Weird coincidences in your conlanging journey

[Khemehekis]

I think this counts? In Fesian, the word for sneak is Camio. It is pronounced much like English Cameo, where you kinda sneak a celebrity or the director into a movie. I just made this word, it's from Ca+Mio, go quietly.

Oh, those compounds can sneak up on you! In Kankonian, the EQC (embedded question conjunction) for "how many" is houmanti. People might think it's ripped off from the English "how many", but it isn't: anti is the question word "how many", and houm- is the prefix for all EQC's, which in turn comes from a mashup of hous (about) and ham (this, that). (OU isn't even pronounced /au/ in Kankonian, unlike the English word "how".)

[Khemehekis]

So, I picked *pintei as the etymon of Ilóhra's word for "milk". This resulted in modern hinti [ˈhinti], which was all well and good, but then I altered my sound changes, and it became hindi [ˈhindi]. The sound changes recently got another overhaul, though, so the modern form is now inži [ˈind͡ʒi]. I guess that new form might still be a weird coincidence if you speak Portuguese.

Hindi? You're saying people might wrongly believe it's an Easter egg because the Hindus hold that cows, providers of milk, are sacred?

[Khemehekis]

Today, I needed to create a Kankonian word for "phytosaur". I read up on how they resembled crocodiles through convergent evolution -- and remarkably well! So I decided to call them "pseudo-crocodiles". The Kankonian prefix for pseudo is wabush-. I checked the word for "crocodile": it's bushevin. Put them together and you've got wabushbushevin. But wait! Due to the big overlap in the -bush-, the word can be haplologized as:

wabushevin

[Pabappa]

i never clicked into this thread before because i figured it was about correspondences between internal and external words. but yeah, with both Play and Dreamlandic, the lexicon is large enough and the phonology small enough that words that actually come from old word-gen output coalesce with each other all the time, so when i create a new word from this originally random output, often enough what i'm really doing is letting the list point me to which existing words i need to use to build the new word, and all i'm really doing is figuring out the semantic shift.

for example just now i created a new Play word sūči for a body within a frill, something that lives but is attached to something nonliving that's attached to something living. More useful when compounded than alone. But anyway ... its etymology is MRCA mfup haki, where mfup is the word for "self" (also "money") and haki is not yet assigned. Thus what could have been random is already most of the way on to being a fully parented word. Most likely haki will be a word that means a body or living thing. I know I didnt explain this well but it's hard to illustrate and describe.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Two coincidences about Miwonša:

(1) "Tra" is the word for "through" in both Miwonša and Esperanto. When I "invented" the word, I did not know that. I guess I must have learnt some Esperanto 20 years ago, forgotten everything that I had learned, but the word "tra" must have stuck somehow in my memory. However, when I decided that "tra" would be the word for "through" in MIwonša, I did not remember that it was also used in Esperanto.

(2) "Prokto" (one of the oldest words in Miwonša) is the word for "even" (as in "I do not have only one car, I have EVEN two cars!). When I invented the word, I did not know that "prokto" sounds a lot like "proctologist". I was so young at that time that I did not even know what a proctologist does :) Recently I have been thinking about whether I should change the word, but then I decided against it because every natural language has words that sound funny or weird in other languages.

Thus, the Miwonšan word for "even" (prokto) has nothing to do with proctology, just like the Swedish word "fart" doesn't mean "fart" in English and just like the German word "dick" is not a slang word for penis, but just means thick. It is just a pure coincidence

[lurker]

By accident, the Commonthroat words for 'to find' and 'to lose' ended up being homophones. fCq /early falling strong whine, huff/. I had always intended that Commonthroat would prioritize aspect over tense, and that aspect would be expressed by mandatory serial verb constructions, and that a change in aspect may give a different shade of meaning. So I decided that fCq would now mean 'to have' or 'to possess'. In the inchoative aspect "sg fCq" it means "to find" or "to come upon", and in the cessative aspect "fb fCq" it means "to lose". It's possible that in the completative aspect "bf fCq" it will mean "to abandon" or "to relinquish", but I haven't decided yet.

I've also accidentally created other homophones, like "B" /long low weak whine/ means both the preposition "from" as well as the verb "to try" or "to attempt". I have no intention of changing those though.

[Keenir]

for example just now i created a new Play word sūči for a body within a frill, something that lives but is attached to something nonliving that's attached to something living.
I know I didnt explain this well but it's hard to illustrate and describe.

I think I understood that well.

so...sort of like a salp, clinging to an empty barnacle shell, on the back of a whale?

[Imralu]

I have quite a few coincidences in Hibuese that, in many cases, are quite demonstrably not a result of influence of natlangs because they're formed by compounding.

Words in bold are in the men's speech. Women's speech is indicated in Italics: purple indicating women-to-women speech and, where it is different, blue indicating women-to-men speech.
________________________________________________________________
A few of the basic roots might be due to subconscious influence.

