*cough* *cough* *sniff*
HI, ALUMNI LEARNING CCC101!! I'm back from a visit to the Phonology Fairy! She says y'all deserve a dedicated chapter on vocabulary in your new little conlang and I, for one, agree! So today, we are going to discuss a language's vocabulary and how to develop it!
By the way, I've been recently thinking of how I'm portraying myself as this self-righteous or highfalutin individual that knows EVERY SINGLE THING about linguistics! Uh... no, I don't. I'm really just doing this for fun and also to switch up my writing style from the same monotonous sentence structures.
...
But, what IS vocabulary?? Vocabulary, or vocab, is just your set of words like nouns. And they are INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT.
As David Wilkins said in his 1972 linguistic journal:
"Without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed."
A very important thing to take notice of before even conjuring up phonemes out of a hat is the SIZE OF YOUR VOCABULARY.
For native German speakers, their average absolute vocabulary size is 73,000 for adults!! That's colossal, if you didn't know! In comparison, a personal favourite conlang of mine, Toki Pona, has only 120-137 core words!!
Since you and I both parlay in the foul tongue of English, you may be wondering this: "How can a language thrive when it doesn't have a normal word for BANANA?!" (The Toki Pona word for 'banana' is 'kili jelo linja', literally translated 'long yellow fruit'.)
The answer is COMPOUND WORDS!!!!!!!!!
Use little words to make big words! I apologize if I'm treading old ground, but if I'm not, uh... cool! Compounding is very useful to make words. This all depends on how big or small your vocabulary list is.
The smaller your core vocabulary is, the more compounding you shall do.
For instance, the German word for 'railway' is 'Eisenbahn', literally 'iron track' (if you recognized the 'eisen', it will most definitely ring a bell as part of Dwight D. Eisenhower's surname. It is a slightly Anglicized form of 'Eisenhauer', meaning 'iron hewer'; a hewer is a person who loosens rock in a mine).
For another example, 'हिमालय' is the written form of the word 'Himālaya' in Sanskrit. 'Himālaya' means 'the abode of snow', a quite fitting description indeed.
So yes, it's useful for both personal names and words!
However, let's ignore compounding for a moment, because I have an important thing to discuss that all vocabularians (?) know front-to-back!
...
THE SWADESH LIST
The Swadesh list (pronounced suave-desh, but without the 'v') is very useful for conlangers. Basically, after doing a bit of researching, Morris Swadesh, the creator of this list, narrowed down 100 words that most languages have. He did this in an effort to prove that all languages are all secretly connected or something! Believe me, there may be patterns between languages from Tibet to Yukon, but they're just coincidences!
Oh, sorry, I'm getting off-track!
Anyway, this list also doubled in length, with a 207-word list that most linguists use now.
It features some pretty important words, like the first person singular pronoun, or the word 'to eat'.
If your proto-language already has these Swadesh words, apply your chosen sound changes, maybe drop a vowel or two, and tweak it a bit, then bam! You've got your modern word!
However, if you're leaning HEAVILY into the worldbuilding aspect of it all, we might have to discuss...
LOAN WORDS & CALQUES
Imagine if my T'elkhûeqinians were influenced by a larger tribe who spoke a different language than them. Let's call this tribe 'Tlölokmeshik'. The Desert people. At first, my people would call them 'Qöqtamaxa'. People of the outside. But after they got to know them more, they would borrow those words.
'Tlölok' would develop to 'drhelekang', a disguised loan word.
The Tlölok word for 'river' would be 'malamakash', translating to 'flowing water'. In this instance, T'elkhûeqin would take the words and translate them into their own language. Thus, 'arhagadhâdhîn'. This is a calque.
Now imagine these evolving into the modern language!
English: river
Proto-Tlölok: *malamakash [pl. *malamakashelikami]
Proto-T'elkhûeqin: *arhagadhâdhîn [pl. *arhagadhâdhūn]
Tlölok (Tlulok): malmaghasa [pl. malmaghasagemi(r)]
T'elkhûeqin: agakataten [pl. agakatatenūn]
English: desert
Proto-Tlölok: *tlölok [pl. tlölokshelikami]
Proto-T'elkhûeqin: *drhelekang [pl. *drhelekaniūng]
Tlölok (Tlulok): tlulok [pl. tlolokselgemir]
T'elkhûeqin: dlarharhan [pl. dhlarharhiūn]
English: I am very lucky
Tlulok: Yenuat abadir teptep-hosh (literally "I am under a raincloud"; 'teptep' is borrowed from the T'elkhûeqin 't'abt'ab')
T'elkhûeqin: Åmörhtsa, khaxēlkhūma (literally "Gold, I have found", finding gold is an idiom for an extreme stroke of luck in the culture)
Of course, I must mention some good old...
Oh, um... wait a minute. Oh, is it the end of the vocabulary section? But um, I was about to get to the...
No.
No, you're right. I'll wrap it up.
Well, there you have it, folks. That's our proto-language wrapped up! We've already dipped our toes (hopefully not literally) into our modern language-making!
Think of this as the first season of a funny little show you like! Haha, yes! I write like a regular human being!
Anyway...
Next time we cross paths, I'll be talking about...
SOCIOLINGUISTICS: A THESIS ON PRESTIGE
Can't wait to see you there! Again, thanks for your patience! Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, you guys are sick!
Uh, anyway... I gotta go and start writing this up before the concept leaves my incredibly smooth brain!
Bye, y'all!
