․sen/ sink, basin < in- augmentative + sen cup, bowl

This derivation is pretty transparent.

Insen mai manur si salki re.
sink LAT vegetable.PL ACC place.IMP PTCL
Put the vegetables in(to) the sink.

Imperatives are moderated with the particle re.

Insen si këspin mata li riëlainat no.
sink ACC hot water ABL fill.INF be.PFV
I'll fill the sink with hot water.

The simple future, INF + no, is practically confined to first person subjects, so the subject is unambiguous here. Also Kílta has separate temperature words for water and food. Mahin hot would be used for things or the weather.