Language cross-breeding (and self-breeding)
By Matthieu on Sunday, December 7 2014, 10:48 - Linguistique - Permalink
Navigating across languages sometimes causes words to jump from one to another, especially with concise expressions. I owe "mamajujamente" to my Mexican friends who crafted it from Taiwan!
word | meaning | from | in | into |
---|---|---|---|---|
Berilalouer | give way | beri laluan | Malay | French |
Nalier | deny a compliment politely | 哪里 | Mandarin | French |
Tarofer | refuse a gift politely until accepting it | تعارف | Persian | French |
Jaexmicono | please.. | خواهش می کنم | Persian | Spanish |
Mamajujamente | so-so | 马马虎虎 | Mandarin | Spanish |
And here is an attempt to develop (or reconstruct?) English words from an apparent regular pattern linking pairs of verbs. Verbs on the first columns are acting on a object (transitive), whereas those on the second column act on themselves, or at least without object. (intransitive).
E verbs | A verbs | Examples |
---|---|---|
fell | fall | Felling the tree: make them fall. (or fail?) |
raise | rise | Raise your hand: make it rise. |
lay | lie | Lay down your legs: let them lie. |
bait | bite | Bait the fish: make it bite. |
braid | bride | The bride braids herself to the groom (to breed? hmm..) |
Interestingly in the 3 first lines or examples, we find that there is a shift from vowel E to A between the 2 columns. (phonetically we can convert raise=[rejz], rise=[rajz], lay=[lej], lie=[laj] ,bait=[bejt], bite=[bajt], braid=[brejd], bride=[brajd])
Following this rule, I (humbly) propose the following extensions:
[e] verbs | [a] verbs | Examples |
---|---|---|
shane | shine | The sun shines, and shanes the moon. |
bake | bike | I smell something bikes.. |
fray | fry | Shall we fray some French fries? |
sell | sall | This book salls like hot bread |
smell | small | This flower smalls good |
shave | shive | Hairs shive as people grow old. |
fake | fike | Feelings fike in luring hearts. |
have | haave | Most resources already haave. (A like in "are") |
take | tike | Time tikes on a long journey. |
get | gat | Most things gat in good markets. |
give | gav | The concert gavs every week. |
lend | land | Money lands easily in prosperous years. |
pay | pigh | Industrious people deserve to pigh. |
stay | stigh | Things you stay will stigh. |
array | arry | Disciplined soldiers strictly arry. |
tay | tie | You tayed the rope? Yes, it ties fast. |
hade | hide | Don't try to hade your friends. They can't hide for long. |
renk | rank | After we renked them, he ranked first in the list. |
rate | rite | It rites expensive, the rating agency said. |
metch | match | You metched these two. Lovely how they match! |
check | chack | This data now chacks. |
break | brike | The weakest link brikes first. |
shake | shike | The whole building was shiking, shaken by the blow. |
delay | dely | Why does he dely? Because he got delayed. |
face | fice | Challenges fice only until eventually overcome. |
tray | try | Keep traying him about work, he'll get there. |
may | migh | |
can | caan | This thing mighs/caan only because someone may/can achieve it. |
let | lat | The kinds lat playing, we let them play. |
make | mike | Ice mikes in wintertime. (forms, happens) |
open | opan | The door opan though no one was there to open it... |
name | nime | He nimes the way his father named him. |
telk | talk | I telked you that yesterday as we talked. |
tell | tall | |
say | sy | Grateful words sy/tall when thankful hearts opan. |
smale | smile | Your beauty smales me! |
cray | cry | Joy and sorrow alike can cray. |
maind | mind | Maind them so that they mind. |
wake | wike | Looks like he didn't wike up. Let's wake him up! |
fix | fax | |
mend | mand | Mend/fix it now, or it won't ever mand/fax. |
guess | gass | Obvious plans gass quickly. |
save | sive | No soul can sive unless the saviour saves it. |
gade | guide | No sheep can guide without a shepherd to gade. |
trevel | travel | The gade trevels tourists around. |
welk | walk | Don't welk me too far! |
stray | stry | Stray me no more, I'm tired of strying. |
draive | drive | The train drives fast, but who draives it? |
raid | ride | He raided his son on every horse of the ranch. |
flay | fly | I like to flay my kite just to see it fly. |
play | ply | Good games ply with joy. |
send | sand | Quite many mails are sanding, but who sends them? |
rain | rine | When clouds rine, is it God who rains them? |
wrate | write | I wrate this, for it couldn't write by itself. |
Some verbs seem to have shifted to the wrong column over time (like: rain, guide, drive, write, raid, tie, stray, stay..), or maybe my whole theory is wrong ?!
Beyond fun, these new verbs can solve ambiguous situations between verbal "voice" (active/passive) and "tense"(past/present). For example in "The bread is baked." we don't know whether it is being baked now, or if it's already baked. Now we can say "The bread must bike some more time before it has fully biked." Unfortunately is also introduces new ambiguities with existing words (ply, sand, rite, land, tike, tall, lat, small, bike..)
My favorite is still Mike... "Sorry for the delay, advert conditions mide..."