(slang) to gather one's wits/ courage/ prepare mentally (mirsh'kotar?)
(slang, ironically) to put on a pedestal
From kot (strength). May be too similar to kotir (overpower).
Short how did I get there:
Strength is important to Mandalorian society, and I think they'd have a word for strenghten/ empower/ fortify. The sarcastic fifth meaning I derived along the same lines as ori'jagyc (bully) translating to "big man" literally. Also because kote (glory) reads as a plural of strength to me.
I forgot to do this the first time around: Prompts by @mandoxember . Check them out, they got great resources/ explanations for each day so far. I feel like I'm learning the basics of linguistics as I do this.
(slang) a big, mobile machine of unknown use or origin
bes'uliik literally means "iron beast", so applying it to things like tanks, vehicles, or even ships whose origin/ make/ model is unknown to the speaker makes sense to me.
Bonus: Polysemy example found in the dictionary
aka
Mission
Purpose
Logical conclusion from "aka'liit" meaning "clan of purpose" (as opposed to family). Also logical to me - a mission/ goal in life gives you purpose.
Following that, my first idea would've been to suggest
3. use (as in, this thing's use is...)
But that felt like cheating, since that's just another way to say "purpose".
Take your favourite Mando’a dictionary, find a word, and create a verb from it.
Detailed instructions below. 👇
Some useful terminology
Now unto the world of deriving words with new forms, not only new meanings! Before we embark, let’s establish some useful terminology.
Morpheme: morphemes are parts of words. They’re the smallest units of words that carry meaning. You can recognise a morpheme because it has the same form and the same meaning. For example, to run, runner, runaway, speedrun, all have in common the morpheme run, and in all words, it has the same (or similar) meaning.
Inflectional morphology: creates different grammatical forms with the same meaning. For example, calls and called are inflected forms of to call.
Derivational morphology: creates new words with new meanings. For example, caller, callcentre, on-call.
In this event, we’re dealing with derivational morphology.
Affix: an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or form. Affixes can be inflectional (like -es, -ed, -ing) or derivational (like un-, -er, -ation, pre-).
Prefix: a prefix is an affix that goes before a stem, like un- in unmake and uncool.
Suffix: a suffix is an affix that goes after a stem, like -er in baker and runner.
There are also circumfixes (affixes that go on both sides if the base) and infixes (affixes that go inside the base), but Mando’a doesn’t seem to make use of those, so we can ignore them.
Stem: is the part of a word that an affix attaches to. Stems are responsible for carrying the word’s meaning. Sometimes the stem may have several morphemes. For example, in unstabilise, stabilise (itself stabil-ise) acts as the stem for the prefix un-.
Root: is a stem that cannot be further broken down into different morphemes.
Verbs in Mando’a
The infinitive ends in -ir, -ar, -ur, -or or -er.
—Karen Traviss, Mando’a - QUICK GRAMMAR GUIDE
In Mando’a, verbs are formed by adding the verbal suffix (-ir, -ar, -ur, -or or -er) to a stem.
akaan, ‘war’ → akaanir, ‘to fight’
Sometimes the suffix can have a long vowel instead of a short one:
atin, ‘tenacious’ → atiniir, ‘to endure’
What if your stem ends in a vowel? You can either remove the vowel and replace it with the verbal suffix:
dinui, ‘gift’ → dinuir, ‘to give’
Or sometimes Mando’a adds an extra consonant between the vowel and the verbal suffix, usually r, t or n (s also appears in some nouns).
bora, ‘job’ → borarir, ‘to work’
If your base word has a suffix (either a noun suffix or an adjectival suffix), you can either replace it with the verbal suffix or incorporate the suffix into the verb, sometimes in a reduced form:
But if you don’t feel like you recognise the different suffixes yet, don’t worry! It’s okay to leave them on.
Prompt:
Take your favourite Mando’a dictionary, find a word, and create a verb from it.
You can use either the canon dictionary or one of the fanon dictionaries.
Which of the suffixes should you use?
For now, try the following exercise: say aloud your word, and try to say it with all of the different suffixes. Which one feels easiest and most natural? Which one need the least extra movements of your mouth? Which one can be said the fastest?
Remember the last day’s prompt!
The meaning—or meanings—don’t have to be exact correspondences to your base word. You can give your word several meanings, or meanings that are figurative or metaphorical.
Remember to share and tag #mandoxember—and like, share and comment on others’ posts! 🧡💜
Choose a Mando’a dictionary, find an existing word and give it another, new meaning.
Detailed instructions below! 👇
What is polysemy?