• lyu (liu) means "place" or "location", like the non-yod-dropping English pronunciation of the French loanword liu. It's intended to be related to the root lu "located entity", "present entity" and an inserted /j/ or some form of palatalisation often derives a genitive form, so it's kind of like "(thing) of a located thing", and something like lu for location has been around in my conlangs for years. It might originally be inspired by location, lieu, lugar etc. though.

• vwo (fuo) means "fire" and may have been subconsciously influenced by Italian fuoco. It fits in though with vo "red entity", ve "white entity" and vwa "yellow entity", with a kind of sound-symbolism thing going on there for brightness, vibrancy, warm colours and vwe "seer" might also be a part of this group (and also might be subconsciously influenced by French voir).

________________________________________________________________
These compounds are pure coincidence:

• zwambo (suapō | suanipō) means "lake", "pond", "swamp", "marsh", "wetland" — coincidentally reminiscent of "swamp" but formed from zwa (sua) "water", "liquid" and mbo (pō | nipō) meaning (entity that) "remains", "continues", "is stationary".

• bandya (patiā | panitiā) means "large amount", used appositionally before uncountable mass nouns. It sounds a lot like "bunch of". Hii bandya ngge! (Hiqi patiā kē! | Hiqi panitiā nikē.) "That's a lot of money!" ("That's a bunch of money!")

• mbangge (pākē | nipānikē) means "bank" and, in the men's speech, has exactly the same pronunciation as the Fijian word baqe /ˈmbaŋɡe/, which is a loanword from English. Hibu is supposed to be situated fairly close to Fiji, so it would easily seem like a loan, but it comes from the native roots mba (pā | nipā) "house" and ngge (kē | nikē) "money". When I first came up with the root for "money" it was nggu and I later swapped it with ngge, which, at the time, meant "hunter", "one who tries" because I wanted the latter to be closer to ngu "killer" ... and then I swapped nggu and ngu so that they are "killer" and "hunter/attempter" respectively.

• mongo (mongo) means either "shark" (gwi mongo) or "cannibal" (ngo mongo). It derives from mo "eater", "drinker", "consumer" and ngo "person", basically equivalent to "maneater" or "people-eater". Its coincidental similarity is to the Māori word for sharks, mangō. In the far southern dialect of Māori, /ŋ/ has merged with /k/ and the word for shark is makō, whence the English name of mako sharks. The sound of the phrase lo ngo mongo "cannibalism" is also pretty satisfying: /lɔŋɔˈmɔŋɔ/. It's just from situation person consumer-person.

• mwa limu (mua limu) (or, in older language or more formally, mwalimu (mualimu) means "teacher", "guru", "mentor", "learning guide". It generally means teachers of adolescents and adults, contrasting with zye limu | zyelimu (sie limu | sielimu), which means a teacher of young children. It comes from mwa "leader" and limu "learner", which itself comes from li "beginner" and mu "knower", so it's a leader of learners. A zye limu is literally a "cause(r) of learners". The reason for the differing forms is that, in modern Hibuese, there is a tendency to avoid long sequences of unstressed syllables after the main word stress, so long compounds of three or more syllables are split into shorter words. Mwálimu becomes mwa límu. Long compounds are still used frequently in formal language, legalese and the like, and this has syntactic consequences: "my teacher" can be mwalimu nga or mwa limu u nga. Mwa limu nga, without u would mean "leader of people who get to know me" or something like that because nga can only "reach back" to the previous word/stress.
  
  The coincidence here is that mwalimu /mwaˈlimu/ (identical in pronunciation with Hibuese mwa limu and in spelling with mwalimu) is the Swahili word for "teacher", which is a loan from Arabic معلم muʕallim. I came up with zyelimu first and wasn't happy with it meaning basically "cause(r) of learners" because teaching is more about guiding, and I realised that mwa was the best root to use instead and .

Both mwalimu and mbangge were pretty amazing to me when they happened. Both Swahili and Fijian are languages that I've been interested in, but neither were involved in shaping these words. It just shows that genuine coincidences can and do happen. The sequence of sounds /nas/ means "wet" in both German and Montana Salish.

[Khemehekis]

Wow, Imralu, those are quite a few coincidences! Sounds as if Hibuese has a lot of houmanti's!

[Imralu]

Wow, Imralu, those are quite a few coincidences! Sounds as if Hibuese has a lot of houmanti's!

Yes, but I don't know houmanti it has.

One that I forgot is ...

• bo ndyovi (po nitiōfi | po tiōfi), which means "one(s) who want(s) to be a "bad group". A ndyovi is a gang, horde, mob, rabble (from ndyo "group" and vi "bad one") and bo means "one who wants" ("one who wants to be ..." with an absolutive modifier and "one who wants (to have) ..." with a genitive modifier). It means that Bon Jovi kind of sounds like "Wannabe Gangsters" or "Wannabe Badguys" or something.

[Khemehekis]

Wow, Imralu, those are quite a few coincidences! Sounds as if Hibuese has a lot of houmanti's!

