I love the idea of cats as the visible soul of a house. Partly because it means my home is mostly good-natured, peculiar, and a bit dim.
— Vague Wombat UrsulaV (@UrsulaV) August 15, 2016
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As I said yesterday, I decided I missed conlanging, and as I’ve missed many months of “365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember,” I decided in the remains of August, I would cycle through the first 8 months twice of conlang-exercises twice.
Today is Febumantau – Create compound word a day for February. It specifically says it doesn’t have to be a portmanteau, but I decided to try for the challenge, especially since…
Portmanteaus are actually the rule rather than the exception in modern Calenyen, which tends to mush words together in compound words and then drop syllables. Yesterday’s words began as portmanteaus.
A modern-to-Edally-era would be
taabaam, pipe (from baam, tube and Taabo, an artifice, a “work”, i.e, pipes themselves are “tubeworks.”)
tyaala, a clog, from aatyaa, to obstruct.
tyaabaam, generally a figure of speech, a clog in the works.
Old Tongue is a much less active language; it is more or less dead, used for code and private conversations, for scholarly texts on Ellehemaei, magic, and the nature thereof, and sometimes for artwork.
Still, when you teach a school full of teenagers a language, eventually someone will come up with some mash-ups.
Although the word daetoshiar, “Sanctity”, already existed, some students of Addergoole decided “doorway-smash” better explained the feeling of discovering the sanctity of a doorway for the first time (i.e., that moment when you find you can’t enter a room without invitation because of the Laws of Sanctity).
Hiashebbana is a doorway, a threshold, the place you welcome people into your home.
Onussie, “to smash,” the sensation of smashing.
From those you get “Hiashebonussie” or just “Hiashebonus.”
(or, from some, Hiashe-smash.)
If you are not already following Haikujaguar, I suggest you check out her post today – 581 Words: on Language as Intermediary. Edited to add: MCA Hogarth deleted all social media but Twitter and moved to Patreon for reasons I completely support.
Morphambruary
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Polysemarch
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Febmanteau 2
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1157471.html. You can comment here or there.
This weekend was a weekend of “oh, well, maybe later?” We went a lot of places, but mostly achieved very little. However, it RAINED! Lots! *dances around in the rain*
(Also, we did a lot of shopping, but that’s not all that exciting).
I’ve been thinking that for Lexember — or possibly before — I’ll do two “translation” projects — a portion of an illuminated page in Old Tongue (the language of the Ellehemaei in Fae Apoc/Addergoole) and a poem in Calenyen (for Reiassan).
Is there anything in particular you’d like to see “translated” for such projects?
We went to see Ghostbusters. My “review”, such as it is, can be seen here (warning — non-positive): https://twitter.com/lynthornealder/status/764593963034669056
We got an Instant Pot! It’s an electric pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker, etc, etc. We made steel cut oats in it, and they turned out pretty awesome.
See the Kitchn’s article on the Instant Pot here — https://t.co/P35KyOxnNm
The Shannara TV series has very little to do with my memories of the books, but those memories are 30-some years old. Also? So much eye candy, and much of it male!
If anyone has any more pictures of this guy, cosplaying as Emergency Costume Repair, I’d love to see them. Great idea!
Shutsumon introduced me to #WebFictionChat, and they are having a monthly Serial Book Club. Check it out: https://twitter.com/Chrys_Kelly_/status/763776957314129920
Random moment of awesome while looking into illuminated texts — https://t.co/AazDZfuX0m this dragon climbing his way out of the text.
There is still one 250-word slot open in “Leave a Comment, get a fic” over at Addergoole’s new site.
Annnnd the meta-conversation with Jaco from Lady Taisiya’s Fourth Husband is still going strong over here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/meta-conversations
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1157120.html. You can comment here or there.
I decided I missed conlanging, and I’d missed many months of “365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember,” so I decided in the remains of August, I would cycle through the first 8 months twice.
Today, Morphambuary – Coin a bound morpheme a day in January.
