Monday 8 December 2014

8th Lexember Word

ugo /uɡo̞/, noun: “source, spring, fountainhead; origin”

Ouch! I think I sprained my spelling muscle just looking a that pic!

Anyway, ugo refers primarily to a water spring, i.e. the location where a stream of water surfaces. However, it can also refer to other kinds of concrete origins, i.e. locations or items something comes from.

Notice how I emphasised the word “concrete” here above. That’s because ugo is restricted to origins of concrete items. That’s unlike the english words “source” and “origin”, which can refer to both concrete as well as abstract origins (like the origin of a piece of information, or the origin of an idea). In Moten, origins of abstract items are called |not (or its more common synonym |za|not).

Notice also that I did write “origins of concrete items” and “origins of abstract items”. The key factor in deciding whether a source is ugo or |not is not whether the source itself is concrete or abstract, but whether the item that originates from the source is concrete or abstract. This may seem like a weird distinction, but it’s the one Moten makes.

Questions?


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