Lexember Day 12: Braids

Rix_Scaedu asked for braids. Woo-eee!

Braids are a really important part of Calenyena life and culture. What began as a simple method of keeping hair out of one’s face and off one’s neck became a complex and ever-evolving status and fashion symbol.

I’ve already got the words:

tezyu – goat-hair

lanut – braid

And lanutez – goat-hair braid: someone who is pretending to be something they’re not, a poser.


Braids can be pluralized, of course: Lanutte, lanutne, lanutbe. A collective of braids is a “head” of braids, generally at least six.

See here for images of words.

Calenyen braids vary: rarely does someone, male or female, wear a single braid in their hair, although men will sometimes braid one long braid in their beard.

However, paired braids, done in either a dutch or french style (See this post if the terms are foreign to you), are quite common. They speak of no-nonsense simplicity most of the time and are the hair equivalent of blue jeans today.


Lanut, by itself, refers to a 3-strand french style braid of hair, goat hair, or other hair on an animal. A braid of anything else is a langaip, both from the original lannun, plait, no longer in use.

Braids on the human head are almost always pluralized: lanutne if speaking in general, lanutbe for a full ‘do, lanutte for a two-plait arrangement.

Kalan is to make braids; kalanut is to plait someone’s hair while kalangaip is to plait other things.

A braid that is not french-style is called a hanging braid, lanut-pyik. A braid that is dutch-style is a standing braid, lanut-dob. Braids with more than 3 stands are often called by the number, thus, something like lanut-leen, lanut-dan – four- and five-strand braid.

And, just for one more word, beads for braids are lunlan.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1024170.html. You can comment here or there.

3 thoughts on “Lexember Day 12: Braids

Leave a Reply to aldersprig Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *