[Lexicog] Digest Number 422

[Simon Wickham-Smith]

hi David -


On 9 Sep 2005, at 19:37, lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com wrote:
> It'd be interesting to compare what words languages use for some of
> these concepts. In Spanish "hacer" 'do/make' is used for the imitative
> animal sound kind of construction. In some Nahuatl it's 'say', others
> prefer that you specify singing or shouting or something like that. In
> some Nahuatl "tlen kichiwa" (lit. 'what does it/she/he do') means
> "what's it/she/he like?"

yes, I was trying to remember where I've come across this in  
Tibetan.  I can't remember the source at the moment, but I am sure  
I've seen the non-honorific word for "to go or walk" (ie 'gro) used  
for "say".  I suspect that the honorific word phebs is not used in  
this sense;  moreover, on an even more exalted level, the thought  
that the Dalai Lama himself, one of very few people for whom the verb  
chibs 'gyur can be used would, like, go "nice weather here in  
Dharamsala, eh?" is unlikely :)

A word about chibs 'gro, which is used generally of HH's movement:   
it's the honorific for "ride a horse" too, chibs being the hon for  
horse.  You find that in Mongolian too, where morilox (<mori, a  
horse) means to travel or be (ie stative and nonstative at the same  
time).

And about happy-go-lucky while I'm on a roll, I was thinking too that  
"happy" is cognate with "happen", only relatively recently assuming  
its present meaning.  So the idea of "blitheness" would fit with just  
taking things as they happen (or come).

Si
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