Re: Translating from a conlang into a conlang

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, FFlores wrote:

> Well, judging by Irina's translation, I think
> I've made a fool of myself when translating the
> Charyan text :-(
>=20
Not at all - these mistakes are common in the best circles. Irina tells
me about someone who translated _da mihi hic in disco caput Ioannis
Baptistae_ into 'give me the head of John Baptist in slices', instead of
'on a salver'. Dictionaries are treacherous, as Kernu friend will
readily admit.

>
> I have a problem similar to Irina's in Drasel=E9q. To express
> you are N years old, you say "I walk with X years" or "I am
> with X years" (with the stative verb _arsen_ meaning "be in
> a place or position"). Here a native speaker would use
> _Rin dremh=FCntel dhenrronth sitres=FCt_ "With 13 springs I have
> walked".
>=20
Another one of those idioms! I wish I had thought of 'walking'
instead of mere possession.

>=20
> I took _Yudirza_ as a proper name, because it's capitalized.
> _Nollalvet_ is made up of a root NOL- "old" and _lalet_ "sibling"
> plus a female infix, -v(a)-. ("Brother" is _lalm=FCt_, with a
> male infix -m(u)- umlauted by the following -e-.
>=20
Yes, that's a treacherous bit of punctuation-related stuff. After
a quote, I tend to use a capital letter, even though the scripts
doesn't have those. It merely puts anything said, direct or indirect,
within dots: . sero laya . yudirza yetashmerzo. Mind you, I've got
a relatively easy job, seeing that the script has a way of spacing
words.=20



Boudewijn Rempt  | www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt