D’ni New Words

korovev · **Posted:** Mon Jan 23, 2017 8:35 pm

Here’s list of neologisms and interpretations I came up with in the last couple years. Feel free to comment and/or add yours

ekwikí: Nexus; from Equiquay, working title of Riven, and meaning “a hub mini-Age”.
faeþ: unity; fa “one” + -eþ (abstract noun-forming suffix).
magen: magic; special use for the not-officially-translated magen from the Atrus Prayer*. Originally barelmagen, from barel(tan) “Maker” + magen; that sounds more like “divine power” to me now.
metomet: away; met- “from” + tomet “here”.
m(r)erún: from scratch; m(e)-re- “from the” + rún “zero”. Not sure if the article is needed there.
ranaleþ: diversity; ranal “various, diverse” + -eþ (adjective-forming suffix).
rilesa: open/unbound; ril “not” + (l)esa “sealed”. ReGalpo Rilesa “The Open Cave”.
roha/róha: robot; rov “person” + dóha “machine”. Magenroha “Magic Bot”.
terþfaec: for the first time; t(e)-erþ “as a” + faec “first”. Originally intended as “before”, but sounds too clunky.
túmineš senec: KI device; túmin “touched/handled/pressed (?)” + -eš (adverb-forming suffix) + sen “three” + -ec “ordinal number-forming suffix”; “Hand Device III”. Originally túmtav, but that likely just means “touch” (n.)
úntíl: neighborhood; homage to Untíl Uru.
uruto: square, plaza; uru “large gathering/community” + to “place”. Or is that úrú ?
vokænyar: birthday; vokæn “birth” + yar “day”; can’t really claim to be the first to come up with this one Following the German formula: bivdil ram xe-vokænyar-om, “happy birthday (lit. everything good for your birthday)”.
yarental: tomorrow; yar “day” + (mar)ent “follow” + -al (adjective-forming suffix).
yarmet: today; yar “day” + met “this”.

* “I was xantor on your magen”, usually understood as “I was reflecting on your powers/wonders”.

Davide · **Joined:** Wed Mar 30, 2016 10:51 pm **Posts:** 52

I noticed that in his opening greeting of 'Mysterium 2016 - D'ni Language Lesson', K'laamas used 'metyahr' for 'today':
Mysterium 2016 - D'ni Language Lesson

korovev · **Posted:** Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:21 pm

He probably said met yar, with a space.

yar-met makes more sense to me, considering gor-met and to-met.

KathAveara · **Posted:** Thu Jan 26, 2017 3:33 am

Yeah, there's a space there to my ears.

korovev · **Posted:** Fri Feb 03, 2017 8:33 pm

šídako: marker; from ší(tem) “message” + dako “marble”. Desíké šídako “marker game”.

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

korovev wrote:

He probably said met yar, with a space.

yar-met makes more sense to me, considering gor-met and to-met.

This seems plausible enough; but we should keep in mind that, statistically speaking, met is placed before the noun in the phrase just as often as it is placed after. Note:

met boogin prin gah tromets 'this small winged creature'
metbishtah 'this tunnel'
metidhsai chai 'this fault line'
metm’lah 'this lizard'
meht misho tsahv teh 'this universe I live in'.

Also note that the space may or may not be present between met and the noun in either ordering, and seems to depend on the complexity of the noun-phrase, and does not necessarily imply that the result is a single "word."

The fact that gormet and tomet may be translated by single words in English, is not a linguistic feature of D'ni, which has presumably existed long before English ever did

Shorah,
Khrees

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

korovev wrote:

ekwikí: Nexus; from Equiquay, working title of Riven, and meaning “a hub mini-Age”.

I wonder if the D’ni form here is actually Riven, with “Equiquay” being a literal translation. We already have an initial element ri in a few words and names, and ven could be related to the first component of the Age name Venalem. (“Ink-harbor” or “Ink-port” would be a plausible meaning for this name, given what we know conceptually about it.)

One of the words that ri occurs in is the verb rifoon ‘remember’, and this does mean to have in mind something “equal” to what one had in mind before. We know from the adjective tefoonet ‘memorial’ that foon expresses the mental part of this concept, so ri could express the idea of equivalence here, and thus it may be similar in meaning to the English component “equi-”.

Thus ri-ven = 'equiquay' or "nexus."

Shorah

larryf58 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:47 pm

Khreestrefah wrote:

I wonder if the D’ni form here is actually Riven, with “Equiquay” being a literal translation. We already have an initial element ri in a few words and names, and ven could be related to the first component of the Age name Venalem. (“Ink-harbor” or “Ink-port” would be a plausible meaning for this name, given what we know conceptually about it.)

One of the words that ri occurs in is the verb rifoon ‘remember’, and this does mean to have in mind something “equal” to what one had in mind before. We know from the adjective tefoonet ‘memorial’ that foon expresses the mental part of this concept, so ri could express the idea of equivalence here, and thus it may be similar in meaning to the English component “equi-”.

