Lexember 3rd: suilta "tattoo"

Derived from the verb suillo prick, pierce, jab, the noun suilta /su.ˈil.ta/ is tattoo. As is normal with states and bodily attachments, in Kílta you relo carry these, rather than simply have them.

Ha në valu suiltur si relo.
ha në val-u suilt-ur si rel-o
1SG TOP three-PL tattoo-PL ACC bear-PFV
I have three tattoos.

When it comes to giving someone a tattoo, though, a complex converb expression is used. The imperfective converb of suillo comes first, taking the patient of this action, and the main verb is kicho incise; write.

Naula në ël si suillár kicho.
naula në ël si suill-ár kich-o
friend TOP 3SG ACC prick.IPFV.CVB write-PFV
His friend gave him a tattoo.

Lexember 2nd: lé "into water"

There is a perfectly fine word for just "water" in Kílta, mata, and even a way to say "into water," mata mai, but the adverb lé /leː/ is preferred for motion into water or any other liquid. If for some reason the exact nature of the liquid was focused, then you could use mata mai or the like.

Ëla në kiva li tunákirë, lé oto.

3.PL TOP tree ABL hang.IPFV into.liquid fall.PFV

They were hanging from a tree and fell into the water.

Likër si tëlpár, in natena in tërta si lé salko.
soup ACC cook.CVB.IPFV and onion and meat ACC into.water place.PFV
Making the soup, he added onion and meat.

Lexember 1st: unnuluikin "expensive"

I haven't done Lexember in a few years. The last time I added a month worth of ideophones to Kahtsaai. This time I'm just going to grab my very long backlog of words I want to add to Kílta. I've been working on Kílta for years now, and is the only language I've worked on where I consistently follow my own advice to always, always, always have examples for new vocabulary. The results have been much more satisfying.

This is a personal language, so a lot of the vocabulary is likely to be fairly mundane.

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Today's word is unnuluikin /ʔu.nu.lu.ˈi.kin/ expensive. It is a compound, from unna wealth, property and the adjective luikin heavy.

Para në unnuluikin nomën, chí chí hammo so.
book TOP expensive be.CONCES.CVB, against against buy.PFV ASSEV
Although the book was expensive, I bought it anyway.

Kílta metaphor: SALT IS VITALITY

One standard feature of my current grammars for new languages is a separate section after the dictionary where I focus on particular areas of interest or difficulty. For example, copulas and verbs of existence in Kílta have a few complications, so there's a section on those. This lets me limit cross-references in the dictionary definitions to something reasonable, while still being able to give a thorough overview later.

A subsection on conceptual metaphor (Conlangery Podcast #66) is now standard in my grammars. I've recently been working out the metaphor SALT IS VITALITY (for some reason, conceptual metaphors are often given in all-caps like this). 

When I first thought about this metaphor, I spent a little while first thinking through the implications. In this instance, I already had an idiom involving salt that would interact a bit oddly with it —

Ches si tirat vuëtiso.
salt ACC give.1R-INF try-PFV
They tried to bribe me. (lit., "they tied to give me salt")

I decided this wasn't a vital problem, and in fact slightly enhanced the idiom and the conceptual metaphor I was about to develop.

Kílta has a modest set of derivational affixes, so I first thought about how some of those might work:

• chesámin - "saltless," has the standard meanings of dull, lifeless, with an additional sense of mildly ill
• chesëtin - "salty, having salt" is the core sense, but also means vital, lively, vigorous

For now, no other derivational elements have suggested themselves for this metaphor. In general, I try to take these metaphorical derivations only if they have a clear literal use, too.

Next, Kílta, as a verb-final language, favors N-V combinations for creating new verbal senses from nouns, rather than derivational affixes. These are more obviously idiomatic, with less clear-cut literal use:

• ches si raho - literally, "throw (the) salt," has the same basic sense and tone as the English idiom "kick the bucket," but is a touch less respectful than the English
• ches tëníto - literally, "(the) salt is gone," matches the idea of being dejected, or "the life has gone out of him/her/it"
• ches si kwilë relo - literally, "carries too much salt," is for someone who has too much nervous energy, or a pet having the zoomies

That's as far as I want to take things for now with a new metaphor. I've made a notation in the dictionary entry for ches salt which reminds me of this sense if I add new examples to that headword, in addition to the conceptual metaphors section after the dictionary. Maybe that's as far as this metaphor will go, but it's always nice when a new metaphor-based idiom suggests itself.

Two Notes on Walman

The Walman language of Papua New Guinea has two interesting grammatical features: a conjugated and, and an inflectional diminutive.

Conjugated Conjunction

Walman's verbs have polypersonal agreement on transitive verbs, marking both subject and object. Conjunction is handled with two verb stems, -aro- and <-a-> (subject is a prefix, object is a suffix):

nyue w-aro-n ngan
mother 3SG.F.SUBJ-and-3SG.M.OBJ father
a mother and father

Since verb serialization is already present in Walman, it looks like a verb got grabbed to mean and and got dropped into the serialization chain. There is also a non-conjugated and, which may be used instead of the conjugated form, but seems to be preferred for inanimate constituents and clauses. Interestingly, the Lamaholot language of Indonesia also has an inflecting and, but it can be used to join clauses.