Polysemy means the capacity for a word to have multiple related meanings. For example, school (building), school (institution), and school (to educate). Virtually all content words (like nouns, verbs and adjectives) are polysemous, that is, have several meanings.
In contrast to polysemy, where the senses are related, homonyms are words that that have several unrelated meanings. For example, English match (game) and match (device to light a fire). We can ignore homonyms for now, but they’re good to keep in mind when you look at polysemies in other languages—sometimes two words that look or sound the same may not be related at all!
A concept related to polysemy is colexification, the co-occurrence of different meanings together in one lexeme (a word). Colexifications or groupings of meanings are different between different languages, and therefore two words in different languages don’t have exactly the same meaning ls and aren’t used in exactly the same ways and contexts. For example, English ’straight’ has at least the following meanings:
〈rectilinear〉 (a straight line)
〈frank〉 (straight talking)
〈honest〉 (a straight guy)
〈directly〉 (straight to the point)
〈heterosexual〉 (gay or straight)
〈undiluted〉 (straight whisky)
〈classical〉 (a straight play)
〈immediately〉 (straight away)
While its closest translation in French, ‘droit,’ has slightly different meanings:
〈rectilinear〉 (un trait droit)
〈directly〉 (aller droit au but)
〈honest〉 (un type droit)
〈right-hand〉 (le côté droit)
Some of the senses overlap, but not all of them! Both English and French have meanings that the other language doesn’t.
(Examples from Francois 2008)
Different types of polysemy
Polysemy develops when a word comes to be applied to new contexts.
In linear polysemy, one meaning is a subset of the other:
From a whole to a part: door (entire structure) → door (panel)
From a part to a whole: leg (thigh and calf) → leg (thigh, calf and foot)
From a basic sense to a specialised sense: man (human being) → man (as opposed to a woman)
From a basic sense to a wider sense: (female) cow → cow (either sex)
In non-linear polysemy, the original sense is used figuratively:
Metonymy: a figure of speech, in which a concept is referred to by something associated with that concept. For example, boots (soldiers) or crown (ruler, or the government). Metonymy can be part to whole or whole to part relation.
Metaphor: a figure of speech where one thing is referred to by mentioning another, usually to imply a likeness or analogy between the things. For example, to boot (to kick out, or to fire), mouth (of a river), mouse (computer device).
Conversion or zero derivation (word class change) is a slightly different cxx, but for the purposes of this event, we can include it here. Zero derivation means forming a new word from an existing word of a different word class, without any change in form. For example, a breakfast (noun) > to breakfast (verb).
Polysemy in Mando’a
Polysemy is an often overlooked tool in conlanging, but it is the easiest way of getting new words—just use the ones you already have! Conlang dictionaries with a word for word definitions also often suffer from the problem of not being terribly natural. Giving your constructed words single-word English definitions may invite people to think they can use these words exactly like their English counterparts. But no two languages have exactly the same meanings for all of their words—polysemies are language specific!
Mando’a unfortunately suffers from this problem as well: most of the words have single-word English equivalents. But not all of them do. Here are some examples of polysemy in Mando’a, where you can see how the culture has shaped the different senses:
aliit: clan name, identity — clan is an important part of their identity for Mandalorians; perhaps you’d go as far as to say clan is identity?
echoy'la: searching, mourning, lost
haastal: dried blood, scab (also a term for a lasting emotional scar)
jetiise: Jedi (plural), Republic — from a Mandalorian perspective, the Jedi are representatives of the Republic
mando: mandalorian (adjective), a mandalorian person (noun)
Here are a couple of examples of fan-created polysemies for canon words:
cin
alii’gai
Etymologies in natural languages are all about metaphor, not logic. Think about new senses as poetry, not as a logic puzzle.
And that being said, the poetry and metaphors should be of the culture. When you look at a thing and ask “what would my blorbos call this?” you need to look at it through their eyes. Are they sedentary or nomadic? What level of technology do they have, is electricity to them about electrons or sparks or thunder? I think this is where Traviss did well, and that’s a large part of why fans find Mando’a compelling enough to learn (although it’s also been pointed out there were many Western cultural assumptions she also failed to check).
Sometimes it can be hard to say whether polysemy was intended: does kando mean the importance and weight given on a matter, or also literal weight?
It can be useful to distinguish between different senses and several synonymous words used to define one sense. For example, ba’slanar is given the definition of ‘leave, depart, exit’ where ‘leave’ and ‘depart’ aren’t different meanings, but synonyms for the same sense of the word.
Sometimes it can be difficult though. ‘Daughter’ and ‘son’ are different meanings in English, but they aren’t in Mando’a! Here the same word applies to a wider set of referents than the corresponding English word would. But it’s not really about polysemy (a word having several distinct senses), but about Mando’a not making the same distinctions between concepts as English does.
