Lexember #25 : enauʰsti & kini & oimi
The social structure of the Suner people is at the moment rather ill-defined; but it’s worth remembering that they are at the bottom of a slave society. Some of them, if they got a special talent (magic or animal-taming), have better standards of life, although Ubyrs can strip them of any privilege any time they want.
This peculiar society explains why I needed that long to put such a Swadesh-basic word in Proto-Suner.
enauʰsti /ɛnau̯ʰsˈti/, n.cl.I: “birth mother”
kini /kiˈni/, n.cl.I: “mother, milk mother”
oimi, /ɔi̯ˈmi/, n.cl.I: “headwoman, mother”
The concept of “mother” is broken down in several distinct concepts. An enauʰsti may be put to work right after giving birth, letting the early child-rearing (to the fifth-sixth year) to a kini, a woman whose skills are well-regarded. Their typical age ranges from 15 to 30. An oimi is generally older, in her late 30s to her 50s, and is the primary maternal referent for the working child (and beyond that age), whom she feeds, clothes, listens to and, more likely than not, loves (for they are picked among former kinil).
Any woman could become an enauʰsti, that is, if she can get pregnant and deliver a baby to term. Kinil are a specific caste. Oimil occupy a rank within any worker caste.
A child can have their former kini as their oimi, thus strengthening their bond; it’s rather common when the child has no talent warranting their transfer elsewhere. But enauʰstil could spend their entire lives without seeing their children again.
On a vocabulary note, there is no need for a word for “orphan” within such a system.
ʰTa enauʰsti ti mi se tʉsul
but parent-SG of this-SG.I LOC illness-SG
milk_mother-SG PST-fatten OBJ that-PL.I
“Mother [’s milk] made them fat”
Oimi-mei, uʰpsa se pseiktau...
mother-SG=1s PRS-ache LOC belly-SG
“Mummy, my belly aches...”
I back-derive the verb enau “give birth to” from enauʰsti, after subtracting the agent suffix -ʰst(i/a).
se enauʰsti, adj: “pregnant”
kineři, n.cl.I: “kini caste”
ankini, n.cl.I: “chief of an areal kineři”
eʰte kini, adj: “maternal, motherly”
eʰte oimi, adj: “maternal, motherly”
