word of the day: nuna
Today’s Valya word is nuna, meaning “circle” or “loop.”
In Proto-Valya the concept of the year was, like in many other languages, closely associated with cycles. One term for “year” was *ki nuuna, “the loop,” which in Modern Valya is tnuna. Although it comes from a definite noun phrase, to say “the year” in Valya you have to mark it as definite again: kitnuna. Another, more poetic term for “year” in Valya is kihnüli krimwa, literally “the wheel of seasons.”
The more literal definite form of nuna in Modern Valya is kinuna, “the circle” or “the loop,” though some speakers do use tnuna for both. There’s also nunarwa “loop-make,” meaning “repeat” or “return,” though tsivünga “again” is also used, as in dli tsivünga “come back.”
Dru tuhlu lba kngiva kitnuna nyi sununarwa tu laga ri. We should come back here before the end of the year.
