bitter_dandelion 🌟
2026-02-23 03:32 🇺🇸
The word for ‘left’ was kind of a gigantic pain in the ass to make in Middenspraak because English, continental West Germanic, and North Germanic all disagree on the root (left / links / venstre). I ended up making the very irritating decision to use the English term based on raw population of speakers (which I always try to avoid) because I genuinely couldn't figure out how to get around it.
The word ‘right’ was a little easier. North Germanic has a different root, but everyone else uses the same root, so I just went with that.
So now, left and right are left [lɛft] and regt [rɛxt~rɛχt~rɛkt~rɛgt]. These are just adjective forms tho; the directional adverbs use the regular -en suffix, as seen in terms like outen (‘without; besides’): leften [lɛftən] and regten [rɛxtən~rɛχtən~rɛktən~rɛgtən] mean ‘[on/to the] left’ and ‘[on/to the] right’ respectively.
The word ‘right’ was a little easier. North Germanic has a different root, but everyone else uses the same root, so I just went with that.
So now, left and right are left [lɛft] and regt [rɛxt~rɛχt~rɛkt~rɛgt]. These are just adjective forms tho; the directional adverbs use the regular -en suffix, as seen in terms like outen (‘without; besides’): leften [lɛftən] and regten [rɛxtən~rɛχtən~rɛktən~rɛgtən] mean ‘[on/to the] left’ and ‘[on/to the] right’ respectively.
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