See Verbs for 'And' in Walman for all the glorious details.

Inflectional Diminutive

Walman also has a third person singular diminutive marker which occurs on verbs and adjectives.

Pelen l-aykiri.
dog 3SG.DIMIN-bark
The puppy is barking.

Pelen w-aykiri.
dog 3SG.FEM-bark
The female dog is barking.

Pelen n-aykiri.
dog 3SG.MASC-bark
The male dog is barking.

Pelen y-aykiri.
dog 3SG.PL-bark
The dogs are barking.

The authors of the paper below believe that the diminutive marker was originally a neuter gender.

See Diminutive as an Inflectional Category in Walman for details.

Lexical Exploration: "bruise"

The English bruise is related to words for "crush, injure, cut, smash." The usage for blemished fruits is first attested in the 14th century.

In Ancient Greek, several words related to the core sense of "crush" are also given the definition "bruise:" θλάω, τρίβω. There is also the rare-appearing word μώλωψ, "mark of a stripe, weal, bruise" which generates a denominal verb.

In the Dravidian family, again, quite a few words related to "crush" or "(strike a) blow, beat," and occasionally "press," are also glossed "bruise." See for example, naci and tar̤umpu.

In the Austronesian family color terms seem to be a popular source domain, as in the color root, -*dem, which generates a term in one daughter language, and the root *alem, also related to color, does in another. Also *baŋbaŋ₈, which generated terms related to a range of skin discolorations. There are other source domains, however, such as baneR, which in addition to "bruise, weal" also generates a specific term for blemishes on fruit.

In Mbula, -berebere across dialects means "be bruised and swollen, itch and burn, have blisters."

Mandarin has a large collection of terms glossed "bruise," most of which seem to be polysemous with more generic injury terms, "wound, abscess, bump," or the aftermath, "scar." The term 烏青 wū qīng refers to the color ("dark/black" + "grue/grey"), and can be used alone as a color term.

Somba-Siawari's yöhöza covers all of "bite, sting, rub, hurt, bruise, weigh down."

In Malayalam the terms are all polysemous with other injury terms, of which ആഘാതം āghātaṁ is most flush with meaning: "stab, stroke, beat, trauma, blow, waft, bruise, bump, impact, poke, push, shock."

Other dictionaries consulted: Maori, Turkish, Angave, Swahili, Arabic, Wolof, Korean, Armenian, Malay.

Summary: the cause of bruising ("hit, crush, pound, press," occasionally "abrade" or "dent") is a common source domain. In some families, the word is polysemous with other kinds of injuries, "weal" and swelling, in particular. Color terms are an occasional source. It's hard to tell history from some dictionaries, but there may occasionally be root terms for a polysemous injury word that includes "bruise." Finally, languages that are robustly reduplicating seem happy to use it in "bruise" terms (but this might be due to the stative sense rather than specific semantics).

Identity-centered Pronouns

One of the things you might do as a non-hetero or non-gender-conforming conlanger is fiddle around with pronouns or other parts of a language to represent your own reality a bit more. Most first attempts at fiddling with the pronouns are likely to result in a giant pronoun inventory that is unwieldy while also leaving some people out. I've certainly produced a few of these in the past.

For a very slowly developing personal project (Kílta), though, I came up with an idea that might be workable: the identity center.

This is modeled on the deictic center. The deictic center of a narrative or conversation is that location in space to which words of location and motion are oriented: this/that, here/there, come/go, etc. The center can move in narrative to where the action is, but in most interactive conversation the center is where the conversation is taking place.

So, in this model personal and demonstrative pronouns are coded as being either at or away from the currently active identity center. There are neutral pronouns, and much of the time those will be the ones used, but if somehow identity becomes relevant these pronouns can be brought out to signal where things fit. Further, the identity itself can be anything salient. One might, for example, say this to conlangers:

Inna ekólot si kotiho më.
DEM.IDC work ACC understand.PFV NEG.
(They) don't understand this work.

In this, inna is the identity centered demonstrative, here indicating that the work in question (fiddling with pronouns, say) is somehow related to the conlanger identity.

I translated the Fire, walk with me poem from Twin Peaks into Kílta as a test, and the final line is:

Luëka, án tin tali.
fire.VOC 1SG.IDC with walk.IMP
Fire, walk with me!

By using the identity-centered first person pronoun, án, the reciter is placing themselves into the same identity as the mystical fire being addressed.

Kílta plays with pronouns in several ways. There is, for example, a pair of first person pronouns that code how much agency the speaker feels they had in the state of affairs being described. But by thinking about LGBTQ+ pronoun questions I have concocted a system that is more broadly usable. But I'm going to have to use the language for a good bit longer before I'll be quite ready to declare a success.