New D’ni words from Mysterium

korovev · **Posted:** Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:03 pm

Fresh from K’laamas’ presentation at Mysterium:

dAnO
dhaynoy
“setback”

yEpA
yeepay
“eyeglasses”

remesfeteT
remesfeteth
“diligence”

Example:
.Kenema remesfet
.kenemah remesfet
“be diligent”

Nev'yn · **Posted:** Wed Aug 09, 2017 6:53 am

korovev wrote:

Example:
.Kenema remesfet
.kenemah remesfet
“be diligent”

I am *so* making that the motto for your time as GoMe GM Kor!!!

:mrgreen:

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

The best new words are the ones that occur in untranslated texts!

loymaht lekeneet dhaynoytee pahrah tresheegah
Although there have been great setbacks in the way (Gehn's journal)

Note that dhaynoytee pahrah occurs after the verb in this existential construction (and compare Kadish's korvahkhtee keneet tomet, which has normal word order). Is this subject-verb inversion or the use of a dummy subject, with dhaynoytee pahrah as the predicate?

reyeepay kolaneet
The eyeglasses they wore (Gehn's journal)

ken chevet oyn mor'okh'mor kokenen remesfet b'vaynu t'khoytahg zu tsoshem g'bortahom
I am thankful [?] [grandmother?] was diligent to [?] with [?] end of you and your [?] (Atrus's prayer)

KathAveara · **Posted:** Wed Aug 09, 2017 5:13 pm

Talashar wrote:

Note that dhaynoytee pahrah occurs after the verb in this existential construction (and compare Kadish's korvahkhtee keneet tomet, which has normal word order). Is this subject-verb inversion or the use of a dummy subject, with dhaynoytee pahrah as the predicate?

I'd have to examine the corpus, but I wonder if it could be syntactic in nature (i.e. V2 for a copula)

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

I don't think it would be surprising if D'ni had a way to distinguish between what we can exemplify in English by:
"There are some red books in this room".
vs.
"Some books in this room are red."

The first sentence is idiomatic in English -- there does not mean literally 'in that place' but just refers to existence in the abstract. It is sometimes called a "dummy" adverb and it would be surprising if D'ni had this exact idiom. But the basic pattern of reordering the components of the sentence to change what is emphasized, is probably something that the syntax of English and D'ni would share.

So it would make sense that this difference is expressed in D'ni by:
.keneet kortee roodsh tren tehern met
vs.
.kortee tren tehern met keneet roodsh

Shorah

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

An interesting thing about dhaynoy 'setback' is the possibility that dhay = 'back' in the adverbial sense; and we can see a potential relation to the prefix de = 'again'. Note that "come again" is related in sense to "come back" and that having a "setback" implies that you will have to do the work over again.

Whether the relation between de and dhay (De vs. dA) is systematic is hard to judge; but there is an analogous pattern between be 'to' and the first element vay in vaynu and vaytsoo. The second of these is an abstract noun translated 'presence'. In its most generic sense English presence just means the fact of being in a particular place; but there is probably more to the word vaytsoo, as suggested by the context:

.oonrayot gen lepahboyen set te vaytsoo’on
'Our lord Gehn has blessed us with his presence.'

The idea of being present can be a passive state but usually suggests that this is the result of an intentional action of coming to the place where one is now present. So the adverbial sense of vay is perhaps 'forth' or 'forward', in a sense the opposite of dhay 'back'. If so, then perhaps b'vaynu is a verb infinitive meaning 'to promote' or 'to encourage', in essence to do or say things to cause an action or process to go forward.

Shorah

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

The translation of yeepay ‘eyeglasses’ while not entirely surprising is still very interesting in some ways. The form looks like it consists of yee + pay and the second component seems to occur in paychahvo ‘danger’. The idea behind the word may be that eyeglasses allow one to look at something that is otherwise dangerous (or difficult) to see.

This specific translation (as oppose to ‘goggles’ for instance) tends to suggest that the issue was indeed the light (visible or not) on Age 233 that caused the tanuhth and that this does indeed mean ‘blindness’.

Reading between the lines, it seems that Gehn did not realize at first how harsh the sunlight was in his new Age, since he always wore eyeglasses anyway, and he had not provided for this with his Rivenese workers. But the ensuing blindness may not have been the actual “setback”; but rather there may have been a further accident resulting from the workers unexpectedly not seeing what they were doing.

If speculation is correct that the top of Gehn’s new office on Age 233 is a large rain-water collector, then this would suggest that the moisture in the atmosphere was not itself poisonous. But the sea-water surrounding the archipelago where the office island was located may still have been highly toxic, so as to destroy anything that accidentally slipped into it. This may be what Gehn meant by revog miro okh revíduh.

Shorah

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

The confirmed word remesfet ‘diligent’ is a very welcome clarification, because we have been thinking for many years now that Atrus’s use of this word involved the definite article *re + *mesfet. Looking at the word with a fresh perspective, it seems likely that what we actually have here is *remes < rem + mes. But to understand this we need to step back and first look at the word as a whole.

The adjective remesfet probably ends with the adjective-forming suffix -(e)t; and so there is an underlying stem *remesfe- which is curiously reminiscent of the form *shentome- that underlies the expression b’ken shentomeij ‘to be taken from’. What we seem to have is a structure verb + adverb/preposition ‘on, upon’ to qualify the basic sense of the verb. When you are “diligent” part of the meaning is that your energy and activity are focused on the particular task or goal.

If the first component of the verb is rem ‘flow’, it may express the idea of industriousness and perseverence that are also part of the meaning of ‘diligent’. Since mes = 'require', perhaps we can paraphrase the etymological sense of *remesfe- as ‘continuous action intent on what the task requires’.

Shorah

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

larryf58 wrote:

Along with Yēpā, here are the other two words K'laamas mentioned the definitions for in the 2017 Mysterium. Since he didn't mention any provenance at the convention, I sent off an email to RAWA asking if they were correct, and he confirmed the definitions.
...
Remesfet means diligent.

It should be noted that K'laamas did in fact give the provenance of the words he mentioned at the 2017 Mysterium. He said they were:
"Courtesy of RAWA, via Taniith."

Here is a link to the recording of his presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ_P-Asv7q4

And here is a link to the lesson materials packet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4TDZbcG_iRGWUFfTkFBSWlTOUk/view
The new words are on pages 33 and 34.

Shorah

New D’ni words from Mysterium

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