Lexember 5: Nyi is for…

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Nyilúpat [ɲəˈɫu.pət], the Kharulian word for the Muipidan language. From Old Muipidan nilo “tongue, language”, plus the Kharulian suffix -pat, used to form names of languages.

This redundant derivation seems to come from a misunderstanding on the part of early Kharulians about the structure of the Muipidan language. Kharulian generally puts modifiers before the nouns they modify, so they would have interpreted the Old Muipidan phrase nilo mule “favoured tongue” (source of Muipdian Niyta Muytïdo) as a modifier nilo plus a noun mule, when in reality nilo means “language” and mule is the modifier.

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