New Ai-Naidari Vocabulary: "Warning Signs"

You know how people give off little signs that they're under too much stress and are about to pop? Everyone's tells are different: one person might get Super Polite. One might start forgetting things, even basic information. Another might stop engaging with people.

The Ai-Naidar, being the Hyper Social people they are, have a word for these warning signs: qonret qabe. (One warning sign is qonreti qabeni, but people rarely use the singular form.)

Etymologically speaking, this word is an ancient relic. Its literal meaning is "distress banners" and dates back to the period before most Ai-Naidar lived in large cities. Small settlements would fly banners with their family/community name and change the pennants depending on their status. Tsibil banners were markers of celebration. Qabe banners were warnings that something was wrong: disease, natural disaster, famine, etc. These banners were a cry for help, not an indicator of quarantine: you were supposed to head toward settlements with qonret qabe so you could give aid.

There were also war banners: qonret avjzan. Once in a blue moon, someone will pull that one out as a metaphorical/poetic flourish: "She went out with war banners flying." But it's pretty rare, and such people are likely to get weird looks and "could you be any more ridiculous/hyperbolic" from most of their listeners.

Few Ai-Naidar know the etymology of the term: Thirukedi, Shame, historians, people who read broadly as a hobby. Most people know and use qonret qabe only as its modern incarnation, as "emotional warning flags."

As a final note: the word qonret is no longer used for a physical pennant or flag. I suspect if Ai-Naidar ever decide space flight would be more entertaining than building Gates, they'll revive it as a word for the various ship running lights. For some reason they don't use qonret for sailing ships, though. Language is idiosyncratic, as usual.

Special for calligraphers: The modern term is usually written with the 'k' consonant, not the deprecated 'q'. In old books, when it's used in its literal meaning, it's spelled with the q.

Bonus Vocabulary: The word most Ai-Naidar use the way we use 'ugh' as an expression of disgust and frustration is 'ahn' where the 'a' is drawn out and nasalized. This is often expressed in writing by stacking the diacritics: the way we'd write 'uuuuuuuuuuuuugh' they just put the vowel diacritics one on top of the other, as many as they feel expresses the level of their grump. This is a holdover from older writing styles, before diphthongs had their own diacritic marks: diphthongs were formed by stacking the two vowels that formed them on top of one another (so 'aa' and 'oh' for 'au').