Etymology statistics

Just a point of interest as I continue to organize my lexicon...

Of the 790 predicate roots assigned so far:

* 163 (21%) are derived from Finnish
* 57 (7%) are derived from Hawai'ian, Sāmoan, Tongan or Māori
* 75 (9%) are derived from other languages (Arabic, Basque, Bislama, Chinese, Doraja, Esperanto, French, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Japanese, Latin, Lapine, Latvian, Malay, Nahuatl, Polish, Proto-World [ha ha], Quechua, Quenya, Russian, Seadi, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Swahili, or broad international usage)
* 34 (4%) are internally-derived

This means 295 (37%) of the current Koa root stock was derived in some way from other languages, compared with 495 (63%) that was either randomly generated, internally derived, or selected/created in some way (unfortunately there's no good way to distinguish randomness from intention reliably at this point). I find these figures a little surprising: it was my impression that the significant majority of Koa words was based in something -- to the point that I was stymied for a long time in creating more vocabulary when I couldn't find enough existing linguistic inspiration. Also, again, let's just pause for a second to acknowledge that Finnish has provided a fifth of Koa vocabulary.

Worthy of special mention are 6 roots (1%) that were created by friends or family members -- I'd love to swell that number moving forward!

A first Koa publication

In response to my children's repeated requests, I decided late last year that I would do my best to assemble a printed, kid-oriented, concise Koa dictionary in time for the Solstice. As the project took shape it grew beyond my original intention, eventually including a phrasebook and mini-grammar as well, and in the end I was pretty pleased with it as a snapshot in time of the development of this language.

It was also an opportunity to buckle down to some serious vocabulary creation, which had been languishing a bit in recent years; I'm pretty happy to finally have words like siki "particle," mohi "predicate," lelo "sentence," cóepo "alphabet" and címihale (or halecimi...more on that soon) "grammar."

In fact the process of creating needed vocabulary for the Úputusi Énasi sort of unblocked me and I've been on a bit of a rampage since then, coining around 200 new words over the past two months. What's been amazing is discovering that all that toiling in the syntactical, pragmatic and morphological mud I was doing in 2021 moved the structure of Koa to a place where now vocabulary is its primary need. Suddenly having all these words available, I'm finding that the language is much more speakable than I had previously expected, and with surprising expressive power.

As of today at noon, 774 of Koa's 3330 possible predicates have been defined. Emotional vocabulary has been my focus of late, but I'm starting to wonder what other thematic categories deserve some attention. Materials? Science? Botany? Civics? Geography? I've always been so intensely focus on word-worthiness and concerned about running out, but after 23 years I've still only used up a quarter of my possible roots!

Anyway, this was such a fun project that really jump-started some major progress after a pretty slow year. Unfortunately the dictionary doesn't seem to have inspired my girls toward total Koa fluency yet, but surely it's only a matter of time...

...And if you'd like to download the whole thing, a PDF is available here.

Ni Ceso

This is a difficult moment in my life. It's not the first such moment that's passed since I started this blog, but it is the first time that I was actively working on Koa enough to have something to say. What this means, of course, is that I'm now going to make you read sad love poetry.

Seriously, though, this is the first native-Koa artistic composition since Aika Konuku in 2012, and the first non-translated work of poetry of any kind. It feels significant! It features Koa’s growing collection of emotive vocabulary, particularly "ceso" which means something like "incurious" but less highbrow: the opposite of "curious," desiring not to know, feeling pulled away from rather than towards understanding of something; it also makes heavy use of modal particles and clause nominalization.

As with the previous poem, I find myself really liking how compact, elegant and balanced Koa can be for poetry. I didn't expect this but it makes me happy! My shot at an English translation definitely loses some or all of that particular aesthetic sense of the Koa original.

Ni Ceso

Ni ceso
Noia na vi sano ni
Ka se cu nike he tana
Ka so cu ete mo kune
Ka ne se simo he ko meti pe to níkete
Ka ne se simo he ko meti pe to mehe
Ka ne se simo he ko meti pe ka kecu.

Ni ceso
Kelo se na te lu tai me ni
Kemo sisu ve se ca ma tala ko halu ni
Ka ma lolo se simo mo iule o ni
Ni na te koma ka natepakoma.

Ni na lu koma
Ni pavasu lo ko tala
Ni cu te hitui la hete to lise mo cali.
Ni na lu koma ka natepakoma
Ni na lu koma kelo se na te halu ni
Noia na vi sano ni
Ni ceso.

-Váhumaa, 2023-01-22


Translation:

I'm Not Curious

I'm not curious
Please don't tell me
Who you're seeing today
What you're doing together
What's in your heart when you think about that meeting
What's in your heart when you think about that person
What's in your heart when you think about the future.

I'm not curious
Why you can't want to be with me
How hard you're still trying to want me
What's holding your heart back from me
I can't understand the incomprehensible.

I don't want to understand
I'm worn out with trying
I could smash myself against that wall forever.
I don't want to understand the incomprehensible
I don't want to understand why you can't want me
Please don't tell me
I'm not curious.

-Portland, 1/22/23

Suso Ni

Voha usi iolo! I was just excited to rediscover another text, a sweet poem Olga and I wrote together in February of 2019. I've updated a few points of syntax and spelling conventions but the use of language was already pretty modern even four years ago. I had forgotten about this; I'm even a little bit surprised to be enjoying the simplicity of the poetic phrasing so much, the balance of structure, and the elegance of syntax that it turns out the particles make possible (suso ni mo iolo he koiolo).


Suso Ni

Suso ni noia
Suso ni ne lasa
Suso ni hepoa hepoa hepoa

Suso ni he súanose
Suso ni he súalase
Suso ni he ko páivalo
Suso ni he ko ívopime
Suso ni he ko nuku
Suso ni he ko vene

Suso ni noia
Suso ni ne lasa ne laki ne sase
Suso ni mo meli
Suso ni mo iolo he koiolo
Suso ni mo lime he kolime
Suso ni palóhani
Suso ni hepoa hepoa hepoa.

-le Óleka e le Iuli, Váhumaa, 2019-02-04


Translation:

Kiss Me

Kiss me please
Kiss me on my lips
Kiss me always always always

Kiss me at sunrise
Kiss me at sunset
Kiss me in the light of day
Kiss me in the dark of night
Kiss me asleep
Kiss me awake

Kiss me please
Kiss me on my lips, my cheeks, my forehead
Kiss me sweetly
Kiss me joyfully in times of happiness
Kiss me sadly in times of sorrow
Kiss me, my love
Kiss me always always always.

-Olga and Julie, Portland, 2/4/19