Starting with Calenyena: Bekkut comes from two words no longer used on their own, beka, fish, and tukut, river. These words have been replaced with new words with similar meanings, but a bekkut is still a river-fish, and torkut, from Tora, grass, is still a river-grass.
In Addergoole/Fae Apoc’s Old Tongue, there are a number of morphemes only used as modifiers of other words. In the old ideograph system, they are often modifying diacritics.
-eleg is one of those. It means base in the sense of baseborn: lower, less-worthy, illegitimate.
In the word shenera, child, this would become shener/eleg/a, for instance.
next: Febmanteau
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Morphambruary 2
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1157032.html. You can comment here or there.
Chapter 4 in my answer to the “guy has umpteen wives” trope
Find Chapter 1 here
Chapter 2 is here
Chapter 3 is here.
The chains jingled every time Sefton moved. When he took a step, they swished between his ankles, jangling on the stone floors. He noticed that Jaco walked to make the noise louder, and that, even though Onter and Callum weren’t wearing the chains anymore, they’d developed a bit of a sway to their step. He tried imitating the sway and found that it made the chain noise quieter.
The chains on his wrists were worse, if a bit quieter. Hooked to his waist, they meant he could pull his hands up to mid-chest or, if he let one hand get yanked down to his waist, he could get the other up to his shoulder. He couldn’t imagine doing any work that way, or holding a weapon.
That’s the whole point, he reminded himself. He was bonded to Lady Taisiya, to her house, and to her children. That’s why they put the chains on him. He supposed, on some level, it was supposed to be a reminder that it could have been worse.
He cleared his throat anyway. It was a stupid question, a question he should have asked before, but… “what happens when raiders come?” Out here, by the coast, they were too far from the capital for proper help.
Jaco snorted. Onter gave him an unreadable look. “If the raiders come, you and Jaco go to the nursery. Callum and I go with the Lady.”
“Yes, I mean…” He ducked his head. “That’s what always happened. We went to the nursery with the junior husbands.”
“That’s what happens to you,” Onter answered. His tone brooked no argument. Sefton swallowed his retorts and studied the floor.
“There will come a time when you can help the Lady defend the home,” Callum added quietly. “The Treaty says that we can’t take up arms or throw magic. You will… you will be taught how that works with defending the home. Until then, you and Jaco are the last line of defense for the nursery, and if that is ever breeched, well, you do everything you can to keep yourself and the egglings alive. Understand?”
No. Sefton nodded slowly. “I can… Yes, sir.”
“It’s Callum down here.” The correction had a bit of a sting behind it.
Sefton lifted his chin and looked at the older man. “When you’re giving me orders, sir, you’re sir.”
Dumb, dumb, mouthing off to his senior husbands when he’d been here less than an hour. Sefton tensed. He knew better, damnit.
Callum smirked slowly. “All right. I’ll give you that. So. Same as back home, you come in the nursery, you protect the egglings and yourself. Okay?”
No! “Yes, sir.”
“Good boy. Now, speaking of the nursery… brace yourself.” He said it with a smile, but Sefton still rolled his shoulders back and made sure his feet were set. You heard stories, about other nurseries…
This was not that sort of place, Sefton reminded himself firmly. His mother would not have sold him to those sorts of people, even if she had wanted the deal. And even Jaco didn’t look worried or upset. No. This was fine. It was — he was just braced. For…
Onter opened the door. “Hey, kiddos, it’s… oof!” Five children had tackled him the moment the door swung open, knocking him into Sefton. Sefton, braced, managed to catch Onter on a shoulder, his chains jerking his hands down as he tried to bring them up.
The kids were all talking at once. None of them were older than seven or eight, but Sefton was pretty sure it was three boys and a girl, a normal distribution. Then a taller child, nearly an adult, stepped around then. He had the same blackish-brown hair as Onter and wide eyes like Lady Taisiya, and he was wearing a scowl. “You’re the new one.”
“Hothyan,” Onter scolded.
“What? He’s the reason we lost Isham!”
