Losu??

Posted by Christopher O'Regan on 16:54 11/22/01

In reply to: (none)

Glancing over the map of Axunai through the ages, I noticed a kingdom reappearing several times named "Losu." Now is it just me, or is that the name for an Almean moose? Is a losu its national animal or something?

And, while I'm at it, the somewhat obscure topic of Xurnash and its cases: has the genitive merged with the accusative in Xurnash? I ask this because the two object forms I can identify in the Xurnash samples we have are ri and shush; these sound like they come from Axunaic rir and shumish rather than accusatives ej and shum. Or perhaps it is the nominative - sound changes have converted the shuz and li to the present forms. . .

-regards
Rhisto Filipei

Mark responds:

1. I sometimes curse my decision to have both political borders and labels in red. The kingdom's name is a bit hard to see; it's Losuji, named after the city you can see on the 1750 cities map. Losuji means "moose-ford" in Wede:i. (The Xurnese name of the city is Lozaush.)

2. Hmm, I should get the Axunashin/Xurnash grammar online. Your questions are both affected by errors in the sample in the LCK!

Ri isn't the Axunashin 'thou'; it's a preposition, 'in'. It should also be ray; it comes from Axunashin ran, of uncertain origin.

'Province' is shuz in Axunashin, which became shus (not shush) in Xurnásh. You're quite right that the Axunashin accusative has been lost-- though it sticks around in the pronouns. The genitive has been reinterpreted as an adjectivizing suffix.

Here's a corrected form of that sample sentence, with a word-by-word translation.
Ir nevu jadzies mnoshudacij. Toc shizen ray tos bunjachi shasik rili.
my niece sculptor date-3s-prog she can in him none flaws see
Tos denjic shus bunji dis kezi. Syu shacho cu shus izrawi.
he hope-3s province some day govern I be-neg-1s that province envy

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