Re: Simple translation exercise?

Ian Spackman wrote:

> At 23:34 13/06/03, Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:
>
> >I was just going to post a sentence Jon, Nata and I were busy
> >translating in IRC.  =)
> >
> >"We are sitting in the night, and like the night, we are silent."
>
> Hm, interesting.  Nothing like a simple sentence to make you realise how
> things aren't that simple. :)
Well, it's not that simple in Kash, either......A literal trans.-- mikuka ri
ondre........ (we-sit LOC night...) would at best conjure up a mental image
of "night" as some kind of real physical place, parallel to "mikuka ri
atendraka..." 'we were sitting in the living room....."; at worst it could
be translated "we were sitting on the night"

But this works:
mikuka ri orambani ondre, orandi ondre, mikumor.
we-sit  LOC darkness-of night, (and) like night, we-silent

or this, more poetic:
yale ondre, mikuka, orandi ondre, mikumor
it-is night.........  You could even drop the o- of orandi for a nice
metrically parallel construction.

OnTopic:  Perhaps I'm overly literal-minded, but if you're trying to devise
or figure out the grammar of your language, you have to start with _really_
simple (indeed, simple-minded) sentences--
(Name) ran.  (name) went to (place).  Where is (name/place)?, (name) saw
(name/object), (name) gave (object) to (name) and so on.  Galba agricola
est, and it's all uphill from there.

At least in Kash, comparatives were the hardest; so were "double
accusatives" like "They named/elected/appointed him chairman"

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