“Other way around,” Sefton answered quietly. “Isham’s the reason I’m here. Lady Lithinie wanted him, and my mother, ah, had an interest in Lady Lithinie’s oldest son. So. I’m S… Feltian.” He clasped his hands together at the length of his chains and bowed.
“And he outranks you.” Onter tapped the top of Hothyan’s head not-ungently. “Something you ought to get used to pretty soon.”
The boy glowered at Sefton, but he clasped his hands to his chest and bowed as well. “Hothyan. I’m the oldest, now that Isham’s gone.”
“It is an honor to meet you, Hothyan.” Sefton nodded his head again. He might outrank the boy by protocol, but if the children were anything like Sefton’s family, they’d be far more likely to listen to Hothyan than to a stranger.
“These are my brothers and sisters.” He started with the next-tallest one and went through the other teenaged boys, then the small children who’d greeted Onter, and then the toddlers. Lady Taisiya’s family had eleven children still in the nursery, almost twice what Sefton’s family did. Sefton swallowed around a lump in his throat and greeted every one of them politely.
“…And here are the egglings.” Hothyan’s voice went soft and reverent. Three eggs sat nestled in their padded incubators, each next to a soft, reclining chair. The set-up was similar to what Sefton’s fathers had used, everything arranged to be as gentle as possible to the egglings. A fourth chair and incubator sat empty nearby.
Sefton was still. He felt as if his world had slowed down to nothing. The egglings. It was one thing to know what was coming, to have read stories and watched his fathers with their eggs. It was another to see the chair where he’d sit, nurturing the egg, telling it stories, keeping it warm and introducing it to human touch.
He cleared his throat. “They’re beautiful,” he whispered. They were, of course: speckled and marbled, as hard as granite and as fragile as glass. One was swirled with pink patterns over a mauve base; one was green with darker speckles, and the third was one of the rarest combinations, black over the blue of the sea. He could picture how one would fit nestled against his chest as he lay in that chair, his whole world reduced to just the little eggling. “They’re…”
“They are,” Onter agreed. He rested his hand atop the incubator holding the pink egg. “This one is mine.”
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1164752.html
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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1156617.html. You can comment here or there.
You, the readers, asked Jaco of Lady Taisiya’s Fourth Husband some questions, and he’s already discussed some. Here he is, back after intermission.
Rix waves her hand nervously. “Hi. If marriage is for the community, then who doesn’t get married and who isn’t allowed to marry?”
Jaco bows from a sitting position, politely, buying time to think about the question. “Sons normally get married off as benefits the family they were born into.” He shrugs a bit. “Sometimes a son shows a particular spark for the military or the university, and then he goes there, instead. Sometimes nobody wants him, and the family can’t arrange a marriage.” He jangles his chains. “It doesn’t happen often. Most women can find some use for a junior husband, especially if they can seal a deal by taking him off his mother’s hands.”
He flips through the new questions, not looking at the audience. “All right, I can handle two of these at once. This guy wants to know ‘what happens to all the poor women who don’t get husbands?’ and this lady would like to know what the proportions of men and women in the population are.” He looks up at the audience. “There aren’t any women without husbands. There are maybe four men to every woman, and no woman doesn’t get married. Some of them, they join two households and bring all their husbands together, sharing husbands, but none of them ever don’t get married.”
He looks down at the cards. “I don’t know what happens if they try, so don’t ask, okay?” He coughs and looks at the questions again. “So, the Treaty. That’s this, this big thing. It seals everything, and I’m not supposed to talk about it. We’re really only barely supposed to know about it — that’s part of the Treaty, too. We, our country, signed it, and we, Husbands, we don’t know about it. Maybe Onter does, maybe First Husbands do. Me? I do what I’m told, or, uh,” he jangles his chains again, “mostly I don’t.”
This time, when his eyes scan the gathered people, he’s defiant. “Anyone else got anything?”
Part III: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1159258.html
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1156541.html. You can comment here or there.
