Conlang word easter eggs?

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Aleks
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Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Aleks »

I was curious do you put funny word origins for yours or weird ones? Basically any story for a word in your conlangs that is interesting that you got from a natlang or anywhere else.

Some examples of mine
zeļa [zel'na] = princess [Origin Zelda from Legend of Zelda]
potas? [po'tas] = Okay [Origin Potassium due to it's symbol being K] Not sure about this being an actual word I will use
terant [te'rant] = Idiot/dumb/annoying [Origin Donald Trump need I say more lol]
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k1234567890y
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by k1234567890y »

actually I sometimes do that. some of them(but not all of them) are listed below(romanization and ipa):

Lonmai Luna dinosaur /dinosáur/(a borrowing from yiqa' yiywos didnozsawr "bureaucratic") = (adj.) be bureaucratic

Lonmai Luna dinos /dinós/(a borrowing from yiqa' yiywos didnoz "bureaucrat, government") = (n.) bureaucrat

Lonmai Luna ada /adá/(a borrowing from yiqa' yiywos 'ada "command") and yiqa' yiywos 'ada /'ʔɑˑdɑˑ/ = (n.) command(Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer)

Lonmai Luna gomfi /gomfí/(a borrowing from Sakawi gomvi "cockroach") and Sakawi gomvi /gomfi/~/gomvi/ = (n.) cockroach(from 共匪, a derogative term for Chinese Communist Party in Chinese)

Lonmai Luna tonkisas /toŋkisás/ and Sakawi tongkisas /'toŋkisɑs/ = (n.) a kind of animal in the 8th World(from *doŋuz/*toŋuz, the word for "pig" in certain Turkic languages)

Yiqa' Yiywos didrod /did'rod/ = (n.) encyclopedia(from Denis Diderot)

Nevotak rok /'ɺok/ = (n.) idiot, 'tard(from the acronym of the name of a certain sexist website that promotes discrimination against females)

Nevotak win /'win/ = (v.) lose(from win, the word for "win" in English)

I actually have just added some such words recently:

Ebo Nganakam epsilon /əp'silon/ = (n.) baby/infant(related to mathematical analysis)

Lonmai Luna nep /nép/ = (adj.) be cute(from Neptune "Nep-nep" Purple Heart, a goddess and a protagonist of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series)

I think I will add more in the future.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Khemehekis »

When I was on the CONLANG mailing list, there was a teen-age boy named Greg who had the word daniélyar for "annoying". When he used it in a glossed sentence, a mailing list member whose named happened to be Daniel said, "You better explain!"

It turned out daniélyar was from a Danielle. Greg's sister Danielle, who was very annoying.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by k1234567890y »

Khemehekis wrote:When I was on the CONLANG mailing list, there was a teen-age boy named Greg who had the word daniélyar for "annoying". When he used it in a glossed sentence, a mailing list member whose named happened to be Daniel said, "You better explain!"

It turned out daniélyar was from a Danielle. Greg's sister Danielle, who was very annoying.
lol Greg must watch out, lest his sister be able to learn his language.

I also think to add a word named after my friends...
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Lao Kou »

k1234567890y wrote:I also think to add a word named after my friends...
Okay, okay, you pried it out of me. The "Géarth" of "Géarthnuns" was from a college crush from afar named "Gearth", when I was a tour guide in Niagara Falls. [:$] The accent aigu, the shift in meaning, and the passage of time camouflage its origins, but when reminded, like now, I know it's there. [:$] / [B)]
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Sights »

I do this sometimes in Ba. Two I can think of now are:

ohuri, 'brother', a rearrangement and adaption of the sounds in my brother's name.

[vwon], an ideophone for "something sudden and/or mysterious" that my brother came up with when we were kids. We use it to this day.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Sḿtuval »

kalagy /kalagə/ computer totally does not come from onomatopoeia for typing (and "clack clack" totally means typing).
I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Odkidstr »

If I made a conlang, you can guarantee there is a healthy dose of easter eggs.