Yes, but I don't know houmanti it has.

LOL! You actually used my Kankonian word for its meaning!

One that I forgot is ...

• bo ndyovi (po nitiōfi | po tiōfi), which means "one(s) who want(s) to be a "bad group". A ndyovi is a gang, horde, mob, rabble (from ndyo "group" and vi "bad one") and bo means "one who wants" ("one who wants to be ..." with an absolutive modifier and "one who wants (to have) ..." with a genitive modifier). It means that Bon Jovi kind of sounds like "Wannabe Gangsters" or "Wannabe Badguys" or something.

Ma dani!
so cool

[TBPO]

Two coincidences about Miwonša:

(1) "Tra" is the word for "through" in both Miwonša and Esperanto. When I "invented" the word, I did not know that. I guess I must have learnt some Esperanto 20 years ago, forgotten everything that I had learned, but the word "tra" must have stuck somehow in my memory. However, when I decided that "tra" would be the word for "through" in MIwonša, I did not remember that it was also used in Esperanto.

(2) "Prokto" (one of the oldest words in Miwonša) is the word for "even" (as in "I do not have only one car, I have EVEN two cars!). When I invented the word, I did not know that "prokto" sounds a lot like "proctologist". I was so young at that time that I did not even know what a proctologist does :) Recently I have been thinking about whether I should change the word, but then I decided against it because every natural language has words that sound funny or weird in other languages.

Thus, the Miwonšan word for "even" (prokto) has nothing to do with proctology, just like the Swedish word "fart" doesn't mean "fart" in English and just like the German word "dick" is not a slang word for penis, but just means thick. It is just a pure coincidence

What proctologist to?

[Iyionaku]

One really interesting coincidence happened all the way back in 2016, when Imralu and I realized that our conlangs' words for why were almost uncannily similar.

Yélian
Miyde
[ma̯iːdə]
why

Wena
Ma i nde
what COP objective
[ˌmajˈnde]
Why

[ˌmajˈnde]

[Khemehekis]

Two coincidences about Miwonša:

(1) "Tra" is the word for "through" in both Miwonša and Esperanto. When I "invented" the word, I did not know that. I guess I must have learnt some Esperanto 20 years ago, forgotten everything that I had learned, but the word "tra" must have stuck somehow in my memory. However, when I decided that "tra" would be the word for "through" in MIwonša, I did not remember that it was also used in Esperanto.

(2) "Prokto" (one of the oldest words in Miwonša) is the word for "even" (as in "I do not have only one car, I have EVEN two cars!). When I invented the word, I did not know that "prokto" sounds a lot like "proctologist". I was so young at that time that I did not even know what a proctologist does :) Recently I have been thinking about whether I should change the word, but then I decided against it because every natural language has words that sound funny or weird in other languages.

Thus, the Miwonšan word for "even" (prokto) has nothing to do with proctology, just like the Swedish word "fart" doesn't mean "fart" in English and just like the German word "dick" is not a slang word for penis, but just means thick. It is just a pure coincidence

What proctologist to?

Do you mean "What does a proctologist do?"?

A proctologist is a rectum doctor!

[Khemehekis]

i never clicked into this thread before because i figured it was about correspondences between internal and external words.

But Pabappa, you had posted in this thread before! Right here!

[Khemehekis]

I just added a word for "pascal" (paskal) to my Kankonian dictionary. On Earth, the pascal is named after mathematician Blaise Pascal. And of course, I had to create the corresponding Kankonian unit: one ghara per square shitz. When it came time to name it, I made up a four-letter (in the Kankonian alphabet) Kankonian surname. The first half would be oum, I decided. For the second half, I started out with azh, wanting to use a digraph as one of the letters. Then I decided I had a whole lot of Kankonian surnames with Zh, but had underused Th. I changed oumazh to oumath. So while the name of the pascal honors a mathematician, the name of the oumath honors math as well!

[Khemehekis]

When creating a word for "ribose", I just had an unexpected homonymy come up. I decided I'd name ribose for riboflavin, which in Kankonian is called ranet na Khete, or "Khete's vitamin" (Khete being a Kankonian surname, which consists of four Kankonian letters like all Kankonian surnames). Drop the -e and add the sugar suffix -im: khetim.

But wait! While I was doing a spreadsheet search to make sure there were no duplicate khetim's, I discovered that khetim was already the word for "pentose". Pentose and ribose.

But closer examination revealed that "pentose", "hexose", and such were derived from Ciladian number words and -im. Khet just happens to be the Ciladian word for the number five:

diose edim
triose dyuim
tetrose khalim
pentose khetim
hexose sekhim
heptose ebim
octose philim

To resolve this, I decided the keep the -e at the end of Khete. So now the Kankonian word for ribose is kheteyim!

[TBPO]

Arkasian sivī "to know (facts)". I just realised that it sound like CV, which is used to give a knowledge about a person to another person.