This is written to ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thnidu‘s commissioned continuation of Shedding Skin and The Nightmare Sated
She woke to find a trembling body next to hers. Before Akazha opened her eyes she sniffed the air and focused on the pressures on her skin, taking in the situation. Her body was back to its humanoid shape, her fingers still feeling twitchy where the claws had slipped away. She felt no metal on her, no hawthorn or rowan. They hadn’t chained her down while she was comatose, then.
The ground beneath her was hard and cold. Something soft covered her from her feet to the shoulder — a blanket? Her clothes would have torn in the shifting, they always did. The teddy bear was still pressed under her hand, and there was not one but two bodies, a small one in front of her and a larger one behind her. The larger one was trembling.
Akazha let out a sigh and opened her eyes. A toddler lay pressed against her, looking out at the world. Not far away, she could see chair legs and booted feet. Behind her, the trembling body shook more.
“Well.” She recognized the voice of the town’s mayor. “You’re awake, and the citizenry of the town has declared that we cannot kill you. So… having ‘rescued’ us, what do you want?”
“Food.” The answer was out of Akazha’s mouth before she could recognize the tension in the mayor’s voice or pick a suitable, safe answer. “Food, please.”
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The collar clicking around Trey’s neck was supposed to be the culmination of months – years – of planning, the final realization of all his hopes and dreams.
It made the feeling all that much more sour. This collar wasn’t pretty, like the ones in the contraband romance novels. It wasn’t light and airy, it wasn’t comfortable, like the ones Trey had played with, in underground clubs and quiet swing parties. It didn’t come with nice words and a quiet understanding of his place in the world, a sense of comfortable inevitability, a sense of honored submission.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1155875.html. You can comment here or there.
You, the readers, asked Jaco of Lady Taisiya’s Fourth Husband some questions, and he’s ready to answer.
Jaco wanders into the room, chains jangling loudly, and perches on a stool, looking around at the audience. His eyebrows raise: so many women. He turns to me with a little headtilt.
“You said they had questions. You said you picked me?” If he is a little defensive, well, he is no longer used to crowds.
“Onter’s bought into the system too much, and Callum is a bit shy around women, you have to admit.” I shrug, perhaps a bit apologetic myself, and reach over. Protocol dictates I not touch you, but I hand him the cards, and he flips through them.
“Divorce?” He settles on that one first. “What’s that?”
“Well, I suppose that means it doesn’t exist in your world, then.”
“Probably not, but what is it? I mean, maybe we call it something else?” He’s leaning forward now, trying not to look eager.
What can I do but answer? “It’s when a marriage is dissolved legally. Usually there’s some law about how the belongings are split up and who gets custody of the children.”
He leans back a bit and he frowns. “No. Nothing like that. Husbands who survive their wives, well, it can go several ways. If they’re young enough, sometimes they go back home.” He jangles his chains. “Or re-marry. Won’t happen to me.”
He pointedly goes through the cards, considering and discarding several more. “Men don’t marry men. Marriage is all about the Treaties. Sometimes… men-who-don’t-marry, or men whose wives died, they set up house together. Widowers, I think your term is?” He glances at me, and I nod. Close enough. “And no, I mean, women mary for responsibility. Marrying just one man — I mean, sure, some women have a first match that’s for love, and they try to make like he should be their only. But it’s never going to last.”
He puts the cards down on the table and rubs his wrists. “Marriage is a community thing. It’s for the community. That’s what they tell us.”
He glances back at the cards, and then at the audience. “Well? Anything else?”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1155601.html. You can comment here or there.
Part I: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1096503.html
Part II: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1100922.html
Part III: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1104619.html#cutid1
Part IV: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1108537.html
Part V: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1112216.html
Part VI: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1124762.html
Part VII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1134781.html
Part VIII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1139412.html
Part IX: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1146552.html
Help! I’d like clever individual titles for these chapters as well – now taking suggestions for 8, 9, and this one!
“So the whole school is underground?” Xander was the last down the narrow staircase, and he was taking his time, looking around as if the old barn would suddenly reveal something more exciting than a concrete stairway hidden under a trap door. “Doesn’t that get a little, oh, I don’t know, crypt-like? Grave-y? Dank and claustrophobic?”
