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On Sun, Mar 10, 2002 at 03:36:15PM -0700, Rex May - Baloo wrote: > > And why should such a complex machine be a morpheme, anyhow? Why not a > > compound of some kind? A calque on the (Taiwanese) Mandarin > > <dian4nao3> could be "dyenbrein", if we borrowed <dyen> for > > "electrical". (But shouldn't <brein> be <breyn>?) > > Yes, should be breyn. > > Borrowing dyen for 'electrical' is a great idea. > > My thinking is that computers are at this point so universal as to call for > a morpheme. Already I've generated: > > gin -- computer > gagin -- mainframe computer > taqgin ? hand computer > jenugin ? laptop > stolgin ? desktop computer > gingepley ? computer game (maybe this should be ginpleyxo) I agree. Given that this language is being created in the 21st century there's no reason not to have a morpheme for "computer". Since all kinds of computer-related words are being coined, it would be awkward if these all had to be translated to Ceqli as compounds including "dyenbrein". Note that in English the lack of such a morpheme is compensated for with silly prefixes that go in and out of style, such as "cyber-" and "e-". -- Rob Speer