ankewōra

ankewoora

ankewōra

We’re on sentence nine of the Babel text:

il tamma ien ē ñi liēn rā āke aþ ñalla anwaxāon tō tūaþ ñi anxiēna nīkamma sāim ankewōra cī;

ankewōra is a word that applies to liquids and to mental states and means that the liquid or state used to exist but doesn’t now, likely because it has all been used already. So, “emptied” of a glass of water, or “used up” of an amount of oil, or simply “ended, finished” of a mental state. In this sentence it applies to the mental state of anxiēna “understanding”.

“Then he said: I will go there and I will make confusion in order that the understanding between them becomes ended.”

2 Replies to “ankewōra”

  1. It started out as just a word for “empty”, but I added the mental state bit later as a metaphorical extension. It’s useful as a word to describe the cessation of a state. Unlike the other words for “ended” that I have, this one, since it means “empty” as well, implies that something existed in a location that no longer is there. Add to that the idea that the something no longer exists, it applies very neatly to both an empty glass of water and the cessation of a feeling of, say, thirst, that then got extended to other states – first states of want, like thirst and hunger, then of the cessation of undesirable states, such as pain, and then to any mental state.

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