Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 10:08:22 -0500 (EST) X-Sender: bp@mail.netg.se References: <199801140930.KAA17100@bilbo.chemi.muni.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" x-mantra: "Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!" x-manimantra: "Om mani padme hum!" x-siule: "Anant' avanaute quettalmar! " x-epesse: "Melroch" Approved-By: B Philip Jonsson Message-ID: Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 14:56:09 +0200 Reply-To: "language developers' discussion" Sender: "language developers' discussion" From: B Philip Jonsson Subject: Re: [LANGDEV] Mineral & chemical names To: LANGDEV@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM In-Reply-To: <34BCFAF9.6569@locke.ccil.org> X-UIDL: adcf606e5ac33817d2c7a2f67a7df6a0 X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2944 X-From-Space-Date: Thu Jan 15 12:53:36 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - At 12:50 -0500 on 14.1.1998, John Cowan wrote: > Jan Havlis wrote: > > > Also such elements as iron, copper or gold will have its own name > > depending on the nature of the Jarda society. > > If you can manage it, I urge to you to get Poul Anderson's wonderful > essay "Uncleftish Beholding" ("Atomic Theory"), which is written > in a version of English that has no French, Latin, or Greek borrowings. > (It helps if you know another Germanic language). Can you please give the name of the book? I've always liked the writings of PA. This wordcraft is a fun game! Others that have played at it were JRR Tolkien, William Morris (you would have expected _them_ to do it, wouldn't you?) and the Elizabethan polymath Thomas Cheke. The latter was in full ernest on a crusade against what he perceived as unnecessary accretions on th English language, even translating at least part of the New Testament into his puristic English. It is noteworthy that he was a professor of Greek and wrote excellently in both French and Latin. > The elements in particular are named as follows: H waterstuff, > He sunstuff, U ymirstuff, Pu helstuff, O sourstuff, N chokestuff, > C coalstuff, Fe iron. These and other unclefts are built from firstbits > (with forwardladen bernstoneness), neitherbits (with no bernstoneness), > and bernstonebits (with backwardladen bernstoneness). Some of these elements are indeed familiar from German and Swedish: in particular the suffix -stuff is a direct calque (sp?) on German. Waterstuff, sourstuff and chokestuff are _vaete, syre, kvaeve_; while the first two are obvious cognates of "wet" and "sour" the third is indeed from the Swedish verb for "choke", _kvaeva_. We also say _laddning_ for "charge". In Icelandic there are of course this kind of words in ordinary use. Electricity is thus _hrafmagn_ or _hraforka_, both literarily "bernstonepower". I urge every player of this game to acquire an English-Icelandic dictonary! A related URL (which I'm sure I've plugged for before, but I jus love it): http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ctb/wordhord.html This reminds me of a Sanskrit acquaintance of me -- he actually knows most of the Asthaadhyaayii by heart, btw! -- who suggested using the Sanskrit word _kaamaduh-_ "wish-fullfilling cow" to translate computer, and since the literal meaning of the word is "desire-milk:giving" the metaphor is really powerfull: "data" becomes _kaamadugdha_ from the participle of the verb "to milk", "computing" _kaamadogdhii_ "milking of desire", "mother-card" _kaamadugharba_ "womb of the kaamaduh", "CPU" _kaamaduggh.rdaya_ "heart of the kaamaduh". Since _dohadalaksana_ from the same root means "embryo" it comes in handy for "bit" and so on. Of course the screen is a _kaamadugmukha_ (the cow's face), the mouse is its tail and the pointer is the tip of the tail (which words I've forgotten. BTW anybody heard about the VVV? _Vishva-var.sa-vitaana_! Ashvamitrah