Proverb exercise [was Re: Gaelic thing]

Quoting Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...>:

> CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> >>> CENEDL   HEB     IAITH,         CENEDL   HEB    GALON
> >>
> >>> A nation without a language [is]A nation without a heart.
In Phaleran:

"Phalei hleonalgigwalstan,
 nation language.PRIV.REL.3SgProgIrr.Quot

 phalei presimalgigwalstan."
 nation liver.PRIV.REL.3SgProgIrr.Quot

Phalerans are fond of proverbs, and because this has the ring of a
proverb to it, they must morphologically mark that with a quotative
evidentiary suffix. The privative suffix -(a)lgi- here formally
creates verbs of lacking:  "to lack a language", "to lack a liver"
(the liver in Phaleran society is the symbolic abode of emotions
and warm feelings). There is also a tendency in proverbs to make
equative predicative constructions simply by juxtaposing the two
clauses, rather than by the normal formal device of _eo_, the third
person singular pronoun that serves as a copula. Also of note:
_phalei_ specifically means a political entity defined by some sort
of ethnic affiliation, and _hleon_ refers to a standardized language.
Speech-forms that are spoken by unprivileged communities are referred
to disparagingly as _storna_ "patois, dialects" (whether or not these
speech-forms are in fact at all related to each other).

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