The winners of the Xi’an Animal Naming Contest have been chosen! The Lore team was overwhelmed with creative, interesting, and well-constructed suggestions. Thank you to everyone for your participation. We were extremely impressed.
The winners of the Xi’an Animal Naming Contest have been chosen! The Lore team was overwhelmed with creative, interesting, and well-constructed suggestions. Thank you to everyone for your participation. We were extremely impressed.
The ma’xy.un, known as a Shoone in UEE parlance, is a tall, herbivorous beast bred for its fine wool. We picked ma’xy.un due to Benjamin Hopp’s clever combination of ma’a, which is the elemental compound for an animal, and a tai of his own making, xyun, which means chew; chewing (typically in a ‘crunching’ manner that makes noise); masticate; grind. His suggestion also showed understanding of the order in which Xi’an words need to be combined to create complete thoughts (though we modified it a little in the end). Excellent work!
It is completely plausible from Benjamin’s line of thinking that the early Xi’an who first shepherded these beasts would name them after the pervasive (and perhaps annoying) crunch sounds they make all day. It’s also plausible that the deep etymological meaning of their name isn’t obvious even to most Xi’an. So, although the animal is technically called a “cruncher,” Xi’an wouldn’t think of it in that context.
The ma’tok.yāi is a predator native to the Xi’an world Xi (Rihlah V). It glides from tree to tree, using its formidable claws to latch on to unsuspecting prey. Speakers of UEE standard refer to the beast as Tokyai. We picked Kiv0’s suggestion not only because it was well-made according to Xi’an grammatical rules, but it suggested a sense of fear in its pitch construction. It was an inspired idea, and one that had no trouble standing out.
With this suggestion, Kiv0 captured both our imaginations and coined a word that fits smoothly into a Xi’an etymological mindset. It is a descriptive label meaning literally “animal that creates genuine fear” and evokes the Xi’an experience of being in a forest on Xi as the creature enters the local canopy. The other social pack creatures begin to make warning howls to their troupe-mates. “It is near, it is near.” The solitary beasts all go silent in the hope that it will not notice them. The prey animals are all terrified that they are about to be eaten. The Xi’an, as omnivores, are not much to the ma’t.ok.yāi appetite, but they can still sense the terror that it spreads over the sylvan environment that it dominates. It also follows the same combinatorial model of nya’t.ot’en (farmer = “person who creates food”), but very properly begins the with ma, which means that the Xi’an do not consider it a person (nya), but rather a part of fauna, a creature or beast.
Humans call this little guy the yengi or yengi cat, though it’s more properly known in the Xi’an language as a ngii. It’s a semi-aquatic domesticated mammal that’s lived alongside the Xi’an since they first developed farming. It’s also their most popular pet. We picked ngii for the animal’s proper name, based on Jale’s suggestion that an animal so old would have a simple name. His choice of ngii was also very Xi’an-sounding to our ears. We picked yao’yao as a nickname for the animal for similar reasons.
Jale has also suggested two wonderful idioms:
o ki’a loa .u Ngii Y.āth – Yath eats like a Yengi – Yath eats quickly and quietly.
e run nai’yeth e Ngii Thl.oan – Thloan has the deep knowledge of a yengi – Somewhat sarcastic. Yengi aren’t especially smart or wise, but do sit in your house all day watching you. So this implies that Thloam is a gossip, obsessed with the personal lives of his peers.
Congratulations to both of you!
This animal is so common in Xi’an culture and has been around for so long that it would not likely have a long descriptive name. Just like “dog” or “cat” or “beaver,” for which we are not commonly aware of the words’ etymologies, the ngii would be so “every-day” in Xi’an lives that they would not think about the term’s origins either. “Beaver” actually likely derives from an Indo-European linguistic root meaning “brown,” but who knew that before reading it here? The common nickname, yao’yao, is based on the sounds that the creature makes. The Xi’an would be more likely to use this term when speaking with children about the animal and ngii pups would also be more likely to be referred to by this diminutive nickname. cf: “cat” vs. “kitty.”