lesson 12 - anu

esun is a type of swap or exchange. Usually it's used to mean "buy," "sell," or "trade." The use of a currency isn't required for something to be esun. Trading baseball cards is esun. esun doesn't imply that both parties lose something. Exchanging knowledge is esun, even though neither party loses knowledge. Some interesting extentions of esun I've seen include using esun for breathing, where one trades the air inside them with the outside world. Seeing esun as a swap more than as a type of buying has had it being used far more often these days in my experience.

kiwen are things whose form resists changing. This often talks about a hard physical material or object, like a rock or wood or crystal. It can describe something's material, so a chair made out of a hard material could be kiwen. It is additionally possible to talk about nonphysical things using kiwen, but by using kiwen to describe nonphysical things, their forms are being framed as resisting change. For example, I can describe a recipe as kiwen. With some explaining, this might mean that in order for me to consider it my recipe, it must not change, and if it does change it would no longer be my recipe.

The semantic space of utala contains conflicts, contests, and battles. When utala is used, it’s talking about some sort of struggle or competition between two or more parties, or something being framed that way. So it could be a battle between two rival armies, but it could also be a battle between me and myself if I’m framing it that way. utala is often targeted, closer to “attack” than “battle.” Anything can be an utala if it is being framed as a struggle or attack of some sort that involves two parties. Playing a musical instrument could be an utala for a beginner player. Taking a test is a very fun thing to call an utala, because the test-taker is fighting the test.

nasin ties together method and path. Physically, a nasin is a path or direction one follows, a road you can drive along, any way to reach a location, or perhaps even to wander. metaphysically, nasin refers to a way to live your life, a way to make something, or any other method. just as easily as main street can be a nasin, so can communism or the pomodoro technique or setting an alarm or islam. It doesn't need a specific destination, but there's usually some purpose to it.

sike represents round objects and cycles. sike can be used to refer to the smoothness of an edge. sike can be used to talk about marbles and flat disks such as cookies. sike can talk about wheels or balls or even gyroscopes. Because sike can also represent cycles, it can be used to describe a repeated action. "toki sike" could be repeating the same thing over and over again. "utala sike" could be a never ending cycle of war, or some online discourse that just won't end. Wether it's physical or not, a sike will always loop around and end where it started.