amíu - "philologist" and nautical terms
Feb. 19th, 2004 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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darthfox:
RóuN oily Nál "I love words"
X-SAMPA: [ r\`oUn` OIly_(drop) n`al ]
The original request was for "philologist", a difficult concept to paraphrase, butdarthfox suggested the etymological origin: philo+logos, love of words.
Remember, we're reading right to left.
RóuN
Words. Róu is the singular, RóuN the plural.
The written form is a phonetic+determinative unit.
Róó "dog" is the phonetic. It is a pictogram of a dog, though it's admittedly difficult to guess that from looking at it. The dog is looking to the right -- all animal pictograms face the beginning of the line, as in Egyptian. (It's also an onomatopoeia; the spoken word is an imitation of the sound a dog makes.) 
"mouth" is the determinative. Sounds like Róó, has to do with the mouth -- Róu "word" isn't hard to guess. The double bar indicates the plural.
oily
This is the verb.
0- (zero morph -- that is to say, nothing) Indicates a first person actor, though the person system doesn't do much in this phrase. The first person marker in the written form is a "silent letter" here.
o To be (non-deliberate).
-i No target. The lack of any character at this point in the written form indicates this.
-ly Indicates the expressive mood, which we last saw in "had we but world". Now we know the speaker isn't asserting a fact, but expressing a feeling. "Words" isn't a feeling, so it can't be that. Thus, "words" must be the subject of "to be".
Nál
Love. This is "general" love, not romantic, not sexual, not familial. At least, I'm assuming thatdarthfox's love of words isn't any of those other things. Correct me if I'm wrong. :)
This written form is also a phonetic+determinative. The phonetic is
Nár "high tide", a clear pictogram of the moon above the sea (the "low tide" pictogram has their positions reversed). The Lúen, as I've mentioned, are sailors, and have a clear understanding of what causes the tides. The determinative is 
"nose", the usual determinative for emotional states. An emotion that sounds like Nár -- it must be Nál "love".
So, the most literal translation would be something like "I feel love because words exist", or more idiomatically, "I love words".
*
Also,darkkitten1 asked to see what I'm doing with nautical terminology, which is still very much a work in progress.
As you can see, a lot of this isn't finalized, and pictograms and ideograms often come before the spoken words are decided on. The left column legend says "draft" and "freeboard", the former being the distance from the waterline to the bottom of the boat (a very important thing to know), and the latter being the distance from the waterline to the gunnels (right,darkkitten1?).
The rest is pretty clear, except for the middle bottom character, defined as "undersea/afterlife/pre-life". The Lúen believe that non-living spirits exist somewhere close to the bottom of the ocean. You could say they're waiting there to be reborn, but that would be about as accurate as saying that the living are waiting to die -- it's one way to look at it, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
Next up for an icon ismillefiori. More requests are always welcome, as are any other questions.
darthfox:RóuN oily Nál "I love words"
X-SAMPA: [ r\`oUn` OIly_(drop) n`al ]
The original request was for "philologist", a difficult concept to paraphrase, but
darthfox suggested the etymological origin: philo+logos, love of words.Remember, we're reading right to left.
RóuN
Words. Róu is the singular, RóuN the plural.
The written form is a phonetic+determinative unit.
Róó "dog" is the phonetic. It is a pictogram of a dog, though it's admittedly difficult to guess that from looking at it. The dog is looking to the right -- all animal pictograms face the beginning of the line, as in Egyptian. (It's also an onomatopoeia; the spoken word is an imitation of the sound a dog makes.) "mouth" is the determinative. Sounds like Róó, has to do with the mouth -- Róu "word" isn't hard to guess. The double bar indicates the plural.oily
This is the verb.
0- (zero morph -- that is to say, nothing) Indicates a first person actor, though the person system doesn't do much in this phrase. The first person marker in the written form is a "silent letter" here.
o To be (non-deliberate).
-i No target. The lack of any character at this point in the written form indicates this.
-ly Indicates the expressive mood, which we last saw in "had we but world". Now we know the speaker isn't asserting a fact, but expressing a feeling. "Words" isn't a feeling, so it can't be that. Thus, "words" must be the subject of "to be".
Nál
Love. This is "general" love, not romantic, not sexual, not familial. At least, I'm assuming that
darthfox's love of words isn't any of those other things. Correct me if I'm wrong. :)This written form is also a phonetic+determinative. The phonetic is
Nár "high tide", a clear pictogram of the moon above the sea (the "low tide" pictogram has their positions reversed). The Lúen, as I've mentioned, are sailors, and have a clear understanding of what causes the tides. The determinative is "nose", the usual determinative for emotional states. An emotion that sounds like Nár -- it must be Nál "love".So, the most literal translation would be something like "I feel love because words exist", or more idiomatically, "I love words".
*
Also,
darkkitten1 asked to see what I'm doing with nautical terminology, which is still very much a work in progress.As you can see, a lot of this isn't finalized, and pictograms and ideograms often come before the spoken words are decided on. The left column legend says "draft" and "freeboard", the former being the distance from the waterline to the bottom of the boat (a very important thing to know), and the latter being the distance from the waterline to the gunnels (right,
darkkitten1?).The rest is pretty clear, except for the middle bottom character, defined as "undersea/afterlife/pre-life". The Lúen believe that non-living spirits exist somewhere close to the bottom of the ocean. You could say they're waiting there to be reborn, but that would be about as accurate as saying that the living are waiting to die -- it's one way to look at it, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
Next up for an icon is
millefiori. More requests are always welcome, as are any other questions.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-19 06:00 pm (UTC)And I'd love an icon.
If you wouldn't mind.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 06:26 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 06:36 pm (UTC)*dies of embarrassment for unimaginative namemaking*
(The song is by Tricky, from the Pre-Millennium Tension album, and is called - surprisingly enough - She Makes Me Wanna Die.)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 05:09 pm (UTC)For a more pertinent question, is she intentionally making you want to die, or no?