“Spend a lot of time in crypts?” Luke shot a look over his shoulder at the three of them.
“Of course not,” Willow offered brightly. “It’s just that the whole underground thing is a bit — well, it’s a bit creepy, you have to admit. No offense, I mean, some people like creepy; it’s a valid decorating style, I’m sure, but…”
“But it’s still a bit strange.”
“Being underground lets us spread out more,” Luke offered. “And gives us privacy.”
“Oh, good. Privacy.” Xander swallowed. “Not selling me on the crypt-school here, man.”
“It grows on you.” The lights came on as Luke led them down into a broad room, warehouse shelves flanking a wide receiving area and a big Jeep on some sort of lift. “Through this way is the school. There’s some students here over the summer. Magnolia’ll show you around. You want to talk to Regine, right?” He nodded at Giles.
“I need to impress on her the oddities of our situation — ah, yes.” Giles coughed. “Yes, I need to explain to her, that is —”
“You said ‘yes’, Giles, it’s fine.” Buffy patted him on the shoulder. “I think he got that part without all the extra yesses.”
“Thank you very much for that, Buffy.” Giles frowned at her. “And this tour, I assume it will be of the grounds and accommodations and…”
“All down here.” The warehouse opened out into a wood-panelled hallway, the carpet lush and soft underfoot and the light hidden somewhere in the ceiling. “Greenhouse and dorm rooms, Store and Arcade and the pool and the weight room—”
“You have a greenhouse? Underground? The ‘green’ part isn’t supposed to be mold, is it?”
“Store? Are there shoes? What?” Buffy looked around, although only Giles was really sighing. “I was promised shoes for this trip, and then I broke a nice one when we were in — wherever we were. Also, what about the nightlife? Clubs? That sort of thing?”
“Students with suites throw a lot of parties, and there are dances every other Friday.” Luke didn’t sound all that thrilled about it. “It’s a small school. There’s plenty of chance to get to know everyone.”
“And what about computer classes? Don’t huff, Giles,” Willow scolded. “It’s just that I have a need to keep learning, and if this place is going to challenge me even less than Sunnydale High…” she shrugged. A gesture around the place suggested she didn’t think much of the decor. “Old-fashioned law firm look doesn’t mean challenging teachers.”
Luke cleared his throat. “You could come up with an independent study program with your Mentor. I’m sure there are a couple teachers here who could help you with that, although we’re kind of… old-fashioned here.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Giles muttered.
“Mmph.” Luke shot Giles a look.
Buffy sighed. “More tweed? More old men hiding in rooms and reading books?”
“Nothing lik — more?”
“I have a very interesting life, but it involves way too much tweed,” Buffy explained. “Right, Giles?”
“Ahem. Well, there is quite a bit of tweed, that is, as Buffy says. There are a number of scholars who are less than useful in a difficult situation and who have, ah, insinuated themselves into Buffy’s life. This is all going to come out in the meeting I should have with the Administration, of course, and that would include you, wouldn’t it, Mr. Hunting-Hawk?”
“What… yeah. Yeah, it would.” He rolled his shoulders. “I guess I oughta… Magnolia!” He waved down the hall. “These are the visitors.”
“Oh, I was wonderin’ when they’d show up.” The voice came first, a warm southern drawl. A moment later, they could see the girl around Luke’s shoulder — tall, taller than Xander, with dark tan skin and black curly hair twisted up into a sloppy chignon. She was wearing a halter top and shorts with heeled sandals that made her even taller. “Oh, aren’t y’all cute!”
“Tell me she’s not a demon,” Xander whispered. “Tell me she’s not a demon… ow!” He rubbed his arm where Buffy had punched him.
That left Willow to step forward and offer a cautious hand. “I, um, hi. Willow, that is, I’m Willow, this is Buffy, Xander, and Giles, our, um, our Librarian.”
The tall girl shook Willow’s hand. “Ah’m Magnolia. And the only people that call me a demon are the ones ah’m sleepin’ with, so take that as you may.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1155478.html. You can comment here or there.