I just re-realized something..

[conuly]

All those once-cool slang words, like phat, rad, groovy, bees knees... somebody made them up. Somebody came up with this word they wanted to use to mean... well, in this case, cool.

But seriously. Linguistic change happens because individuals, not groups, use certain words in certain ways. Eventually, an individual quirk is picked up by a larger group... and it might even spread throughout the entire language, like "cool" did.

I COULD CHANGE THE FACE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

I really could. Just by using words in a set way. I'm already making a tiny impact in the virtual world... I know people other than myself who say *gigglesnorts* online, though I don't know if they do that when not on NC.

But what if I could make a larger difference? What if I could, say, start using thee and thou again? Youse and y'all aren't used much outside of certain regions... but thee and thou, those are universal, if somewhat obsolete.

Or what if I could invent a gender inclusive third person pronoun that people actually use? Not by promoting it, just by using it? Heck, I could go even more exotic... proximate and obviate pronouns! (Basically, the obviate third person is like a FOURTH person... "He kissed his wife", if "his" is the 4th person singular, you know he kissed somebody else's wife, not his own) Or inclusive/exclusive we! (Inclusive: me and you. Exclusive: me and somebody else, not you).

Yeah... okay, I'm getting a little hyper here. So I'll restrict myself to a few smaller goals, which I've already started using in my own speech and writing:

1. *gigglesnorts*
2. "Mihi" and "tibi" instead of "to me" and "to you" ("it seems loud mihi" instead of "it seems loud to me")

I'll make a deal. You post your words-to-be-popularized, and if I like them, I'll try to use them. And vice versa, of course.

(edit) I realized something else, just now! Other people say "bedgoing" (and variants). I mostly just say that on aim, to be sure, in real life I strive to say "going to bed" so as to not appear ignorant, but I use it often on aim... and I know I've seen other people do that as well. I'm also fairly certain that these people did not do that until I started doing that. I'm just too cool :)

Comments

[strangelette.livejournal.com]

ahahaha *misses Latin terribly*

It worked with fandom at large and 'snarky'. More power to ya :)

[conuly]

Where were you in Latin? There's a community, you know, latin.

And yeah, more power to me, but will you help?

[phibby.livejournal.com]

I'll help you out, mainly because mihi sounds so cool and you've finally posted what it meant. (Man, I was wondering!)

Anyway, mind helping "glurge" get in the dictionary? Such a perfect word.

[joeymew.livejournal.com]

All we need to do is get Johnny Depp to join in the crusade and we'll succeed for sure ^-^ Have you noticed how many people are using 'savvey' nowadays?

[(Anonymous)]

I think wek need an ergative.

[goddess588.livejournal.com]

I wondered about mihi when you used it in a previous post. I'm afraid it won't take off in NZ as your meaning (if you care about such a wee blot in the Pacific) because here mihi is Maori for greeting.

I love your idea, I'm very interested in language shifts and how they come about and I've seen it happen in NZ on a small scale. Though I do think the best people at inventing neologisms or changing the definition of words are kids - about age 8-12. They have more imagination and are in the process of picking up language anyway. Not as rigid as adults tend to be.

I guess it happens younger too, but maybe doesn't stay there - my son is 4 and into PS1 and computers, some of the things he says are loosely associated with that and you have to know that to understand him. Whenever you're waiting for something it's 'loading' and he says 'game over' when he wants you to stop something.

[conuly]

Tell me about it. But for that we'd need a case system. Do me a favor, if you're anonymous, tell me who you are.

[conuly]

I'm afraid it won't take off in NZ as your meaning (if you care about such a wee blot in the Pacific) because here mihi is Maori for greeting.

O.O

COOL! Aw, now I can freak out my latin class by using mihi in casual conversation but NOT as the dative of reference. *grins* Is that "greeting" as in "hello" or as in "that was a nice greeting"?

[conuly]

I always did like that word. Even before he popularized it. But give it a year. If they're still using it after PotC has faded from recent memory, I'll be happy.

[conuly]

You should've asked! Actually, I thought I had posted what it meant, but it might've been hidden in a stream of Latin. Sorry :(

Glurge, you mean that isn't already there? Maybe it's your dictionary, and another will have it....

