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"Gâkh"
The word “gâkh” was firstly used by Andrew in 1980s in so-called “orc greeting” to translate wishing “May Noldor never find you!”. Besides literal translation it was used in Svartiska and Shadowlandian dialects for expressions “Let it be that”, “may it be so”, the same as Quenya word “nai” which is also used to translate biblical “Amen”. English expressions “Let's (do something)” were also often translated with “gâkh”.
Usage in Nûrlâm
As word “gâkh” was mostly used to translate various wishes (optative mood) and invitations (hortative mood), it lost original meaning “may” for Subjunctive mood in Nûrlâm. “Gâkh” is used only in Imperative form without any suffixes. In contrast to other modal verbs which require main verb in infinitive form, “gâkh” may require verb in imperative or future tense, as in “orc greeting” and examples of Shadowlandian. This behavior resembles shortening Russian verb “давай” (~ [da'va:j]), equivalent to English “let's”, into particle “да” + future tense verb in various wishes. Another even more similar example from Russian is interjection “айда” (~ [aj'da:]) borrowed from Turkic languages with meanings “to drive (animal)”, “force to move”, but transformed in Russian into “Let's go!”, “Go on!”. However in Nûrlâm it has no meaning of movement, which should be added in main verb (“gâkh ukh”).
So, it could be said, that “gâkh” is no longer a proper verb in Nûrlâm, but an interjection used in various modal constructions. As it was already said the verb “gâkh” may be used with main verb in different tenses and modalities. The next table briefly shows distinctions:
| Main verb form | Resulting modality (together with preceding “gâkh”) | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive (INF) | various Hortative | encouragement or invitation to 2nd person to do something | Let's go! = Gâkh ukhat! |
| Imperative (IMP) | Optative / Benedictive | wish somebody something, blessings and curses | May the force be with you! = Gâkh balum kul fisha |
| Future, 3rd person (3=FUT) | Jussive | order to 2nd person to allow, permit or forbid 3rd person to do something | Let him come in = Gâkh tashiskub (lit. “Let's he will enter”) |
Additional meanings in other dialects
Other dialects also expanded meaning of this word, including:
- Answer with single word “gâkh” may be translated as “well” in Shadowlandian and Svartiska.
- Adjective “gâkhûrz” (yielding) in Horngoth.
- Derivation by shortening a vowel to “gakh” with meaning “to care” in Horngoth and Shadowlandian.
- Derivation by shortening a vowel to “gakh” with meaning “to allow” in Horngoth.
The latter two may be confused with “gakh” meaning number “three”.
