Conlang word easter eggs?

[Hana]

I was looking through my Awkwords output one day when I found the word òxó and I had to make it the word for angry in Jalo (d͡zaɬo).

[Khemehekis]

I was looking through my Awkwords output one day when I found the word òxó and I had to make it the word for angry in Jalo (d͡zaɬo).

A visual Easter egg . . . cool! Klingon has one like that . . . 'o' is the word for "aft".

[WeepingElf]

My Easter eggs are of the etymological kind. For some words in western European languages with unknown or controversial etymologies, I invent Hesperic etymologies. For instance, the Germanic word for 'monkey, ape' "is" from Old Albic pána, which is a loan from another Hesperic language where it originates in a word descending from PIE *peh2-no- that referred to a goblin-like creature, but originally meant something like 'guardian spirit of nature', as its Old Albic cognate phána still does. Another example is Old Albic *segil 'wing, sail', the "source" of English sail; and recently, I "discovered" that Celtic *îsarnon 'iron' is from a Hesperic language where PIE *h2ster- 'star' has become *îsar- (if you are puzzled by the connection between 'star' and 'iron', this is because iron was first known to people from meteorites). This is great fun!

[Man in Space]

My Easter eggs are of the etymological kind. For some words in western European languages with unknown or controversial etymologies, I invent Hesperic etymologies. For instance, the Germanic word for 'monkey, ape' "is" from Old Albic pána, which is a loan from another Hesperic language where it originates in a word descending from PIE *peh2-no- that referred to a goblin-like creature, but originally meant something like 'guardian spirit of nature', as its Old Albic cognate phána still does. Another example is Old Albic *segil 'wing, sail', the "source" of English sail; and recently, I "discovered" that Celtic *îsarnon 'iron' is from a Hesperic language where PIE *h2ster- 'star' has become *îsar- (if you are puzzled by the connection between 'star' and 'iron', this is because iron was first known to people from meteorites). This is great fun!

I enjoyed reading this! I love the detail you go into with Albic and your willingness to revise even if the change is great.

[WeepingElf]

My Easter eggs are of the etymological kind. For some words in western European languages with unknown or controversial etymologies, I invent Hesperic etymologies. For instance, the Germanic word for 'monkey, ape' "is" from Old Albic pána, which is a loan from another Hesperic language where it originates in a word descending from PIE *peh2-no- that referred to a goblin-like creature, but originally meant something like 'guardian spirit of nature', as its Old Albic cognate phána still does. Another example is Old Albic *segil 'wing, sail', the "source" of English sail; and recently, I "discovered" that Celtic *îsarnon 'iron' is from a Hesperic language where PIE *h2ster- 'star' has become *îsar- (if you are puzzled by the connection between 'star' and 'iron', this is because iron was first known to people from meteorites). This is great fun!

I enjoyed reading this! I love the detail you go into with Albic and your willingness to revise even if the change is great.

Thank you! It is great fun to me - a kind of fun you just can't get from a vocab generator ;) Indeed, one of my motivations for conlanging (besides exploring questions about the human condition and the meaning of life by means of building my "Elvish" conculture) is my curiosity about prehistoric languages - and the more speculative ideas about them which I could not defend as "real" hypotheses go into my conlangs.

[Arayaz]

In Ruykkarraber, anadeu means "strange" or "weird." It's an easter egg for ANADEW.
I was lucky with this, since while anadeu is not a valid root, adeu is ─ and I happened to already have a prefix an-. (It's a generic negator; adeu means "normal" or "expected.")

[Khemehekis]

In Ruykkarraber, anadeu means "strange" or "weird." It's an easter egg for ANADEW.
I was lucky with this, since while anadeu is not a valid root, adeu is ─ and I happened to already have a prefix an-. (It's a generic negator; adeu means "normal" or "expected.")

It's so neat that that all worked out!

[Man in Space]

In Ruykkarraber, anadeu means "strange" or "weird." It's an easter egg for ANADEW.
I was lucky with this, since while anadeu is not a valid root, adeu is ─ and I happened to already have a prefix an-. (It's a generic negator; adeu means "normal" or "expected.")

Fantastic!

[Shemtov]

In Zeigouŋdeizese, since the Waanic family is inspired by Mayan and Austronesian, I often take Proto-Mayan and PMP, and Old Malay/Old Javanese words and adapt them to PWaanic phonology and phonotactics and evolve them through the sound changes from PWaanic to Zeigouŋdeizese. Given that the religion is based on the Dharmic religions, I often take Sanskrit terms and attach PIndo-Aryan endings (to make it less obvious) and do the same. For example, Paařok "Trading ship" was formed by taking PMP *paʀaqu, and making it PWaanic *paʀauq, then evolving it to Paařok. Or Pizipi "Tomato", which comes from PCentral-Mayan *piʃp and changing it to PWaanic *piʃɨpɨ and evolving it.

[_Just_A_Sketch]

In Hɛlcɛso, the word for "idiot" is ɛlon, named after everyone's favorite billionaire techbro, Elon Musk (/s). I made this word around the time I deleted Twitter from my phone and moved permanently to Tumblr.

[Arayaz]

In Hɛlcɛso, the word for "idiot" is ɛlon, named after everyone's favorite billionaire techbro, Elon Musk (/s). I made this word around the time I deleted Twitter from my phone and moved permanently to Tumblr.

I would do things like this, except there are too many people I want to criticize.

[_Just_A_Sketch]

In Hɛlcɛso, the word for "idiot" is ɛlon, named after everyone's favorite billionaire techbro, Elon Musk (/s). I made this word around the time I deleted Twitter from my phone and moved permanently to Tumblr.

I would do things like this, except there are too many people I want to criticize.

Understandable

[LinguoFranco]

I have one word I keep tossing into my various projects: /kaine/, which is the color white. It's a reference to a character named Kaine from the Nier games, who has white hair and a white dress.

[lurker]

One of my sketch langs from back in college had a word for fish /sikiten/ that was a play on PETA's attempt to get people to stop eating fish by calling them "sea kittens".

[Akubra]

I have a few Easter eggs in K'aach:

• dzib /d͡zib/ (write) and chal /t͡ʃal/ (flat): these words are inspired by "Dzibilchaltun," a significant Maya archaeological site in Mexico. From my research, "Dzibilchaltun" translates to "place where there is writing on flat stones"; "dzibil" means "writing" and "chal" means "flat."
• lakh /lakʰ/ (many, much): this word is derived from the Hindi word "lakh," which means 100,000.
• mirri /miɹi/ (ant): inspired by the Yolŋu word "mibirr" (insect), which reminded me of the Dutch word "mier" (ant).
• orchha /oɾt͡ʃʰa/ (old): named after the Indian town of Orchha, known for its ancient palace and fort.
• popol /popol/ (book): taken from "Popol Vuh," the name of a text that recounts the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people of Guatemala.
• thaal /tʰaːl/ (speak): inspired by the Dutch word "taal" (language), meaning what is spoken.
• xulub /ʃulub/ (bowl): derived from the name of the Mexican village "Chicxulub," near the center of the famous impact crater which killed the dinosaurs. Although "Chicxulub" doesn't mean "crater" or "bowl," I borrowed part of the name and assigned it the meaning "bowl" (= shaped like a crater).