On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 7:47 AM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

nIqolay Q:
> What remote, desolate, big places do you have in mind?
SuStel:
> Because the word refers to a place, not an area. It refers to a place isolated in a desolate area,
> which makes the place relatively small. If the place were large, it wouldn't be isolated in its desolation.

I'm confused by this distinction between "place" and "area"; so I'll
write an example.

You set out to visit the rocky mountains, but your gps malfunctions.
You end up driving hours in the wilderness, and after having driven on
some godforsaken dirt road, you exit your car, not having seen a
single sign of civilization for the past 300 miles. All you see, is
uncultivated, untouched by human hand, wilderness, as far as the eye
can see.

Don't you call that in english "remote, desolate place"?

I'd probably call it remote and desolate, yes. But I don't think I would call the Rockies themselves "the middle of nowhere" (which seems to be the implied idiomatic English translation with naw'wat). In this case, they are the nowhere, which I am in the middle of. (Actually, they're pretty nice, from what I remember.)

Regarding the original topic, though: there are still plenty of uses for naw'wat, even if it doesn't include vast, desolate areas. I'm not sure what the problem is, really. (I suppose you could refer to a place like Antarctica as a naw'wat'a', if you were feeling facetious.)