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.

Culture and a Point of Word Usage in Kílta

One of the things I have tried to do with Kílta, though it is a personal language intended for use in the here-and-now, is to assemble an invented legendarium I can use to expand the range of expression beyond the nakedly literal. Stones, for example, are associated with a (completely undefined) oracle system, allowing the creation of idioms like ëkin mika si autto she touched another stone, to refer to someone altering their fate in a notable way.

Within this legendarium are váchur, semi-personified representations of certain forces and entities in the world, not gods, but certainly beyond the human. Perhaps like genius loci but expanded beyond just locations.

Kílta already has a word for plague, epidemic: vós [ˈβoːs]. But it entered my mind that a vácha for that might be useful. After a bit of percolation my brain, the vácha Hësas [ˈxə.sas] has entered the legendarium. It is represented by flies, who in Kílta already have associations with the more remorselessly brutal parts of the natural lifecycle.

In Kílta, many things that move in the air tunáko hang there. Because Hësas is represented by flies, I have decided that when expressions of location are used with the plain old word vós epidemic tunáko will be used.

Vós në méka nen metúnakësto.
vós në méka nen me-túnak-ëst-o
plague TOP America LOC CIS-hang-INCH-PFV
The plague is now in America.

Normally using a posture verb for location is confined to people and animals, but I've extended it to vós because of the association with Hësas and flies. This is probably the most subtle result of using the legendarium to drive Kílta expression to date — a single usage note in the lexicon entry for vós.