What would the English equivalent be?

[Lambuzhao]

We use the word schadenfreude in English as well. Boring I know, but that's how English is.

Also, you seem to have reversed your uses of "feel" the first instance in your post should be "felt" while the second should be "feel."

Which is truly a shame, b/c if we semi-calqued it, scatheglee carries much more of the sardonic, Granny Smith bite IMHO.

[Znex]

We use the word schadenfreude in English as well. Boring I know, but that's how English is.

Also, you seem to have reversed your uses of "feel" the first instance in your post should be "felt" while the second should be "feel."

Which is truly a shame, b/c if we semi-calqued it, scatheglee carries much more of the sardonic, Granny Smith bite IMHO.

Ooh, that sounds deliciously Anglish.

[DesEsseintes]

scatheglee is just brilliant!

[qwed117]

I feel like "scatheglee" would be too awkward seeing how auto correct suggests "a catheter". And now I know what a catheter is. Thanks, autocorrect.

Maybe "coincidental sadism".

[Thrice Xandvii]

Scatheglee is fantastic... As a word that is.

You didn't know what a catheter was before today?!

Also, scatheglee isn't coincidental, per se, but more like delighting in the misfortune of others. Which is almost like regular sadism, but without you actually inflicting the injury. Saying coincidental seems, to me at least, to imply the emotion is accidental, when I'm sure your intent was to have it apply to the action. I'm not sure it would transfer like that in most situations.

[Khemehekis]

Among other things, this type of diagram is generally called either a Triangle Plot Diagram, Triangle Plot, Ternary Diagram, Ternary Plot, Ternary Graph, Simplex Plot, Tri-Plot, or de Finetti diagram, but IMHO Triforce makes as much, if not more, sense.

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/resea ... t/fig1.png

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/maillists/tmap ... qdDwYG.jpg

http://www.sepmstrata.org/CMS_Images/Co ... read-f.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_plot

Hey, thanks! I'm putting it under both "triangle plot" and "ternary plot" in my Kankonian dictionary.

And since someone will no doubt ask, in Kankonian I'm calling it vaipos mu yakte*.

vaipos = graph
mu = preposition meaning "in the shape of"
yakte* = triangle

[DesEsseintes]

You didn't know what a catheter was before today?!

Neither did I! Never heard of it.

[Thrice Xandvii]

Interesting.

I guess maybe it's a rarer term than I thought?

[Khemehekis]

In the Hitan language, spoken in the nation of Hita on the planet Shanu in the Lehola Galaxy, catheters have been used for a long time, and the word for catheter is razu. Candirus are called razuna, or catheter-fish.

[Thrice Xandvii]

Is that ending cognate with "tuna"?

Also, why would you possibly need a word for catheter in your 'lang? What kinda stuff happens in your con world that you'd need to have a native discuss that?

[Khemehekis]

Is that ending cognate with "tuna

Funny, but no. The ending is na, the Hitan word for fish.

Also, why would you possibly need a word for catheter in your 'lang? What kinda stuff happens in your con world that you'd need to have a native discuss that?

The same things that happen to Earth humans that make them use catheters.

[Thrice Xandvii]

The same things that happen to Earth humans that make them use catheters.

While this is of course technically correct, it doesn't really answer the question as I meant it.

What I meant to say was that most folks who develop a language for a conworld want it to exist so that it can be involved in a story, a la Tolkien, who invented a language and then wrote novels using said languages. As such, I merely assumed that you had begun Kankonian under a similar pretext. From there, I suppose I made another assumption, that would lead me to wonder in what type of story situation would a person from this conworld be needed to say the word for catheter in his native language that one couldn't have described the situation in English as part of a narrator or somesuch. I guess what I am really asking is where the native word would be useful within the realm of the overarching story, not why would a native need the word. So, why would you need to coin one for them, if there aren't many scenarios in which the word wouldn't merely be rendered in English... or is your project film... in which case you could need a word due to the use of subtitles rather than just text on a page to tell the story.

