merr chrismas

monday 25 december 2023

tags:

# just tell me how to say it please

sure thing. here.

<figure class="glosses">

{.scr .laantas}
ufit þulkussarim

\[ˌufit ˈθuɫkɔsːɐʑɪ

ufi--t þulkus(i)--sa--ri--m cozy--[GEN]{.abbr} midwinter--[AD]{.abbr}--[PRL]{.abbr}--[DEF]{.abbr} (be) cozy during midwinter

</figure>

details

now i am not a huge fan of putting christianity into my conlang, which is hopefully understandable. but having a midwinter festival sounds cute. the days are finally getting longer! you made it through the worst part! and so on. so that's what this is. i think it probably takes place the day after the solstice, but with several days of festivities, so that there is still a little overlap with the other winter holiday. it's still appropriate to say it today.

seasons

time name pron. translation

nov--jan [{.scr .laantas}]{.lang} [igisim]{.lang} ˈiʝɛsĩ{.ipa .ipa-narrow} the freeze feb [{.scr .laantas}]{.lang} [susurum]{.lang} ˈsusʊrõ{.ipa .ipa-narrow} the melt mar--may [{.scr .laantas}]{.lang} [šangubam]{.lang} ˈʃaŋɡɔvɑ̃{.ipa .ipa-narrow} the bloom jun--aug [{.scr .laantas}]{.lang} [guwanḿ]{.lang} ˈɡɔwɑnm̩{.ipa .ipa-narrow} the sun sep--oct [{.scr .laantas}]{.lang} [santum]{.lang} ˈsantõ{.ipa .ipa-narrow} the rain

in between [{.scr .laantas}[igisim]{.text}]{.lang} (winter) and [{.scr .laantas}[šangubam]{.text}]{.lang} (spring), the month of february is considered a transition between the two, [{.scr .laantas}[susurum]{.text}]{.lang}.
as a result, [{.scr .laantas}[santum]{.text}]{.lang} (autumn) is only two months long.
[{.scr .laantas}[šangubam]{.text}]{.lang} comes from [{.scr .laantas}[šani]{.text}]{.lang} (flower) and [{.scr .laantas}[guba]{.text}]{.lang} (grow, thrive).

putting it together

the word "midwinter", without any inflections, is [{.scr .laantas}[þulkusim]{.text}]{.lang}, which comes from [{.scr .laantas}[þulku]{.text}]{.lang} "be deep" and [{.scr .laantas}[igisim]{.text}]{.lang}. unusually for lántas, [{.scr .laantas}[þulku]{.text}]{.lang} is a verb, rather than a noun. why? who knows.

<aside class='floating'>

on that page, where you see a [ƶ]{.lang}, replace it with [þ]{.lang}. i haven't got round to updating that yet. it also has the ugly text until i redraw [{.scr .laantas}[č ǧ]{.text}]{.lang}, since at least if it's all ugly it's consistent. sorry about that.

</aside>

the suffix [{.scr .laantas}[--sari]{.text}]{.lang} is actually a pair of two suffixes, which together mean through, or during. the details of the whole situation are here, but it is a cool two-dimensional system based on a thing that can be found in some languages of the caucasus. the [{.scr .laantas}[--m]{.text}]{.lang} on the end (of all these words so far, actually) is "the". so the full form [{.scr .laantas}[þulkusisarim]{.text}]{.lang} means "during midwinter", and that one [i]{.lang} is dropped in this phrase to give the form [{.scr .laantas}[þulkussarim]{.text}]{.lang}.

now, for [{.scr .laantas}[ufit]{.text}]{.lang}. there is a small, but technically non-zero, chance that you remember the word [{.scr .laantas}[uf<u>{=html}a</u>{=html}t]{.text}]{.lang} from here, with the meaning of "warm". this is actually the same word, but a bit cutesy. it means cozy.

the implied verb in this sentence is [{.scr .laantas}[iksaha]{.text}]{.lang}, like before. this is an auxiliary verb for requests. for example, if [{.scr .laantas}[šikkúha]{.text}]{.lang} means "you are going", then [{.scr .laantas}[šikkúm iksaha]{.text}]{.lang} means "please go away". the [--ha]{.lang} here means "you" (singular). here it's dropped because the phrase is long enough already to be easily understood.