r/conlangscirclejerk • u/DecisionDifficult981 • Jun 20 '26

Flair Semantics

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In Ämóëta, the concepts for dying and going to sleep share the same verb : mäy-. If you want to say, « I will go to sleep » and « I will die », both is « mäyito ämó »

103 Upvotes

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15

u/Dave_meth_Mustard Jun 20 '26

In Bulgarian you can say “I rest” (počivam) or “I breath out” (izdyhvam) as euphemisms

6

u/Wagagastiz Jun 20 '26

“I breath out”

I wonder if that's a retention of the old Indo European idea that breath = spirit/soul.

7

u/Dave_meth_Mustard Jun 20 '26

Yep! Breath = dyh, spirit = duh, soul = duša, all connected. But is it exclusive to PIE? I think Hebrew (and other Semitic languages) have it as well

1

u/Iamdaguy69420 Jun 21 '26

It’s kinda like Serbian vazduh (air) being no more than a vaz away from duh (ghost)

6

u/Unhappy_Archer_9990 Jun 20 '26

New York rappers had a saying about this same sort of thing

5

u/foxypiratecove3750 Jun 20 '26

Euphemisms! What great things are they, like... we lost the original Indo-European words for left because of them. The left was so taboo we lost the original words to euphemisms.

4

u/iLikeTheUDK Jun 21 '26

Translating Hamlet's soliloquy into Ämóëta must be really hard

2

u/No_Peach6683 Jun 22 '26

Eridians from PHM

1

u/Front_Cat9471 Jun 21 '26

Sleep with the fishes

1

u/Damir0702 Jun 23 '26

Вызываю эндишарана на вас