Kenakoliku

The first LEX thread was in the Language Factory, but that seems to be where more theoretical work is going on, and this seems to be where words are getting made and put together with other words, so I am proposing this second vocabulary module here.

This might be a good place for people to bring out some cultural thoughts. The following are just represent the English equivalent of some things we might want to cover with set expressions. Please add more as you think of them.

Hello/Goodbye (Some considerations, for example: Are there different expressions if you're the one arriving/leaving or the one staying? Or is the greeting a word with a recognized meaning, like "Peace"? Are Hello and Goodbye the same word?)

Please/Thank You
Yes/No

How are you?
I am fine.

Well...
I am going to suggest "Makea" as a greeting until something else surfaces. (It's "peace", from the word association thread.) I may hit up the anthropology department to see if this is something that hypothetical Kenakoliku speakers (I mean, other than *us*) would wish for one another...

Good plan!

I see that this little project has ground to a bit of a halt, but I am still itching to have a conversation, so...

Makea, melekum! (Peace, friends!)
Ok, I just made "meleku" up out of the blue, but we need a word for "friend".

And now to ask about how you are... or is that even what people want to ask?

Let me make an off the cuff proposal:

Nge/ne aditil zai kojada? That's supposed to be, "Is your heart light (or soft)?", where nge (or "ne", if "nge" is still right out) is a question marker. I couldn't remember if a pronoun used for possessive comes before or after the word it modifies, so I went with after, and I don't recall anything being used for any sort of 'is'.

I was going to suggest "Nge/ne zai xomas padu?" where "padu" would be a new word meaning "milk"... But "Got milk?" seems like the kind of proposal that would only be funny to me.

See, that's why we have to stick together. It keeps me from falling off the wagon into totally inappropriate territory.

And now I am going to exhibit poor netiquette by replying to myself/double posting...

I have a possibly better idea for "How are you?" based on : Ne* gen zongas zai? , where "gen" is the word I just made up for "what", meaning, "What is upon you?" (*Or "nge" if allowed, again as the question marker)

"Ne dau zongas zai?" could work also, where "dau" ("it") is understood to be "what" because it is a question.

How to answer that with a polite, "I'm fine, thanks" is another matter.

"Please" seems like it should be simple, but it's something that I always wrestle with in my languages, whether to go in the "if it pleases you" direction or some other way. Perhaps some sort of politeness modification to the verb?

"Thank you"... Perhaps we could go easy on this and have a verb that means something like "thank" or a noun for "thanks, gratitude".

Do we really want the kind of "how are you" which expects merely a formulaic response as a pre-sequence leading in to another dialogue, or is it a genuine question? The deployment of these sorts of things varies really quite a lot between cultures. [Of course the same could be said of "please" and "thank you". How explicit, and how formulaically does one mark polite entreaty? Where in the sequence, if at all, does expressing appreciation come? ...]

If we want the former, just an "I'm fine, thanks", a minimally innovative answer based on things in this thread might be
makea ji "there's peace on me". (A bit reminiscent of some Semitic formulae, innit.)

I like the idea of making a genuine inquiry into someone else's status for that bit of social greasing. (This is perhaps a bit self-serving on my part, since I have had to overcome the habit of actually answering "How are you?" as if it were a real question, reducing my answers down to either, "I'm good. How are you?" if it's an ok day or "Hanging in there!" if it's one of those trying days... Let's just say that I am really, really, really bad at making small talk IRL.)

Makea zong ji... I like it.