I guess this boils down to a single question that could alleviate all my assumptions and speculation: Is Kankonian for a specific work you are creating, or is the language just for it's own reward?

[Prinsessa]

Why are you not considering the options that it might be a conlang set in this current world or in a world technologically analogous (or even more advanced, rather than fantasy mediaeval) to it?

[Thrice Xandvii]

Why are you not considering the options that it might be a conlang set in this current world or in a world technologically analogous (or even more advanced, rather than fantasy mediaeval) to it?

That's 100% tangent to the point. Setting doesn't enter in to it. My use of Tolkien as an example was not meant to imply time period, merely to suggest integration of language with story.

I am merely discussing narrative choices, for the purpose of storytelling. Why would in-universe characters need to use their word when consumers of whatever medium the story is told in won't speak that language so the word will need to eventually be rendered in English or some other Earth language for them.

[alynnidalar]

I can't speak to why other people do this sort of thing, but while I have plans to use Tirina and Azen in a novel, I'm not creating them for a novel. If I were creating them purely for a novel, I wouldn't even bother to create a full-fledged language at all, because nobody wants to stop the plot for sixteen chapters to discuss the formation of subordinate clauses. But my goal is more to create a language that could theoretically be used by real people (even if the people in question are fictional), and to make that language as complete as possible, with various dialects, registers, maybe some creoles...

At any rate, if you're trying to create a full-fledged language, why would you not include medical terminology?

[Khemehekis]

While this is of course technically correct, it doesn't really answer the question as I meant it.

What I meant to say was that most folks who develop a language for a conworld want it to exist so that it can be involved in a story, a la Tolkien, who invented a language and then wrote novels using said languages. As such, I merely assumed that you had begun Kankonian under a similar pretext. From there, I suppose I made another assumption, that would lead me to wonder in what type of story situation would a person from this conworld be needed to say the word for catheter in his native language that one couldn't have described the situation in English as part of a narrator or somesuch. I guess what I am really asking is where the native word would be useful within the realm of the overarching story, not why would a native need the word. So, why would you need to coin one for them, if there aren't many scenarios in which the word wouldn't merely be rendered in English... or is your project film... in which case you could need a word due to the use of subtitles rather than just text on a page to tell the story.

I guess this boils down to a single question that could alleviate all my assumptions and speculation: Is Kankonian for a specific work you are creating, or is the language just for it's own reward?

To begin my answer, I would like to quote from the Wikibook on conworlding:

Some people conworld for another, different purpose. They are perhaps hosting a role-playing game and need to construct a background with richness and detail; perhaps they are writing a novel and need some place to set it in; or perhaps the conworlds exist for the very purpose of expositing their conception of a utopia. And then there are others to whom the conworld itself is the purpose. To them, the creation is the conworld; if they do eventually turn it into the setting of a novel, then the novel is merely an exposition of the great masterpiece behind it — the conworld.

So "perhaps they are writing a novel and need some place to set it in", but perhaps not.

I will admit that I see myself as a conworlder first, and a conlanger second. You were correct on this point. Kankonian, Hitan, and the other languages of the Lehola Galaxy were created so the peoples of the conworld would have some language to speak, and so their people and places could have phonologically consistent names.

But why am I writing about the Lehola Galaxy and its planets (Kankonia, Shanu, Bodus, Shaleya, Hapoi, Javarti, etc.)? So people can read and marvel about another galaxy that's out there. Perhaps so they can learn something from my website, or ponder over the difference forms of government, politics, religion and education that exist in different nations there.

I am not planning to write a novel nor make a movie about Kankonia or the other planets in Lehola, and RPG's just aren't my thing. However, I am working on a story about an average day for one household in Kankonia, and even then the purpose is to exposit what how day-to-day life works on Kankonia! I also have some Tzalath (holy text of several Kankonian religions) stories and traditional Kankonian myths to translate, but those are traditional within the world of Kankonia, not truly my inventions.