For now, don’t worry overly much about whether a sense is distinct enough or not. Improved definitions—which semantic ground does the word cover or not—are also valuable.
Prompt:
Think of some polysemies in a language you know. It could be English or another language you know, or it could be Mando’a. Can you identify which types they are? How might they have developed? Dictionaries typically list the oldest recorded sense first, and newer senses after—this way, you may be able to see how the different senses have arisen.
Next, take a Mando’a dictionary of your choice, find a word and give it an additional, new sense. Your sense may be any of the types listed above, or you may even make several. Try to think about how Mandalorians would think about that concept and about the additional contexts they might apply it to.
Polysemy is a great conlanging tool that you can put in your toolbox—and apply later in the month to other prompts as well.
Remember to share and tag #mandoxember—and like, share and comment on others’ posts! 🧡💜
How to find ideas?
Other related words in Mando’a: For hints, you can look at other words that seem related to your word and what meanings they have.
Wiktionary: Wiktionary is an unusual dictionary in that it includes translations into several different languages rather than only translating from one language to another. You can use this feature to your advantage by searching for a word and then looking through its translations in different languages and noting all the different senses they have.
CLiCS: CLiCS is a database of colexifications in different languages, which includes information about colexifications in different languages and how common certain colexifications are.
Calque: Your additional sense may be a polysemy that exists in another language you know—yes, you may give Mando’a a polysemy from your native language! But before you do, think about whether it makes sense for Mandalorian culture, or whether it relies on an experience that is specific to your culture and not applicable to Mandalorians or the Galaxy Far Far Away with its different technology and society. Language has cultural baggage! Before you carry it over, make sure you’re doing so intentionally and not accidentally.
Mando'a
MANDO'A,PART OF SPEECH,PRONUNCIATION,Anu Rework,IPA,DEFINITION,DEFINITION 2,DEFINITION 3,DEFINITION 4,SYNONYMS,ANTONYMS,SOURCE,SYLL
A gSheet that expands on the original lexicon published by Karen Traviss on her website and the one currently hosted on Mandoa.org. All columns are searchable, sortable, and filterable.* This dictionary features Parts of Speech, IPA pronunciation, a Source column, Syllable count (for those poem and song translations), and Stress patterns.
There are also multiple tabs, including one that explains IPA pronunciation, a Numbers tab, a Source Index, and three dialect tabs. Current dialects are Concordian (canon), Oyu'baatyc (fando'a), and Ruus'yc (fando'a). There is also an About tab with historical update information.
*If you have issues with any functions, save a copy of the dictionary to your computer or your gDrive.
I went a little off the rails for a power-point-party, so I thought I'd share. Don't come at me about canonicity. Also yes, I spent hours using illustrator to make pose-able vector mando'ade.
Review from my friend: "I feel like I actually learned something?"
So Mando Creator Dictionary came out of mandoa.org (which is now deprecated and has a banner pointing you to MCD) and Tal'jair did A LOT of work on those, with Adi'karta. I'm not sure how Shereshoy fits in, I kind of faded out of active dictionary maintenance several years back.
MCD has an option to 'display expanded dictionary' which I suspect is why it's filed as fanon, but if you uncheck that it is still very much the old mandoa.org in a new skin.
I did do a few of the early 'language learning' videos (as Mando’a Miit'haataylur) and recently got back into that YouTube account so I'm up for doing more if anyone would want that.
Thank you for the clarifications! The draft of this post is more than a year old, and I quickly dusted it off for posting… which is why it may not be entirely up to date and was missing several key entries.
Your forays into making Mando'a make sense are giving me hope for when I finally make the leap into making my own conlang(s?) for my Space Fantasy setting. It brings hope that even a non-linguist like me might do okay!
Thank you! I'm just wildly flailing most of the time but I'm very glad my efforts can help you gain confidence in your own project.
I feel the best way to conlang is really just to jump in and try things out. But of course you want to actually know what to do before you start. There are quite a number of language and conlang channels on YouTube that I personally find useful.
Artifexian
Biblaridion
NativLang
I'd also recommend checking out wikipedia for overviews of all the languages that interest you. There is usually quite useful info about phonology and grammar etc.
Discover How to Create a Language, 1st Edition, Jessie Peterson, HB ISBN: 9781108834070 on Cambridge Aspire website
Jessie Peterson’s book How to Create a Language: The Conlang Guide from Cambridge University Press is now available for purchase!!! If you ever wanted to learn how to create a language, this is the place to start!
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