Quoting Muke Tever <[log in to unmask]>:

> From: "Peter Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
> > On Friday 09 May 2003 10:18 am, Garrett Jones wrote:
> > > it's interesting to hear of words that english doesn't have good
> > > translations for. I want Minyeva to have lots of words like that,
> but
> > > somehow i have to "discover" them on my own or in other languages.
> Any
> > > suggestions on how to find them in other languages? About the only
> thing i
> > > can think of is for people to just list the ones they know...
> >
> >         This is undoubtably the hardest parts of conlanging, because
> it
> requires you
> > to think outside your usual frame of reference. The best thing is to
> browse
> > dictionaries and see what interesting concepts you can unearth there.
> Also,
> > think about semantic ranges.
>
> One thing I find useful (as a predominantly a-posteriori conlanger) is
> finding
> unique specializations or generalizations of what may be perfectly
> ordinary
> roots.  Try adding productive suffixes to words and see if you can come
> up with
> something unique that follows logically.
>
> Another good thing is just looking at things the culture in question
> might want
> a word for.  These arent the best examples at all, but:
>
> Ibran has an acronym _kfet_ /k@"fEt/ which means a place, vendor, or
> machine
> that serves coffee and tea (café e thé = /kA"fE E tE/ = K F E T)

The normal Steienzh translation of English "or" is _siger_ ['sIgr=]. However,
in a logical context, it mean XOR. OR is typically expressed by the word _ssn_
[sEzn@], which, as it's outrageous spelling suggests, is originally an
abbreviation. It's from the phrase _siger siger ne_ "or or and", or
rather "XOR XOR AND", which indeed evalutates as OR. The pronunciation is from
reading the letter names [sE sE nE] as one word and running it thru Steienzh's
reduction rules for unstressed vowels and applying the voicing of medial short
fricatives.

                                              Andreas