Today’s word is dulu [du.lu], meaning “name” or “word.” The singular definite form is gzulu, dual is vadulu, plural indefinite is ldulu, and plural definite is ndulu. For previous Lexember posts I’ve talked about etymology, but there’s not much to say here—the word’s meaning hasn’t changed since the time of proto-Valya, and likely much earlier.
To state someone’s name or the word for something, the verb püki is used, which generally means “carry” or “hold.” It can also mean “bring” or “take” in the context of movement, so it’s kind of like saying that your name is something that you take with you through life—but also something you can put down, replace, or change.
The verb dululya is literally “name-say,” and means “to address,” “to command,” or “to tell.” It is generally used for commands but can be used more or less anytime one person is talking to another.
Ra dululya gwi, gzulu zu lu finya dru!
I told them, your name is very pretty!
scaur ag mur ne Pompeï "get into the history books"
scaur ag mur ne Pompeï /xor ɛi mɪr ne ˌpɔm.piˈji/ [xoː‿ʀɛi mɪː ne ˌpɔm.pɪˈʝi]
write one's name in the history books, make a name for oneself, to do things which will cause one to be renowned for a long time;
act with posterity in mind, to be conscious of one's legacy when deciding one's actions;
(jocular) make last-minute revisions, to make rushed changes due to having little time left before a deadline
Etymology: literally "to write on the walls of Pompeii", first attested as an idiom in Napolitan some years after the unearthing of the ruins of Pompeii and the uncovering of its trove of graffiti. The verb scaur "write", which displaced now-obsolete or poetic scrir "write", descends from Latin scalpō "I scratch; I engrave". The last sense, attested in Borlish since the 1920s, refers directly to the volcanic eruption of 79N which buried the city.
L'oç segr es dignt tojorn i vil scaur ag mur ne Pompeï.
/lɔts ˈsijr̩ ɛz daint toˈʒɔrn i vɪl xor ɛi mɪr ne ˌpɔm.piˈji/
[lɔs ˈsɪ.jɐ‿ʀɪz daint tʊˈʝɔːn i vɪl xoː‿ʀeɪ mɪː ne ˌpɔm.pɪˈʝi]
df=s.dt man be say-p.prs always 3s will write-inf at.df wall in Pompeii
That guy's always saying he'll make a name for himself.
değsív- [dɜˈʁiβ] v. remember, recall
(from değ- "re-" + sív- "know")
→ değsívib [dɜˈʁiβɪb] n. memory, remembrance
sívsan- [ˈsiβzæn] v. remember, keep in mind
(from sív- "know" + san "after")
→ sívsanu [ˈsiβzænʊ] n. memory
Chytari
kagacan [kɐˈɣɐt͡ʃɐn] n. memory
(likely from kaga "mind" + cansi "long")
→ kagacanya [kɐɣɐˈt͡ʃɐɲɐ] v. remember, keep in mind
→ kagacanșaya [kɐɣɐt͡ʃɐnˈʃɐjɐ] v. remember, recall
(from kagacan "memory" + șar "again" + -ya "infinitive")
→ kagacanșatu [kɐɣɐt͡ʃɐnˈʃɐtu] n. memories (singulative kagacanșatui)
i finished lexember!!! yippee!!! during this time, sorkish went from approximately 900 words to over 1200 and chytari went from around 450-500(?) to over 650 which is crazy. over 400 words added in a month after months of barely touching conlanging lmao
Example sentences
Ti-wurngat mbi attu ri ngii ti-ranur-nara ri ti-runda. — “That storm will drive our ship to the moon.”
Ndaraak ngii kimbir nua ndim mbaru. — “We use spears to catch seals.”
Ti-murrwak ngiingii kir ri pinam ti-rinik. — “Fear drove her to burn the thorn.”
Pam ngii tanur ta ti-narrak num. — “Many ships are controlled by the wise woman.”
Ramba ti-ngii tam! — “Listen to the helmsman!”
It's my first Lexember, I'm gonna try to keep it daily, but I can promise anything. Especially because I'm using M'nire, and it has a HORRIBLE spelling, due to the lack of reforms for centuries.
Velgaiɣa is a primary Indo-European conlang (i.e. one not belonging to any existent branch within Indo-European), intended to be intermediate between Celtic (particularly Gaulish) and Germanic. It is geographically and temporarily positioned as if it could be the language of the Belgae at the time of Julius Caesar's invasion of Gaul.