[phibby.livejournal.com]

No, pretty sure it's not. Even checked Dictionary.com, nothing. Heck, I doubt I would've heard about it if I wasn't a Snopes junkie. I don't think they're as big as you'd think, so I don't know if one of their words could get in the dictionary so quickly. If I had to explain it to a ton of Neocolours members, then my work is far from done. ^_~

I used mihi in a PPT post and an LJ comment! Yay! :D *huggles* And I didn't even have to think about "Oh, gotta use 'mihi'", just did it since it sounded right. :)

Oh, and another: Smoo. Can really mean anything. Sort of use it as an etc., like, "He's bringing a sleeping bag, canteen, matches, smoo." ^_^ Always thought it sounded right in any situation.

[goddess588.livejournal.com]

It's a bit more complicated than that. The maori are very traditional on formal occasions, and a mihi is spoken by whoever is welcoming someone formally.

Land and family are key elements for the maori and this is reflected in the mihi.

Here's an example of what I would say (being non-maori):

Ko Samantha taku ingoa (my name is Samantha)
Ko Barbara taku mama (my mother is Barbara)
Ko Les taku papa (my father is Les)
Ko Taranaki te maunga (Taranaki is my mountain)
Ko Waitara te awa (Waitara is my river)
No reira tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa (welcome to you all)

And here's what my son Trent would say - he has maori blood:

Ko Tainui te waka (Tainui is my canoe - the maori came to NZ in 7 canoes)
Ko Taupiri taku maunga (Taupiri is my mountain - it all follows the paternal line, even if a child is born out of the area)
Ko Waikato taku awa (Waikato is my river)
Ko Aruka taku marae (Aruka is my marae - a marae is a meeting area - each sub-tribe has several)
Ko Tainui taku iwi (Tainui is my tribe)
Ko ngati Mahuta taku hapu (Ngati Mahuta is my sub-tribe)
Ko Trent Timatanga Tuaupiki (my name is Trent Timatanga Tuaupiki)
No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa (welcome to you all)

'kia ora' is the informal 'hello', the more formal is 'tena koe' (hello to one person), 'tena korua' (hello to two people) or 'tena koutou' (hello to more than two people).

I hope I haven't bored you.

And I don't know how you're going to sneak the maori mihi into everyday conversation. LOL.

[conuly]

I'll bring it up, then. Explain stuff, etc.

[conuly]

I used mihi in a PPT post and an LJ comment! Yay! :D *huggles* And I didn't even have to think about "Oh, gotta use 'mihi'", just did it since it sounded right. :)

That's why I use it! Latin has ruined me. In case you're curious, there's dative-of-reference for all the pronouns:

Nobis-to us
Vobis-to y'all
ei-to him/her/it
eis-to them

But none of them have the ring of mihi and tibi.

Smoo. Smoo. Nice word... kinda like the noun form of smurf, eh?

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

Wow! This is extremely interesting. I'm in love with formality, you know. But to sneak it into everyday conversation, you'd need a society (and people) a lot more autistic than what we have =)

(Actually that's what I'm working on right now, a conculture and conlang, and I want to use it as a place for my SF stuff to happen. I write SF occasionally and I get published even more occasionally. Autistic aliens!! You gotta love it =) )

(Today is =) day)

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

You can rule me out - I don't post anonymously since basically my whole user is anonymous, so why would I post even more anonymously?

OK, 5 999 999 998 people to go, or thereabouts. =)

And no no no no (BIG no) for a case system. (I assume you folks are thinking of an elaborate - read: overcomplicated - case system.) German nearly killed me. I like watching it - of course I do! It's fun -, but using it can be a pain in the arse. I think I managed to reach a level where I mix it up only as much as the Germans do, but they themselves mix it up fairly often (at least in my experience), so that's not much. =)

[conuly]

Autistic aliens!! You gotta love it =)

OOH! I wanna see! I've actually toyed with the idea myself, though I can't/don't write fiction... it continually pisses me off when on star trek various characters (Spock, Data, 7 of 9) are encouraged to become "more human" and human means neurotypical. And non-human means "stereotyped". Ferengi are greedy. End of story. Klingons are fierce and brave. End of story. Vulcans are logical (whatever that means). End of story. *screams*

Sorry, pet peeve.

