People wanted to know what the Cālenyena ate with, on, and at.

Cālenyen eating words evolved from sitting-around-a-cookfire eating to sitting-around-a-large-platter eating. Original tools for eating were small knives sharpened on one side, zēzupēk, zēpēk, food-knife.

They discovered the concept of a forked stick for picking up larger amounts of food; this became a pūtupēk, pūpēk, food-spear.

(most of the Cālenyen innovations were originally stolen from another culture.)

“Today,” in the reign of Emperor Alessely (I think this should probably be spelled Alesulē), a properly set eating arrangement will involve:

zēpēk, in a pair
pūpēk, only one
gazē (From the Bitrani savia), a deep-bowled spoon
tōrēk, from tōrupēk, “food-field (of battle),” a wide round platter on which dishes are arranged to be shared.

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As if getting into the spirit of Lexember, my local radio station trotted out this wiki excerpt about Mele Kalikimaka and phonological shift.

Today’s words are an experiment in phonological shift adaptation with a bonus geography/history note.

The continent the people who became the Bitrani and the Cālenyena came from held two other nations – the proto-Bitrani on the East Coast, the Cālenyena in the southwest, the [West Coast People] on, obviously the west coast, and the Ice Tribes in the north.

The Ice tribes discovered metal-working first, and traded with the West Coast people and the proto-Bitrani. They called a particular blade, a short one with a barbed edge, yee-shoon.

When the Cālenyena first encountered knives, the west coast people called them allishia. That word can’t exist in three different ways in the Cālenyena language; it became zēzu (zee-zuh)

When they first encountered swords, it was from the proto-Bitrani, who called them tyajoon. Since a starting ty- sound in Cālenyen indicates a useless object, and a sword clearly isn’t, and since they don’t have a j sound, sword ended up tazhō

zēzu (zee-zuh) – knife
tazhō (tah-zhoo) – sword

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On par with a goat in terms of importance to the Cālenyena(*) is their tent, at least historically.

petep (first syllable is like the word pet, with the same e sound in the second syllable) – this is a base word for “tent.”

(petepōk, which became pepōk over time, is “stone tent;” house.)

pazit is a goat (paw – zit)

geten is blanket, [and I need to figure out how I make things plural

gōt is a pot, generally a kettle for cooking over open fire, more generically any pot.

There is a Cālenyen saying:

Petep ō pazit, geten ō gōt: Tent and goat, blanket and pot.

It is meant to signify the needs in life (your tent and your goat) and the comforts (soft blankets and cooked food), but in later years also is a description of a separation of a couple – the soldier or worker gets the Petep ō pazit, the mother or home-keeper gets the geten ō gōt.

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A tweet from the #Lexember founder tells me this began about everyday objects.

For the Cālenyen(*), their most everyday objects would center around their goats, which is part of what people were requesting anyway. So win.

First:
gōzh (rhymes with loge: a saddle, any saddle.

gōzakāb Orig. “big saddle;” a campaigning saddle, similar to a Western trail saddle.

gōzyup Org. “little saddle;” a bareback pad for very fast riding.

(*) I’ve changed this several times. This is the current spelling.

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