Smarkaka, sakush! Ku “Gwayfa Santa” ati lijatan? Pra warshtas “lija” krayba hu-tangayam, ma nawa santa lija ‘pa, alya dwa warshtas krayba hu-jawsam — lamban hisu.
Hello, friends! Have you played “Survival Mode” yet? Earlier I had thought I’d write about the word “lija” (play), but after playing the new mode, I’ve decided to write about two other words — droopy arrow.
I’ve played through Primal twice now — once on hard mode, once on expert mode without the HUD. Had a blast with both. So I think — okay, I’m an expert, I’ve got this Survival Mode no problem. I’ve killed my first goats, lit the first fire, and am now off to find Sayla. I try to shoot the wolves in the face and my arrows are doing nothing, they’re just going a couple feet and landing right on the ground. This made me think of two words in Wenja: lamban hisu. Of course, I didn’t know that I needed to get some sleep for Takkar to shoot arrows properly.
The word lamban “droopy, limp, flaccid” is an adjective (participle) based on the verb lamba “to sag, droop”, a word directly related to English limp. For the b > p change, compare English hemp with Greek kannabis and Armenian kanap’ (each from *kannabis or the like). Wenja lamba is taken from PIE *lemb- ‘hang down’, seen in Latin limbus ‘hem, border’ and Sanskrit rámbate ‘hangs down’.
The word hisu is continued by Greek īós and Sanskrit iṣu both ultimately from PIE *h₁isu (recall that *h₁ = h, hence hisu). To my knowledge this word has no descendants in English.