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İpûwê ûn Duwônî

· 2 min read
Gofuliel

Sand dunes in the Idehan Ubari, Libya

I had some debate last week about "sand" and although you can formulate the concept as "finely ground rocks", it felt like it was a bit too much extra word play for what is a common concept. I found a word that also is used as beaches in the native language. This felt particularly useful as a head word for named beaches in Hîsyêô. I debated also adding a word for gravel but I came up with this set of terms which I think is fine. Gravel didn't feel nearly as useful in describing other things as sand did.

  • Boulder: îbûwê cênbô
  • Cobble: îbûwê cûtî
  • Very course gravel: bôlfêlê îbûwê yê gemolen yê kocko êto
  • Coarse gravel: bôlfêlê îbûwê yê gemolen kocko
  • Medium gravel: bôlfêlê îbûwê yê gemolen yê kocko mutyu
  • Fine gravel: bôlfêlê îbûwê yê gemolen lîs
  • Very fine gravel: bôlfêlê îbûwê yê gemolen yê lîs êto
  • Coarse sand: duwônî yê gemolen kocko
  • Medium sand: duwônî yê gemolen mutyu
  • Fine sand: duwônî yê gemolen lîs
  • Very fine sand: duwônî yê gemolen yê lîs êto
  • Silt: gêkô yê gemolen lîs
  • Clay: lîsmu

These terms are pulled from the Wentworth grain size chart:

Wentworth grain size chart from United States Geological Survey Open-File Report 2006-1195: Note size typos; 33.1mm is 38.1 & .545mm is .594

Clearly there isn't enough room for "pebbles", "cobbles", and "boulders" in the language. But I think these longer compound terms will be fine if you ever need to describe this level of detail.