My favorite will probably always be kënobi [kə.no.bi], which means "hope" in Odki.

I have a lot of others as well, with many of them a bit harder to find. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. In other words, in Odki, the word for Float comes from English Butterfly, Pëté [pə.tɛ] (believe it or not, that's what butterfly would probably sound like in Odki). The same happened with Sting/Punch & Bee: Pabi [pa.bi]. Voiced plosives can't begin a word in Odki, thus in order to retain the [bi] part, I had to add "pa" to the beginning.

I have a ton of others, but I can't list them all. In one of my unfinished conlangs, I also have Tolkén Conlang. Pronounced as one might have guessed [tolk.ɛn].
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by sangi39 »

I haven't got many so far, but a few of them are fairly personal, so they might not be noticeable sometimes.

The Lesi Kira word reema, meaning brother, derives from my own younger brother's first name forced into the phonotactics of this particular conlang. The lesi element of the name Lesi Kirra itself derives from the name of another person in my life, but the language doesn't really reflect anything of them or their interests.

Along similar lines, the Proto-Skawlas root /haj'wan/, meaning "to move away from something/where", comes from the name of a friend of mine who recently moved to Canada.

Maybe slightly more obviously, the Proto-Skawlas word for "elephant", /'pʰin.kʰa/ ['pin.kʰə] binkë, comes from the pink elephants of Disney's Dumbo, as does the Proto-Sirdic word pinkes (root, pink-), meaning "a strong alcoholic beverage".
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by elemtilas »

Aleks wrote:I was curious do you put funny word origins for yours or weird ones? Basically any story for a word in your conlangs that is interesting that you got from a natlang or anywhere else.
Sure, these are scattered all over the place in languages and people and things of The World. Just recently in the complicated words thread I mention ravendale cheese as being the local equivalent for cheddar. More than just a nother name for the thing: O.E. ceodor means ravine (the article on Cheddar, Som says it means a "dark cavity" and that there is indeed a ravine near the town as well as caves - dark cavities - that aided in early cheese production) and what is raven but "dark" and dale but a kind of ravine? Ravendale = dark ravine; Cheddar = dark ravine.

Some names of people derive from either people or organisations or objects *here*:

St. Apicus derives ultimately from OPEC; Ss. Gnaton and Saton ultimately from NATO & SATO; Sir Gwaltneighe Bagan (a philosopher) was spliced from Francis Bacon (an actual philosopher) and Gwaltney's Bacon (an actual bacon).

Freemartyn Bulltwin is a bookmonger of Auntimoany. A freemartin is a curiously chimeric transgendered female cow. Freemartins are always the twin of a bull. The freemartin gets her male characteristics from her twin.

Thomas Eddystone was a 20th century artificer and proprietor of Eddystone Power Works of Auntimoany; he did much work to perfect the distillation of the Spirits of Elektra City (called djuus) as a means of illuminating luciferescent orbs. Thomas Eddystone is a pun on "Thomas Edison", an artificer who did much *here* to illuminate the world in similar fashion; Eddystone Power Works is a pun on "Consolidated Edison", a large power company in the US. And also a pun on the Eddystone Light, a famous lighthouse in Devon, which is another means of illuminating the world.

Fridegardo Ghandelf was court composer to Arculf II of Auntimoany from 1488 to 1555; famous for massive consorts of instruments; his 1550 opus, Musicke for th' Ymperial Fusillade, has not been properly perfomed since the late 1600s (after which time they lost the art of making trumpets). His music has only recently been revived, and is commemorated on a daler coin of the Empire. (Look at the bottom coin on the Auntimoanian four daler bill here, http://www.frathwiki.com/images/5/5f/Cu ... _small.png here and you can see the kind of trumpet he wrote his music for.) Of course, you may know of a composer *here* by name of Frederick Handel and he serves as inspiration for this fellow. Music being a kind of magic in its own right, I wouldn't be surprised if Gandalf had anything to do with this name.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by All4Ɇn »

The Thrinn word Úndervall [ˈuːnˀəɾväl] comes from the Oasis song Wonderwall. It means any large painting commissioned by royalty or any royal-like figure, so for example the Sistine Chapel's ceiling is considered an Úndervall.

