Khezian Stairs
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This public article was written by [Deactivated User] on 21 Jun 2021, 14:27.
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1. Khezian Stairs
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Here's an article about something that should not be as complicated as it is, an article about stairs. Let me explain.There are two words for stairs in Khezian: caté and cité. The former refers to stairs that go up from the speaker's point of view, and the latter refers to stairs that go down from the speaker's point of view. They're basically noun versions of the words 'upstairs' and 'downstairs.' Simple, right? Not quite.
But first off, where do my words for stairs come from? Ultimately, they come from the Proto-Western-Vaniuan words *ʒanto "above" and *ʒynto "below." By themselves, they became caṣ "up" and ciṣ "down" respectively, but verb forms also came out of them, cat "ascend" and cit "descend." It is these verb forms which gave rise to the words of the day, as -é "that which is" was suffixed onto the verbs, creating caté "that which ascends" and cité "that which descends," which then took on the meanings "stairs going up" and "stairs going down." And now that we have the words' origins, what do they imply?
Because of this "stairs going up" and "stairs going down" dichotomy, there arises a difference in thought. You may be familiar with the "the glass is half-full or half-empty" way of describing optimism and pessimism, so a similar principle can be applied to the stairs. Does a flight of stairs seem like it is going up or down if it is sideways to the viewer? The Khezid have two terms they use to classify people on this matter, those being catéluç, "stairs-going-up mind," meaning "optimist," and citéluç, "stairs-going-down mind," meaning "pessimist." This is because like in many other cultures, the Khezid see going up as going towards success, and going down as the opposite of that.
But how about actually going up or down? How do you actually explain you're going upstairs or downstairs? Well, to say that, it's Fés ru e caté/cité "I go after a stairway (going up/down)." Notice how I said a though, because sometimes you go up or down multiple flights of stairs. So in Khezian, to say "I go up eighteen flights of stairs" means saying Fés ru civida catí.
Or, to refer to stairs in general, one could just say hafoha, but it's not as common and more often than not used for stairs in a stairway specifically, stepping stones, or just steps that someone takes. At least you can use it to say Tam bezida hafoha meṣ ha caté. "There are thirteen steps in this stairway (going up)." ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
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