If I were only creating as much of each language as I needed for my fiction, would I really create more than 47,000 Kankonian words? Would I really need a Kankonian grammar so detailed it ran on to 111 pages? Would I really name more than 600 stars in the Lehola Galaxy, including many that had no inhabited planets?

Another thing: once a piece of fiction catches on, if it has a conlang attached, people will want to learn MORE of the conlang. They'll want to find out how to say words for things in their daily lives. And they'll run into trouble if the language doesn't have words for them, as D'Armond Speers found out. Think of the people who watched Avatar and want to learn more Na'vi. If I do ever write a series of novels about life on Hita, Kankonia, Shaleya, Tenta, Bodus, Peshtan, Javarti, Tayaon, Querre or other countries in the Lehola Galaxy, some fan might want to know iow to say "catheter" in Hitan. (I originally added it to my Hitan dictionary, though, because Hitan has a lot of compounding and I thought catheter+fish -> candiru would be a really neat derivation.)

So there's no selling work of fiction in the works. My Angelfire website is a tribute to the Lehola Galaxy, to celebrate Kankonia and Lehola.

[Thrice Xandvii]

Thanks for your thoughts, folks! I guess I just didn't really stop to think about those particular perspectives. It just seemed weird at first blush and I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I guess I am such a scrapper when it comes to languages that I'd never get one far enough along to need terminology beyond some key members of each word class, maybe a dozen or so words.

For me, I con-script first, then I form the language so phonology and writing are most important for me. From there, I form a con-culture to have a context for the types of words and rationale for etymology. From there, I've finally had a reason to con-world a bit, but lots of things are still fledgling to me.

I guess I should have been less judgmental about it since this is a creative pursuit, after all, and everyone scratches that particular itch differently.

[Khemehekis]

Thanks for your thoughts, folks! I guess I just didn't really stop to think about those particular perspectives. It just seemed weird at first blush and I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I guess I am such a scrapper when it comes to languages that I'd never get one far enough along to need terminology beyond some key members of each word class, maybe a dozen or so words.

For me, I con-script first, then I form the language so phonology and writing are most important for me. From there, I form a con-culture to have a context for the types of words and rationale for etymology. From there, I've finally had a reason to con-world a bit, but lots of things are still fledgling to me.

I guess I should have been less judgmental about it since this is a creative pursuit, after all, and everyone scratches that particular itch differently.

Cool! You're welcome for the insights I gave you.

I never knew you were a scrapper. Even though the names of none of your languages really stuck with me, in the sense that names like Siu,a, Kala, Inyauk, Géarthnuns, Pazmat, Feayran, Himmaswa and Wakeu stick with me.

I'm not big on con-scripts. Unlike such posters as Masako, I have one alphabet, abjad or syllabary for each language in the Lehola Galaxy, if I've developed it at all. I only develop a con-script once I have a good feel for both the phonemic inventory and the phonotactics of a language. I don't create the script or language first and THEN the people who speak it; I always start with a people, and have a good sense of their physical anatomy, and their form of government, religion (if any) and attitudes. And I like drawing animals from other planets, so many of the first words in my conlangs are names of plant and animal species.

[masako]

Unlike such posters as Masako, I have one alphabet, abjad or syllabary for each language in the Lehola Galaxy, if I've developed it at all. I only develop a con-script once I have a good feel for both the phonemic inventory and the phonotactics of a language.

I sorta almost feel like this is a dig at me...but whatevs.

[Khemehekis]

Unlike such posters as Masako, I have one alphabet, abjad or syllabary for each language in the Lehola Galaxy, if I've developed it at all. I only develop a con-script once I have a good feel for both the phonemic inventory and the phonotactics of a language.

I sorta almost feel like this is a dig at me...but whatevs.

Oh no . . . it's not a dig. I FAIL at con-scripting compared to you!