Re: A new version of Genesis

Thanks for comments. True, when I reread this version,
it very much reminded me of 'Clockwork Orange',
anyway, of its French translation. I also wondered
whether "Bogue squasit" wouldn't be better then
"skazit", because "k" is seldom used in French. I
tried to adapt the Russian verbs to French
conjugation. That's why, instead of "skazal" (said), I
wrote "skazit" - or "squasit", for ex.

I'm not too good at phonetic alphabet, but your
transcription doesn't look bad. I'm not sure about
"gn": actually, it's the same as Spanish "n" with a
tilde on it. Russian "den'" (day) sounds more or less
like it would be "diegne" in French, probably with an
accent grave on "e". We have words like "regne" (e
grave) already.

Russian stress was a problem: in "khorosho", the
stress is on the final "o", but in "khoroshenka"
(pretty, darling) or "khoroshaja" (good, feminine)
it's on the secund o. To me it doesn't sound very
natural to have an equivalent adjective like
"horocheau" in French, that would rather look like a
noun (true, we have "beau / belle / beaux", so one
could imagine "horocheau / horochelle / horocheaux").
I translated "utro" (morning) by "outreau", but that's
a noun (and the stress is different too: on first
syllable in Russian, on 2nd in French). I had the same
problem with "voda / vody" (water / waters), but here
I translated "des vodies". Maybe it would have been
better to say "une vode, des vodes". But I'm proud of
my ordinals: piervier / vtorieme / trietieme /
tchetviertieme, which sounds almost natural in French
(premier / deuxieme / troisieme / quatrieme) :-)

Usually, with my wife, I use another dialect ("Ruçais"
?) which is more or less the opposite: the syntax and
the usual words are in (broken) Russian, and all the
words I don't know in Russian will be in French.

I thought of "byla" pronounced the French way (like
"bila", with stress on 2nd syllable), which is not the
Russian way, of course. "Et taque il byla" seems to be
not bad for "i tak i bylo" in Russian (and so it was).

--- Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> Philippe Caquant wrote:
>
> > I decided to translate the Bible into my personal
> > conlang, "Fruski", which is, as the name suggests,
> an
> > horrible mixture of French and Russian.
> >
> > I haven't quite finished yet; anyhow, here are the
> > first four days in Genesis (1.1 to 1.19). I had to
> > drop the accents, but they will exist in Fruski,
> of
> > course, just like in French.
> >
> >
>
-----------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Au natchagne, Bogue crea le niebe et la ziemle. Or
> la
> > ziemle etait deserte et pouste, les tiemnotes
> > couvraient l'abime; et le vietiere de Bogue
> planait a
> > la surface des vodies.
> [onatSaJ(@) / bog(@)kRe'a l@'njEb ela'zjEml / OR
> la'zjemle'tE de'zERte'pust
> / le tjEm'not@ kuv'RE la'bim / el@vjEt'jER d@'bog
> pla'nE alasyR'fas
> devo'di(@)]
> >
> > Bogue skazit: "Pouste soit la sviete !" et la
> sviete
> > byla.
> [bog(@)ska'zi / pust(@)swala'svjEt /
> ela'svjEt(@)b[?]'la]
> >
> (snips)
> LOL. Really magnifique!! I love "Bogue".  If there
> were more French words,
> it could pass for a Fr. version of Burgess' "nadsat"
> in "Clockwork Orange".
>
> How's my phonetic transcription?? I assume
> everything is stressed on the
> final syllable, and that final -e is silent.  Is "y"
> pronounced as in
> romanized Russian, or could it perhaps be its IPA
> equivalent, hence like
> French "u" ? So "byla" is either [b1'la] or I hope
> [by'la]
>
> One word in nadsat that always amused me was
> "horrorshow" for /xoro'So/,
> your "horoche" [oR'oS]* -- in college in the 50s we
> also used "horrorshow",
> but in its literal sense, meaning 'ugly, ghastly,
> unstylish' etc... e.g. a
> horrorshow necktie (syn. with 'a blowlunch
> necktie'), a horrorshow exam,
> and many other apps.
>
> (I think somewhere I have a very early Kash
> translation of Genesis 1:1 et
> seq......must dig it up)
> -------------------
> *Why not something closer to the Russ., like
> "horoch(e)au"?? or such; then
> the plural could be "horoch(e)aux", which IMO looks
> really nice.
> :-))))

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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