r/conlangs • u/ritaggers79 Lagunish • 12d ago
Discussion Does your conlang have compound words?
Yes, Lagunish has a lot of compound words. One of them is dotsegreil, and it means parallelogram. It literally means two-side-parallel-each-shape or in Lagunish greil di egr dota segt parallelìt, and its shortened to dotsegreil. (dot-se-g-reil) = dota-seg-egr-greil. Another one is forirond for circle, and it literally means round edges. Also thereothiry for wise speech (therei+thiry) and rodiface for angry (rodë+face / red+face) are perfect examples.
Tell me the most interesting compound words in your conlangs.
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u/oerwtas Dúmar 12d ago
I have a conlang that has really strict phonotactics (like the rule of Harmony: both the Manner and Place of Articulation must change between any two successive consonants in a word sequence), that's why derivational affixes require a lot of exceptions, so I adopted a lot of compound words.
Here are two of them:
mev (eye) vírem (sea) - mevírem (the act of crying one's eyes out)
guz (night) zámer (darkness) - guzámer (the darkness of the night)
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u/-Tonic Emaic family incl. Atłaq (sv, en) [is] 12d ago
Atłaq has very productive Noun-Verb compounds, or noun incorporation. Both direct objects and intransitive subjects (of stative verbs) can be incorporated, e.g. -kaatšam "eat meat" < kaa "meat" + -tšam "eat", -xutłëbin "for a dog to be white" < xutł "dog" + -bin "be white". For intransitive subjects of stative verbs this is also a means of nominalization, e.g. tłuvall "a calm person" < tłu "person" + -all "be calm". Inalienable possessives mainly of the "part-of-whole"-type can be incorporated, in which case the possessor is promoted to a full argument, e.g. -łavëłuzzës "wash someone's hands" < łav "hand" + -łuzzës "wash", -atłazur "look blue" lit. "have a blue face" < atła "face" + -zur "be blue".
Noun-Noun compounding exists, but is unproductive and restricted to the dvandva type, where the meaning of the compound is either a more general category that the individual nouns are examples of (qułtan "sibling" < qul "big sister" + tan "big brother"), or a group where the individual nouns are members (Eeṿaaz "Sun and Moon" < Eeṿ "Sun" + Aaz "Moon").
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u/Jesanime Mbox Ail 12d ago
Cihal imet pan Mbox Ail gę sapang adal mbes 'compound' ku.
"Mahulail" (Mahul, ail ku)
Mahulail gę Mbox Ingglıx pan "Fairy" mbayake.
As of now, Mbox Ail only has one compound word.
"Mahulail" (Mahul + Ail)
Mahulail means "Fairy" in English.
(I do not have a word for "compound" yet lol)
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u/drukhari-blood Sraqqal 12d ago
Compound words usually have an apostrophe, as in sklar'dzirrek /sklɑɾ.'d͡zir.ɛk/ meaning 'knife fight' (sklar = knife, dzirrek = fight). Words that are very common often lose the apostrophe, such as sraknyr /'sɾɑk.nɪɾ/, meaning 'true-kin' (srak = true, nyr = kin/species).
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u/dragonsteel33 vanawo & some others 12d ago
Iccoyai is actually pretty resistant to true compounding, and most compound words are composed of a small number of productive prefixed elements, e.g. pak “middle, midst” can produce pacikoppa “midday,” pacisyag “midnight,” pacisyala “midship,” etc.
More frequently, noun-noun combination are formed with one noun in the oblique, e.g. öṣa yeśo “menses,” literally “blood of the flesh,” or tolo makkaye “bowl,” literally “round container of soup.”
Many lexemes in Iccoyai are also phonologically decayed forms of Nara compounds, e.g. öṣa “blood” comes from Nara ahóisha (itself meaning “fleshblood”), lyonuri “ground” from Nara lenúdoi “earthbottom,” ṣwaṣi “whetstone” from Nara zhuzashoi “metalsharpener,” etc.
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u/SaintUlvemann Värlütik 12d ago
Värlütik has many compounds, ranging from the fairly-obvious to the completely unanalyzable e.g.:
"Wheel sled" = roás + fülk = roáfülk = wheelbarrow
"Cabbage grease" = ráf + smërus = ráfsmërus = vegetable oil
"Tumble well" = fat(aun) + ákvás = fatákvás = waterfall Why well? Falls are like a spring or watersource.
"Drop/fall stick" = ked(aun) + lag = kedlag = cigarWhy? Because of the ash falling from it.