In staying intermediate between Celtic and Germanic, Grimm's and Verner's Laws have been conceptualised as a push chain caused by the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirate series becoming voiced fricatives in most positions (creating an extremely unbalanced system with many voiced fricatives with no voiceless counterparts), a shift shared with Italic (and possibly also Celtic). All affected branches then resolved this lack of balance in different ways.
In Germanic, the voiceless series became fricatives except following another obstruent (these fricatives were voiceless word-initially and after a stressed syllable, but otherwise merging into the voiced fricative series), the plain voiced stop series became voiceless, and the voiced fricatives *β and *ð became voiced stops /b/ & /d/ word-initially (the voiced fricative *ɣ also became a voiced stop /g/ word-initially outside Dutch).
In Celtic, the new voiced fricative series merged into the plain voiced stops. It's usually said that this merged series were stops in all positions in Proto-Celtic, but it has also been suggested that the lenition of voiced stops seen in Insular Celtic already existed on an allophonic level in Proto-Celtic, with the merged voiced series being voiced fricatives in leniting environments, and stops elsewhere. In this view, the development of voiceless fricatives (by lenition in Goidelic, or provection in Brythonic) being caused by the phonemicisation of the previously allophonic voiced fricatives.
In Italic, the voiced fricatives devoiced word-initially allowing the remaining voiced fricatives to be viewed as voiced allophones. Additionally, word-initial *ð (> *θ) merged into *f (comparable to the widespread th-fronting in the Southeast of England). In Sabellic, word-internal *ð also merges into *f, and in Latin most of the word-internal voiced fricatives fortited to stops.
So, in order to remain intermediate between Celtic and Germanic, we have lenited the voiced aspirates to voiced fricatives in most positions (including word-initially). In most instances, voiceless stops develop as in Germanic, but word-initially remain unlenited (as in Celtic). Again, as in Celtic, *p is still lenited, but only to /f/ (whereas there is no clear evidence for any labial feature still being present in the Proto-Celtic reflex of *p outside certain consonant clusters (particularly following *s and preceding a resonant).
Celtic preserves more vowel distinctions than Germanic, and Velgaiɣa is intermediate in that it retains those distinctions in initial stressed syllables, but not in unstressed or non-initial syllables (which are subject to varying levels of vowel reduction, at different stages, as a result of the shift to initial stress). In initial syllables, syllabic resonants broadly behave as in Celtic (albeit subject to the expected vowel reductions when unstressed), but in non-initial syllables, the expected vowel reductions lead to more Germanic-like outcomes. Stressed final syllables have similar outcomes to stressed initial syllables (with a small number of additional mergers/reductions), whilst unstressed final syllables are reduced almost as much as medial syllables, retaining only a few more distinctions.
Many of these historical changes have been obscured by analogy (e.g. the o-stem declension mostly retains the stressed allomorphs, despite being used for all o-stems, even those that etymologically have stressed stems, and so words may have both a stem and ending reflecting the expected stressed reflex).
There is also a regular process of syncope of short vowels in the second of two open syllables when not word-final, but when the vowel that would be expected to be syncopated is a derivational suffix (or part of the formation of an inflectional class of nouns or verbs), the vowel is often restored. This is because that vowel might be expected to lost after light stems, but would be retained after heavy stems, and so the vowel was restored to the light stems by analogy to the heavy stems.
More information on certain words and points can be found throughout the Lexember 2024 posts (although some of these may be a little outdated, as aspects of the language evolved over the course of the month):
1st: rīma "the numerals"
2nd: gānyom "the family"
3rd: gallū "to be able"
4th: klāsmarra "(hill)fort, oppidum"
5th: ɣimmēs "the lunar month containing the winter solstice, ~December"
6th: far-ɣusman "libation"
7th: troggī "nose"
8th: friyos "free"
9th: lustrom "value"
10th: wasū "to dress"
11th: lahtuðaɣa "morality"
12th: an-rīmas "countless, unnumbered"
13th: ɣlohom "glass"
14th: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
15th: ɣelas "green, blue"
16th: baryai "to die"
17th: skowwunū "to appear as if in a mirror, to show, to reflect"