Thus ri-ven = 'equiquay' or "nexus."

Shorah

There isn't a D'ni word for Riven, IIRC. Gehn never gave a name to any of his Ages. He simply referred to them by the numerical order in which he wrote them. Riven was the fifth Age he wrote, so he either called it the Fifth Age or Age Five. I recall reading somewhere that Riven is either the name the natives had for their world or the island chain, or that perhaps Katran gave it that name. Either way, the chances are that it isn't a D'ni word. Instead, it's probably Rivenese.

KathAveara · **Posted:** Thu Mar 16, 2017 11:17 am

Tmk Larry is correct.

Talashar · **Joined:** Sun Dec 08, 2013 12:24 pm **Posts:** 91

I've always assumed that Riven is either a Rivenese word or the English translation of an unknown Rivenese name, but it is possible that it's the D'ni translation of a Rivenese name.

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

When Atrus wakes up after almost drowning in the pool and asks where he is, Katran's cousin says he is on Riven. They are speaking D'ni with an "accent" (rendered by English in The Book of Atrus) but Atrus notices that the word Riven sounds "strange" among the others. (This is in chapter 17.) Atrus does not speak the native language and the natives do not speak English so Riven must be a reasonably phonetic representation of the actual name that he heard, rather than his translation of what he heard.

This is (I think) what led to the theory that the name is "Rivenese," but the problem is that, although riven is now a strictly literary word in English (participial adjective of the verb rive 'to split, cleave, rend, tear') it is one that fairly closely describes what was happening to the island in the Age at just this point in its history, it was becoming split and would over the next few decades separate into the widely spread out islands we see in the game.

This points to the likelihood that someone (who spoke English) referred to the island literally as being "riven" and this then caught on and came to be used as a name, eventually extended from referring to the original island to being applied to the Age. If that person was not Atrus then Gehn seems like the other obvious candidate. Much later Gehn uses this name Riven in one of the journal entries we see in the game, and given his habit of referring to Ages by number this seems more plausible if he is the one who first thought of describing the original island as "riven."

One remaining question would be why this particular English word occurred to Gehn when he noticed what was happening to the island. Why not call it "split" or "cloven" or "rent" or "torn" ? And one possibility might be that a similar sounding word he used in another language brought this English word to his mind. Hence my speculation about what ri-ven would mean if it were a D'ni compound

Shorah

Szark · **Posted:** Fri Mar 17, 2017 12:32 pm

sweet list. I love this one

Quote:

terþfaec: for the first time; t(e)-erþ “as a” + faec “first”. Originally intended as “before”, but sounds too clunky.

can I use it please. ?

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

This seems like a valid D’ni construction, though we should keep in mind that the primary meaning of terth is ‘in a’, e.g. terthbroon ahnotahm “in a lava tube.” It means ‘as a’ in a particular context where a collective (hevo ‘swarm’) is said to act terthtes ‘in a group’ so that the implication is that the swarm and the group refer to the same collective, and therefore English idiom prefers “as a group” rather than “in a group” to indicate this implicit identity, while D’ni retains the locative preposition. The question is whether this would apply where only one thing is referred to and not a collective.

But I think Korovev is right about this, because te can also mean ‘with’ where one thing is in the same place as another thing: bomahnshoo tomet te eest ‘I will die here with them’; which is used grammatically to express agency: lepahboyen set te vaytsoo’on ‘he has blessed us with his presence’. This can imply that two different words essentially refer to the same action: lepahboyen set te dotahgen b’set ah reooshah ‘he has blessed us by giving to us the formula’. We might also translate this: “he has blessed us as he is giving us the formula.”

Another question is whether ordinal numbers like fahets ‘first’ can be used without an accompanying noun? And since the ultimate idea here is to get an adverbial meaning derived from the adjective, could we not just do it directly: fahtsesh = ‘firstly’ :?:

Shorah

larryf58 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 02, 2017 12:46 am

Khreestrefah wrote:

Another question is whether ordinal numbers like fahets ‘first’ can be used without an accompanying noun? And since the ultimate idea here is to get an adverbial meaning derived from the adjective, could we not just do it directly: fahtsesh = ‘firstly’?

Or perhaps the alternate ordinal system used in D'ni month names might be ones that can be used without a noun? I've always wondered why a completely different system was used for them.

I tried to extrapolate the alternate ordinals past ten, and came up with the results in the main number chart on this page in my web site. Much of it is conjecture based on the patterns shown for first through tenth, and some of the ordinals could not be guessed at all since there was no example to work from. But I gave it a shot.

chrissifniotis · **Posted:** Mon Jul 03, 2017 8:49 am

I know I'm necroposting but I'm looking for a more recent and complete D'ni dictionary.
I'm looking for specific words as well as to update my physical dictionary, I'd like to know if there's an updated resource anywhere on the net.

D’ni New Words

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