[conuly]

Hey, I'm taking latin, that's got a fairly messed up case system.

I wouldn't want to add one on to english, though, it wouldn't work. Well. I might in a con-english. But not in real english that anyone speaks.

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

I like *gigglesnorts* and have already used it not in writing, but upon verbalizing my thoughts internally. Which I do almost exclusively in English, BTW - it must be that I learned English at a later age, when I knew a lot more about emotions and all that social-ness as when I was learning my mother tongue as little baby girl Dvora. I tried writing a weblog in my mother tongue, but it invariably ended up as a cheap translation of English. And I have to proofread my fiction to weed out Englishisms. Geez. So, what I meant to say with this tangent is, this is almost like real writing, as I usually think mostly in pictures and only in words when I want to write something down for a later stage. (A LiveJournal, possibly.) Even when I'm writing fiction, I have to go pictures-first.

Uh, I dunno how much of the above made actual sense... *eeps* In short, it means it'll seep into my writing pretty soon, or maybe it has already happened.

[goddess588.livejournal.com]

Now that's my dream - to be able to invent a new culture in a sci-fi setting. But the trouble is I've read too much to have original ideas anymore, or even tell what is original and what's not. You could have an informal and a formal language like the Hrrubans do (Decision at Doona - Anne McCaffrey).

I really don't think autism comes into it. There are non-autistic people that can think very laterally indeed. I think what you need is good imagination and a love of words, or to be a child. Read my first comment on this thread.

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

I think I can understand you, though I prefer Babylon 5 to Star Trek. (I haven't watched much ST either, but I'm planning on doing so.) In primary school, I pencilled a comic about a sentient robot who wants to become "human" (in the NT sense) and a girl who tries to dissuade her. (<-ME)

And in primary school I was bullied with lines like this, "you're an extraterrestrial! You're probably contagious! EEps!" (at this point social partner either tries to hurt me physically or runs off, 100% scared. I liked the scare effect somewhat.) There was an aliens craze back when I started attending primary school, oh well, I can do with worse =) So this alien metaphor occurs rather easily to me.

These aliens of mine are a weird bunch, though, as they're both autistic and telepathic. I'm fairly sure I can build up a culture like this convincingly and more or less (less?) consistently, but maybe I'll run into some brick walls down along the road.

It eliminates some of the problems, but not all by far, especially when these poor aliens meet the humans. - They're poor because they have to meet the humans, but without that, where'd the point be? LOL. - Forced telepathic contact would freak the humans out, so that's not an option. But without that, they're pretty much helpless when it comes to interpreting the humans, more helpless than a non-telepathic autistic who grew up in an NT culture.

Though one has to note I not only want the comparison to be meaningful, I also want the culture to be standalone, and I have just started designing their main language to that effect. Sooo fun! Last time I did something like this was in primary school. (When I was obsessed with creating a society of what seems like underwater high elves. Imagine that! LOL.) But I think I have gained a few levels of skill since then... =)

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

I meant the formalism part. This sort of detailed formal introduction, were it to occur in our culture somewhat regularly, would help me - I think - in social interactions. (Though less genealogy and more personal interests and little memorable tidbits would be even more appreciated on my behalf.)

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

Oh, I left something out, not all of them are telepathic, but a largish portion of them are, and of course they send the telepaths as emissaries, who else? They want to communicate. LOL. It's only logical.

There are telepaths, telepath/telekinetics, and no-psi ones. They have different life spans and lots of different stuff that makes interesting dynamics in a society. Stop me stop me I'll go off rambling!!

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

It's soo weird that real people actually spoke Latin at some time. There is a tendence toward simplification even in German, it's especially apparent in Yiddish, where there are only two cases, the nominative and the dative (I hope I got the language terms right, I never studied this stuff in English). When it ended up being a separate language from German, two cases were lost inbetween. (What heavy luggage.)

[goddess588.livejournal.com]

Ah, I get it now. And if you were to ask specific questions it would be seen as intrusive, maybe. Try making up your own brief mihi and use it when you meet someone - they may respond much the same.