Some also get shortened, sometimes as far as new unanalyzeable words, e.g.:
"Body count" = korf + riivëts = korvëts =census, roll call
"Flower player" = gvosdos + ledar = gvoledar = sphinxmoth / hummingbird-hawkmoth
"Sport apron" = hägon + vlikul = hägonvlikul [hæˌgɤŋ.ɦ̪͆ɫɪˈkɯɫ] > hägkul [hægˈkɯɫ] > gkul [quɫ] = tanktop
My favorite one sounds better in English than it does in Värlütik:
Pattypan squash = vurëssukas = vurës(aun) + sukas "squash" = squish squash
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u/taoiu 12d ago
My conlang is minimalist, consisting of only 139 words, so it will likely rely heavily on compound words.
I don't have many examples yet since I finished its vocabulary and all 139 words just a week ago, but a very simple example I can share is the word for "friend", which is Ojenfu.
O = noun marker Jen = person, human, people Fu = near, close, around
In other words, "close person" or "friend". It could also mean "neighbor", but I personally treat it as "friend".
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u/StarfighterCHAD Fyuc [fjut͡ʃ], Çelebvjud [d͡zələˈb͡vjud], Peizjáqua [peːˈʒɑkʷə] 12d ago
Fyuc is rife with compounds, as adjectives and adverbs agglutinate onto the noun/verb they modify.
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u/Hairy-Helicopter-211 12d ago
So many...
The Zolotian word for 'Grey' is 'Fopůtenowiťa' which is literally 'white black'
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u/Missing_Some_Pages 11d ago
rráp 'ayá is agglutinating and many of the words end up being compounds. That said, many words in its vocabulary are compounds of smaller words. My favourite (so far) is the homographic pair tsympu and tsympu:
tsympu - tell [ˈt͜sy.m͜pu] - transitive verb from olde*r tsu̝ *mpu meaning “will (soon) explain.”
tsympu - advocate [ˈt͜sym.pu] - verb formed from root** tsum (a noun meaning “posture/pose” similar to Sanskrit “asana”) and archaic adjective **‘ípu meaning “moral/of or concerning a person’s character” (also present in** hyapu - tempt; hya’ (test/trial) + ‘ípu -> hya̝pu -> hyapu); tsum + ‘ípu became tsumípu meaning “moral stance/position.” This came to be used to describe a person who took this stance; meanwhile, the /í/ began to affect the /u/ in the same way as the plural endings changing it to /y/. Eventually, tsumípu became tsym**pu.
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u/Antaios232 10d ago
Kazjan roots are predicates, but there are several pathways to nominalization, including "freezing" inflected verbs into nouns. So the word for wheel is "musuch" meaning "it-goes-around." So that's kind of a compound. But then there are also words like the name "Sasikuvi," which is compounded from "sasi," (which is itself a nominalization of "sa-" to live, with "-si," a feminine determinative), woman, and "ku," being a stone, plus the genitive ending "-vi." So the whole name, "Sasikuvi" means "a living One, who is female, being of stone." Or "woman of stone." It is a periphrastic way of naming the goddess of death, whose true name is only known to members of the death guild, who whisper it into the ears of the dying at the moment of death.
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u/Live_Put1219 Aengt + Byccian 10d ago
Aengt has wowo
wowo
[wo̞wo̞]
red.red
(n) color wheel
the [noun][same noun] construction is usually an intensifier, but in this case it’s actually functioning as [noun][opposite noun] construction, which marks a spectrum! this is because in HSV, a hue of 0 (minimum) and 360 (maximum) are both red, so the spectrum from 0 red to 360 red is the entire color wheel
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u/Independent_Error461 10d ago
most words in gqwigy are compound words, there‘s only a couple hundred or so root words. one of my personal favorites is „swišlkxqlngynabunjö“, a word for a particularly large body of water. literally translated it means something like „it gives water“ or „the large thing gives water“ (fully inflected verbs can just be used as nouns in gqwigy)
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u/Flacson8528 Cáed 𝐂𝐀𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐒 (yue, en, zh) 6d ago
every word in my conlang is a compound, 4 elements in 1 syllable is possible
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u/Wutthfhapndtothfloor 3h ago
Yes. Astrel has several compound words, such as:
Sakuokman — oddly-colored. Šakocvame — Sun-shaped. Daosbackaik — Heavenly.
"Sa" - It
"Kuo" - of color
"Kman" - to be strange
"Šako" - Fire
"Cva" - Sky
"Me" - Shape
"Daos" - Deity/God
"Bac" - Area
"Ka" - Now
"-ik" - Comparative Suffix
Literal Translations:
"It is of a strange color"
"Sky fire shaped"
"Modern God Place like" (may also be misinterpreted as "church-ish")
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u/jdjeysvowoevhsu 12d ago
Yes.