Re: Abkhaz

--- John Quijada <jq_ithkuil@...> wrote:

  Examples of Abkhaz single-word verb
> complexes like the
> following (from Comrie's 1981 book "The Languages of
> the Soviet Union")
> fascinated me with their incredible compactness:
>
> d@ts_>a"laza:p_>
> d@-               ts_>a-      la-    za:p_>
> 3SG/HUMAN/COL1 - (TO)/UNDER - "go" - INFERENTIAL
> Translation:  "He apparently crawled under it."
>
> wats_>@mts_>@
> wa-             ts_>@-                    m-
> ts_>@
> 2SG/MALE/Col1 - 3SG/COL2 - (FROM)/UNDER - NEG -
> "come"
> Translation:  "Don't come out from under it."
>
> j@q_>alts_>a"lon
> j@-                  q_>a-     l-             ts_>a-
> la-         wa-
> 3SG/INANIMATE/COL1 - PREVERB - 3SG/FEM/COL3 - "do" -
> ITERATIVE - DYNAMIC -
> -n
> IMPERFECTIVE
> Translation:  "She used to do it regularly."
>
Some distant echo seems to exist in German, with verbs
like: herauskommen, herunterfallen, hinabfahren,
herüberspringen, auseinanderfallen, etc. Sure, it's
much more limited than in Abkhaz.

I searched for more information about Abkhazian
language and country, and so I also came upon Ubykh
and its sad story. But, being a sceptic by nature, I
couldn't help thinking : what if that overfamous last
Ubykh speaker was kind of a humorist, and decided to
invent lot of features that never existed in Ubykh ?
Just in order to make fun of the linguists ? He
certainly couldn't invent everything; perhaps there
were only 50 or 60 consonants in Ubykh and he invented
20 or 30 more to make the whole thing more sexy ? As
no one else could claim to master the language, he had
the nice role.

Well, that's only an idea I had, I won't affirm that
this goold old Tawfik actually did so. But I swear
that if I had been in his position, I certainly would
have ! And I would laugh in my grave for eternity.


=====
Philippe Caquant

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

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