Re: Simple translation exercise?

Finnish wasn't an inspiration, at least not in general terms. I agree that
those particular endings look Finnish, but the geminate n only arises
because of Omeina sound rules, which do not like to have two adjacent
syllables with the same initial consonant when one of those syllables is
word-final. A geminate n is considered to be a different consonant to a
single one. That's why the common incorporating verb-idea *nani
'subject-(does something to)-object is realised as nain.
For example:
Hartunte ailo bere nani 'the bear sees the (full) moon' becomes
Hartunte ailo bere nain (literally Bear + ergative / full moon / see /
it-subj acts on it-obj)
Hartu 'bear' takes the ergative case -te which again because of the above
sound rule, inserts a modifying sound (here a nasal) to prevent the
prohibited sequence -tute#.
The original form of the durative case suffix was -lala (probably a
reduplicated form of the -la ending meaning "place at which something is
done") but this rapidly became -lla. Traces of the original still remain
after round vowels where this case ending is simply -la.
I didn't know -ma was the 1pp in Finnish! I suppose both languages have
fairly strict phonogies, so there's bound to be some overlap. Just as long
as nobody thinks Omeina looks like Quenya, that's OK!
Mike
> Omeina reminds me of Finnish.  I take it that it was a major source of
> inspiration?
>
> The |-lla| and the |-nna| terminations are what gave it away, and the |ma|
> first person plural.  Looks good!


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