Dundulanyä does have quite a few Easter eggs, some related to my native Lombardy, to Liguria, where I live, to real world languages, or things I just like. This page is mainly for tongue-in-cheek words, inside jokes, behind-the-scenes or otherwise Earth-related references; interesting, meaningful etymologies fitting into a deeper scheme belong in the Author's notes and thoughts page.
If you'd rather play along and see if you notice some – although admittedly quite a few of them are personal and/or obscure – stop reading now and go back!
anutu, “space; heaven, invisible sky”, from the Sumerian deities An and Utu.
babai, a kind of scary spirit, sometimes outright evil, in Dundulanyä (Taktapṣaikhulu) folklore. The word is a subtle reference to the Ultracorpi and Generali by Italian artist Enrico Baj, as well as to the babau, a monster in Italian folklore.
cerṇūṣa, “homeland, motherland”, referring to my hometown, Cernusch (Lombard: [tʃerˈnysk]).
goldi, “cat”, from the name of one of my cats.
guśīna, “farmhouse”, from the name, also in Lombard, of the farmhouse my grandfather was born in, in 1926.
hīmba, “color; musical scale, rāga”, referring to the Himba people of Namibia and their crosslinguistically unique way of naming colors.
katanai, “clutter”, not really an Easter egg, but it's the only word so far which I took from a natural language - in this case, Lombard - with the same meaning and without changing it in the slightest (aside from orthography).
√lel- “to live”, but more specifically its derivation lila “person”, which reflects how since about 2014-15 I've been using online nicknames (and even a name I use for myself in my inner thoughts!) centered around the syllable [li] or the sequence [lil], which is a baby-talk-ish wordplay on my given name. And as a fun fact, I have lambdacism and can't even pronounce the sound [l]... as I assume y'all reading this to be familiar with terminology on phonetics, I pronounce something like a nasalized uvular flap instead.
lūla, “car”, as a rather obscure reference to the song “Dove ho messo la Golf?” by Offlaga Disco Pax.
lūlunyeke, the slang word for “blowjob”, or rather its etymology being a derivation from lūluna “cocoa, chocolate”, is a reference to another Offlaga Disco Pax song, “Cioccolato I.A.C.P.”.
setole “souvenir”, yet another Offlaga Disco Pax reference (“De Fonseca”). The Dundulanyä etymology is actually se- “with” + tole “tally mark, notch”.
śvästya “newspaper”, as a reference to the Soviet Izvestija. Chlouvānem – which had a lot more Soviet easter eggs – had a word with the same meaning referring to the Pravda instead. The Dundulanyä etymology is the uncommon root √śväs- “to announce, proclaim” plus the singulative suffix -tya.
Finally, while not Easter eggs in the language itself, a few of the translations and example sentences are taken from songs, books, or even memes.