#edit: spelling mistake its ssinon

[plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows]

distracting myself from frustration with more kel dor conlang. had a go at greetings and other social shit the other day, particularly in different levels of formality, and it was fun!

so. kohtooyaa is your general all-purpose greeting, can be a polite hello to someone in a formal setting or it can be something you use on family, especially family you haven't seen in a while. kohti tooyaa is a slightly more formal version of the same thing; koh/kohti both mean 'good' and tooyaa is the nounified version of tooyadi, 'to meet'.

kogonati kodatooyaa is the formal version, the sort of thing you'd say either in politics or a slightly hairy situation you'd rather didn't go aideways. the first syllable in both words comes from koh again, it's there for emphasis. kogonati as a whole loosely means 'ritual tellings', it's the things you say to express respect and shared space to the people you're interacting with. kodatooya is 'meeting' again, with a couple of prefixes added for emphatic respect.

and then: koyaa and kissi. this is ur slang greetings, used between people who know each other (well in the latter case!) and in contexts which otherwise demand casual speech, such as between children and coworkers and people otherwise on the same team, so to speak. it's actually somewhat rude not to use koyaa at least in the correct situations; you'll be seen as being aloof or giving yourself airs. koyaa is a contraction of kohtooyaa. kissi comes from kiah de ssinon, which is more or less 'my love', except it covers all forms of love. perennially very, very popular with teenagers and young adults, among whom it takes on a similar sort of vibe as 'bestie' (and yes it can also be used ironically or with hostility lmao).