Isian speakers have a fairly developed art history, including music, performance, dance, and song. Games, sports, and athletic competitions are also common, though they weren’t really organized until modern times and foreign influence came along. Most of the obvious stuff is there, though, from balls to drums to paints.
One linguistic peculiarity is that some of the “agent” terms are actually compounds, and they can be a little funny. The word for “athlete”, esposam, is a slightly altered compound of espot (a borrowing of “sport”), combined with sam “man”. On the other hand, the words for “artist”, dohas, and “musician”, etihas, are constructed from the root has “person”. This is historically significant: while most forms of art have always been open to Isian speakers of either sex, organized sports started as men-only, and the terminology involved reflects this.
Today, of course, there are a lot more borrowed words for entertainment. Telefishon is one such, but Isian has also borrowed terms for movies and much more. Usually, these come from American English, but British English and even French also appear.
Word List
- actor: satrim (from satri “to perform”)
- art: do
- artist: dohas (lit. “art-person”
- athlete: esposam (lit. “sport-man”)
- ball: mo
- bell: ben
- doll: kedi(r)
- drum: gon
- football (or soccer): puscamo
- game: wana
- horn: chiran
- match (game): empe
- music: eti
- musician: etihas (lit. “music-person”)
- song: anli
- sport: espot (borrowing)
- story: toyen
- television: telefishon (borrowing)
- to defeat: tocore
- to lose: dos
- to play: bela
- to sing: seri
- to win: gil
- toy: eney