Tibia and Languages: Word-formation processes that took place in Tibia

In this article, I am going to explain the word-formation processes that took place in Tibia and how the words from our Tibia dictionary have actually originated. I will take into consideration only the most interesting words.

I. Borrowings:
There are words in Tibia that have been borrowed from a foreign language but because they became so natural for us to use, they have become regular Tibian-English words to use on a daily basis. The following words I used to exemplify the situation come from Portuguese -  the majority, if it comes to Tibia players.

a) dominando - Definition: Status of the server once it has been dominated by one guild.
The verb 'dominar' (eng. - dominate) and its continuous form 'dominando'  is borrowed from Portuguese. In Tibian dialect it is never used as a verb or adjective but always as a noun to define a state of a server.

b) aliado - Definition: An allied person. The word is also borrowed from Portuguese and it means exactly the same.

c) kickado - Definition: A person who has been forced to leave the server. In this situation the borrowing works in the opposite way. Namely, the Portuguese borrowed the verb 'kick' from English and added Portuguese suffix -ado, which is used to form an adjective in order to create a brand-new word with a brand-new meaning.

I have to mention the fact that another majority of players playing Tibia come from Poland and one could probably wonder why we have no Polish borrowings. As an interesting fact, a certain Polish swear word is commonly used by players from all over the world due to its highly expressive pronunciation. The strong voicing the Polish put on the consonant 'R' while pronouncing that word, makes the word much more powerful than those coming from English, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish.

II. Compounding
Compounding is a process of word-formation which takes place when two separate words merge into one creating another brand-new word.

a) charlover - Definition: A person who loves their character and refuses to take part in PVP actions or risky hunts due to fear of losing their skills and levels. The word emerged from a word
character and a word love. It can also be used as a ver to charlove
.
b) lootbag - Definition: A bag filled with looted items that is too heavy to be carried and must be pushed on the ground. The word emerged from a word loot and a word bag.


III. Morphological derivation with semantic change
a) boxed - Definition: Surrounded by 8 monsters and unable to escape. The word consists of a word 'box' (a container with a flat base and sides, typically square or rectangular and having a lid) and a suffix '-ed' for an adjective. In this situation, we can observe semantic change, which means that the word 'box' entirely changes its meaning and has nothing to do with a container anymore. After having added the suffix '-ed' to it, it creates a brand-new word based on a concept of a box - we might think that eight monsters surrounding a player look like a square box.

IV. Conversion
Convention is a process in which one part of speech becomes another.
a) skilling - a noun 'skill' becomes a verb
e.g.  I am skilling
b) exping - An abbreviation from a noun 'experience' becomes a verb
e.g.  I am exping
c) hunted (plural - hunteds) - an adjective becomes a noun




Hope you enjoyed this article
and learned something new <3