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Writing this dictionary, in addition to providing my life with structure and a sense of purpose, continually surprises me with linguistic tidbits. A project like this is an invitation to two great linguistic sins: folk etymology and armchair Whorfianism (as in "Isn't it amazing that Eskimos have five thousand words for snow but Russian has no word for freedom?").
For example, today I am continuing the Fs. I like the F-words, as there are few prefixes starting with F, unlike C, which gives you endless co-s, com-s and con-s. The process goes like this: I look at a word in the unabridged dictionary which I'm supposed to be abridging, decide whether to include it in the new dictionary, decide if the definition is OK, cross-check with some other dictionaries if unsure, and finally rewrite the pronunciation guide if necessary (which it nearly always is). Repeat for each word in the dictionary. Now you can see why I'm still only on F. Anyway, one F-word that had me (to use another F-word which won't make it into the abridged edition) flummoxed, was "flap". If my own knowledge of Turkish and two English-Turkish dictionaries are correct, Turkish has no word for "flap". I was flabbergasted (another F-word I probably won't be including, much as I like it).
"Flap" as a verb was no problem. Turkish has a verb çırpmak, which means to shake out, shake up or down, or flutter, so kanat gibi çırpmak worked (kanat is wing). As a noun, though, it was trickier, and I eventually had to settle for the rather ungainly kanada benzeyen kapı veya kapak: "door or lid resembling a wing." That's if I want to emphasise the flapping aspect of a flap; I could instead emphasise the flexibility aspect. What I really wanted to know was how a people who spent a large part of their history living in tents got by without a word for flap.
Not knowing much about early Turkish, my mind was free to speculate unprofessionally. It looks to me like kapı (door) and kapak (lid or cover) both derive from an earlier meaning of the root kap- giving us also kaplamak (to cover) and kapsamak (to contain), though not, as one would expect, kapmak, which means "to seize". So if you live in a tent, there's no point in distinguishing between a door and a flap; a flap is a kind of door, or vice versa. See, folk etymology and armchair Whorfianism - what a bad boy I am!
For example, today I am continuing the Fs. I like the F-words, as there are few prefixes starting with F, unlike C, which gives you endless co-s, com-s and con-s. The process goes like this: I look at a word in the unabridged dictionary which I'm supposed to be abridging, decide whether to include it in the new dictionary, decide if the definition is OK, cross-check with some other dictionaries if unsure, and finally rewrite the pronunciation guide if necessary (which it nearly always is). Repeat for each word in the dictionary. Now you can see why I'm still only on F. Anyway, one F-word that had me (to use another F-word which won't make it into the abridged edition) flummoxed, was "flap". If my own knowledge of Turkish and two English-Turkish dictionaries are correct, Turkish has no word for "flap". I was flabbergasted (another F-word I probably won't be including, much as I like it).
"Flap" as a verb was no problem. Turkish has a verb çırpmak, which means to shake out, shake up or down, or flutter, so kanat gibi çırpmak worked (kanat is wing). As a noun, though, it was trickier, and I eventually had to settle for the rather ungainly kanada benzeyen kapı veya kapak: "door or lid resembling a wing." That's if I want to emphasise the flapping aspect of a flap; I could instead emphasise the flexibility aspect. What I really wanted to know was how a people who spent a large part of their history living in tents got by without a word for flap.
Not knowing much about early Turkish, my mind was free to speculate unprofessionally. It looks to me like kapı (door) and kapak (lid or cover) both derive from an earlier meaning of the root kap- giving us also kaplamak (to cover) and kapsamak (to contain), though not, as one would expect, kapmak, which means "to seize". So if you live in a tent, there's no point in distinguishing between a door and a flap; a flap is a kind of door, or vice versa. See, folk etymology and armchair Whorfianism - what a bad boy I am!