The Islogian word Isì [iˈz̪iː] motherly comes from the Egyptian goddess Isis oh the irony
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Ahzoh »

My conlang has a few.

I used to play a game called Runescape and there was one fictional language spoken by the Tzhaar [t͡sha:r] in that game that inspired me to conlang, so I have a few Tzhaar words in my conlang as a homage.

Notably ẕar [t͡saɹ] "obsidian" from the name itself Tzhaar (though it means "holy fire" in that language) and tokkul [to̞k:ul] "currency, money" from the name of the currency.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Corphishy »

Many of my conlangs' word for God/deity is a permutation of the name Trafalgar (such as Vuase trap, and Saipačn trafkar) which is due to the fact that when I was in 7th grade I saw a book about submarines and saw Trafalgar and thought it was a funny word. It's a bit of an old personal meme.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by felipesnark »

Khemehekis wrote:When I was on the CONLANG mailing list, there was a teen-age boy named Greg who had the word daniélyar for "annoying". When he used it in a glossed sentence, a mailing list member whose named happened to be Daniel said, "You better explain!"

It turned out daniélyar was from a Danielle. Greg's sister Danielle, who was very annoying.
That was me! Small world! She still shows up in my current conlang as deñas which simply means sister.
Odkidstr wrote:My favorite will probably always be kënobi [kə.no.bi], which means "hope" in Odki
I have knobi (n.) and knobinu (v.) for hope. [:D]

I love putting easter eggs and inside jokes in my languages. Here are some:

yolonu /jolonu/ to do something ill-advised from English slang YOLO
kaspos /kaspos/ ghost, spirit Casper
xristos /xristos/ zombie Christ
kathulus /kaθulus/ squid Cthulhu
frauzhas /fra͡uʒas/ promiscuous woman; female friend from German Frau woman, wife
matanu /matanu/ to stop from Spanish matar to kill
morinu /morinu/ to end from Spanish morir to die
vashe /vaʃe/ fat (adj.) from French vache cow
karsos /karsos/ boy from French garçon boy, waiter
kwenias /kweni͡as/ girl queen
Visit my website for my blogs and information on my conlangs: http://grwilliams.net/ It's a work in progress!
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Odkidstr »

felipesnark wrote:
Odkidstr wrote:My favorite will probably always be kënobi [kə.no.bi], which means "hope" in Odki
I have knobi (n.) and knobinu (v.) for hope. [:D]
Your conlang reminds me a lot of Esperanto. Is it based off Esperanto? Or is it an auxlang?
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by felipesnark »

Odkidstr wrote:Your conlang reminds me a lot of Esperanto. Is it based off Esperanto? Or is it an auxlang?
No, and nope!
Visit my website for my blogs and information on my conlangs: http://grwilliams.net/ It's a work in progress!
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by thetha »

I have a habit of making the words for 'eat' in my conlangs some variation of (om)nom
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by k1234567890y »

thetha wrote:I have a habit of making the words for 'eat' in my conlangs some variation of (om)nom
could it be a form of onomatopoeia? XD

by the way, I got a new easter egg:

Lonmai Luna bokeri /bokerí/ and Nevotak bokeri /bo'keɺi/ (adj.) (be) classical (from Andrea Bocelli)
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by Shemtov »

thetha wrote:I have a habit of making the words for 'eat' in my conlangs some variation of (om)nom
I did this once in an abandoned lang called Hengese.
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Re: Conlang word easter eggs?

Post by idov »

felipesnark wrote: kwenias /kweni͡as/ girl queen
In case you didn't know: FYI: The word "queen" ultimately derives from PIE *gwen meaning "woman". Still today you can find cognates like "kvinde" "kvinna" and "kona" (all meaning "woman") from Danish, Swedish and Icelandic respectively.
The accusative of <emo> is <eminem>. :lat:
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