Thursday, March 31, 2016

Ćwarmin Vocabulary: Accomodation

I'm planning to do some posts with the intention of increasing the size of the vocabularies of my conlangs. So, here's a first post on the theme. There'll be some cultural information as well.

Although the Ćwarmin were nomads until recently, a fair share of their population has settled in permanent settlements. The Nomadic lifestyle still holds a significant share of the Ćwarmin speakers.

This affects some 

badku has already been mentioned, and now means 'village'. It also signifies 'band'.
birsi signifies barns, and seems to come from bir, cattle. The latter part may have some connection to śisən, to build, which also is cognate to sirni, a temporary (wooden) structure.

perəc - granary. This is a loanword from Bryatesle pesr-axse, grain-store.

rumb - temple. A loan from Dairwueh ruvbe.

tor - well, but also water source in general

camto - the wall of a building

releś - door

xarsab - roof

rukun - the 'floor' (generally, earth floors are the common thing)

woxa - a fire, from a word that was non-count in early Ćwarmin. Different dialects have developed a few different new words for the non-count meaning of 'fire', most deriving from either woxa or mexəć, e.g. woxruś, mexćeś. Several dialects still permit using woxa in a non-count sense as well.

kotad - a building, a house

cirneć - home (from the diminutive prefix cir- and early Ćwarmin mexəć, fire (countable))
'home' in a more general sense tends to form its case forms from 'mex-', rather than from 'cirneć', whereas when talking of a specific home, i.e. 'the home of a rich person' or anything where it is more specific than usual, you are likely to use cirne- as the root.
Few Ćwarmin houses have multiple rooms; windows are unusual too. A couple of holes exist, though, at opposite ends of the roof, for letting light in, smoke out, and air through. These can be covered with animal skins. 

arkal, poktal – leeward, windward air/smoke/light-holes
barg - skin for covering these holes

worarkal - 'big leeward air-hole', the usual name for glass windows. Such called because wind does not enter through them. Window glass is sirgurbarg, 'small big covering skin'. Where, 'sirgur-' signals the astonishment that glass first caused among the Ćwarmin.

walan - bed. Generally not a very comfortable nor large bed, usually just a pile of wool, sometimes hay and moss.

saupa - a big wooden water container

kosdan - tent fabric (generally skin)

matup - the wooden structure that keeps the tent up

ćiriŋ - the first tripod that is raised when raising a tent

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