Welcome to Lexember, a monthlong "game" that challenges participants to create at least one new word in one of their conlangs daily from the 1st through the 31st of December, and to post the results here in this thread. This is the 11th year of the Lexember tradition, I believe, and its 10th year here on the CBB!
Commenting on the words others have made is always encouraged, as is taking inspiration from them! Even if you're not participating yourself, you're still welcome to leave comments here in the thread. It's been mentioned in previous years that communities of conlangers on various social media platforms also participate in Lexember (in fact, I believe it was started on Twitter), so if you're active elsewhere, you might consider posting your words there as well. Of course, if you'd like to participate in the challenge, but would prefer not to post the words you come up with anywhere, that's perfectly fine.
I want to emphasize that there is no "correct" way to participate in Lexember. I don't want anyone who might be interested in the challenge to be discouraged from participating just because they feel that they might not be able to participate every single day or make their posts as detailed as they would like, or that none of their conlangs are "ready" enough. I've tried to address these potential concerns under the spoiler:
Additionally, participants have the option of challenging themselves to learn a new word in a natural language they're studying each day, and to include it with their Lexember entries. Credit for this idea, as far as I'm aware, goes to qwed117, who first did this three years ago with Sardinian.
The five weekly "themes" for this year's Lexember, based on suggestions from prospective participants that were submitted here in the thread over the course of the week leading up to December 1st, can be found below. These are intended to serve as potential sources of inspiration throughout the month, so I've tried to choose themes that will hopefully help facilitate the creation of pretty basic vocabulary for anyone who's participating with a fairly new conlang, but which are also broad enough and open enough to interpretation that those participating with more developed conlangs should also be able to follow them, if they so choose. Next to each theme, I've credited the user(s) whose suggestion(s) inspired it. Naturally, no one is ever required to follow these themes at all, let alone throughout the entire month, and those who do choose to follow them should feel free to interpret them however they'd like. If anyone would like to suggest additional or alternative themes at any point throughout the month, please feel free to do so.
Weekly Themes:
- Week 1 (Dec. 1-3): Three, Numbers (qwed117)
- Week 2 (Dec. 4-10): Gender, Genre, Class, Social Categories, Types of People, Social Interaction (Khemehekis)
- Week 3 (Dec. 11-17): Change, Breaking Down Walls, Novelty, Reform, Difference (qwed117)
- Week 4 (Dec. 18-24): The Forest, The Woods (Iyionaku)
- Week 5 (Dec. 25-31): Holidays, Traditions, Heritage, Customs, Folklore, Rites, Rituals (GoshDiggityDangit, Iyionaku)