Monday, 21 June 2010

Hello & Goodbye

Being words that are used a lot in daily conversation, the words for hello and goodbye are shortened a lot.

Originally, exclamations like
Ἁeιc καᴧεн ευтιεн - May you (sg) have a good day
or
Cου καᴧυ мεнeι ευтιε - May your day be good
could be used either to begin or end a conversation.
The latter would be shortened to
Καᴧυ ευтιε - good day
or with less emphasis on good:
Єυтιε καᴧυ - good day
Which is interchangeable with adding the prefix ευ- to καᴧυ:
Єυκαᴧυ - goodday
And finally, children and young adults often just say:
Καᴧυ - day; hi, hey, hello, bye

The same happens with
Ιeιc ἁοнтιι тυxεн ευтιεн - May you go having good fate/fortune/luck
Ιeιc (cυн) тυxει ευтιει - May you go (with) good luck
Both meaning "bye".
This would lead to
Ιeιc ευтυxει - May you go goodfortuned
Deformalised to
Ιтι ευтυxει - Go goodfortuned
Finally
Єυтυxει - goodfortune; goodbye
And ofcourse
Тυxει - with fate; bye

Obviously, there are many more ways of expressing greetings or good luck, but these are all formed in a similar way.

2 comments:

  1. Great. You've done a great job with the greetings, I like how they end up finally being. Also I like the equation of "fate = bye" very interesting. Do they change somewhat in the remaining dialects and accents?

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  2. Yes, good question. Where a Lutian would say [økaly] and [øtyxɛj], a Karvokan would pronounce [ɜvkaly] and [ɜvtyxɛj], whereas a Naupilan would probably say [kali] and [tixi].

    And 'fate' is not a equal to 'bye', their just homonyms. ɱy bad, тυxει should be translated literally as "with fate" not "fate".

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