Re: Challenge to puzzle-lovers: Vampire dialogue from "Blade"

Padraic Brown wrote:

> One thing I notice is 3 if clauses that share little in common.
> Either the 'if' element is part of some other part of speech, or
> they do not have if clauses in the way we do (in Engl). Two of
> them seem to have an -AZ element. Perhaps you could work from
> that.
On the other hand, all three contain <ch> in the first word.

I would actually distinguish at least two words for "if", perhaps three. In
sentence (5), "if" introduces a subjunctive, but in (2) and (3) the
conditional has a different mood (I'll call it indicative, just to give it a
name). So the indicative conditionals contain yach as in _yachtu_ and
_ochach_.  We don't see <y> in the second example, because _yach_ was
prefixed by _ot-_ of unknown meaning.  t + y -> ch; standard palatalization
rule. _yachtu_ has a suffix of some kind as well.

_chahaz_ is /ch-ahaz / and we can see the historical connection between the
two words for "if".

By making the first word in these clauses the complementizer, we can claim
that the language is head-initial, giving some guidelines on how to analyse
the rest.

> I would say KRAT is the 2nd person pronoun.
I agree.

> PROTO is an interesting word, as it seems to have two divergent
> meanings. Perhaps some semantic drift happened, yielding the
> meanings of 'spirit' and 'nation'.
Or, _proto_ is "spirit, vampire, undead".  Compounds are right-headed, just
like in English.  So _lukchano_ is "nation", and is related to the word
_uchano_ which signifies some kind of small group of people or a ruling body
of some kind -- "council" perhaps. (Who are the Twelve?)

> Perhaps -A for a 1pl termination?
>
> Perhaps UM- for blood? UMFALAT "pure the blood"; UMPANUWA "blood
> deity"?
But _umfalat_ occurs in the same clause as _krat_, which you (and I) claimed
above to be the 2nd person pronoun.  (assuming those are accurate places for
commas).

Glossing for the sentences, based on what I said above and a few other
things.

> >  Krat pruchiri busistampol proto lukchano, Frost.
> >  "You are a disgrace to the vampire nation, Frost"
you ? ? vampire nation Frost.

> >  Yachtu spuli litwa...
> >  "If we break the treaty..."
if-? ? ?

> >  Ochach planika dura sahaz do...
> >  "If we gather in numbers..."
?-if ? ? ? ?

> >  Mabochachi mati a oranta orastu prakaritsa.
> >  "The human politicians will make our lives very difficult."
> >
> >  Umfalat poskani krat kodobranku, chahaz kalinka paskol(d)zo.
> >  "You would understand this, if your blood were pure."
? ? you ?, if-? ? ?

> >  Sika lupala tat kapro Blade?
> >  "Don't we have enough trouble with Blade?"
Neg:Q ? ? enough trouble Blade.

> >
> >  Redani proto uchanu, siznu praga umporta, umpanuwa.
> >  "The spirits of the twelve will awaken La Magra [the Blood
> >  God]"
twelve spirit council, ? ? ? Blood:God

Marcus Smith