Re: Babel story (partial) in Prevli

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:34:21 -0500, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
wrote:
>
>Here's a bit of it-- using I hope an email-friendly orthography. Still
>somewhat tentative; there may be mistakes :-(((   Basically the KJV version.
>
>bavel diez lä:ra  ['bavEl djEz 'l&:ra]
>/babil dia-z layar/
>B. poss. tower
>
>1. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
>nehe edra nama prevli, nama bbili, di ok tambin ôl
>[ne:'?edra 'nama'prEvli 'nam@'b:ili , djok'tambin 'O@l]
>"and" there.is-past one language, one speech, in that world all=entire
>
>2. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a
>plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.
>nehe mezi zorunzet bak nanyan, inthel u huNkOr zeto kompin di Sinär pine, et
>dirok zikmär eSte
>[ne: mezi 'zorundzet bak naJan, In't_T_hEl u'hUNkOr 'zeto ....]
>"and" during journey-their from sunrise/east, INCH-be that find-past they-it
>flat-land in Sinar land, and at-there settle-past they-REFLEX
>
>3. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them
>thoroughly.
>et semir eSte namyaner, harali, ará nigni zeknät garot, ará sasantar zeknät.
>and say-past REFLEX one-another, Come, let's make/create we-them brick-pl,
>let's REDUP-bake we-them.
>
>And they had brick for stone, and pitch* for mortar      *from RSV, KJV has
>"slime"
>nehe  ot garot suntu gel et o kuz:O suntu dinäm, pjäner ot niSté
>"and" def-pl brick-pl purpose stone and def "pitch/tar" purpose
>binding/mortar, pass-used-past the-pl=those things (subj.)  by-them
>
>4. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may
>reach unto heaven, and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad
>upon the face of the whole earth.
>nehe semir zet, harali, ará nigni zeknät enze et lä:ra, iniNkatla o diez TOP
>ivri ot linot, et ará yäpZakme naronta, untu uSyäkhubla kant ivri o tambin
>diez sentit olta
>"and" said they, Come, let's make we-them city and tower, INCH-IRR-rise-fut
>it poss TOP into def-pl sky-pl, and let's pass-CAUS-Redup-know name-our,
>so.that not-pass-IRR-scatter-fut we into def earth poss. corner-pl all-pl.
>
>nehe "and" is a narrative particle, about as meaningful as "and" in the
>original.  /et ~te/ actually means 'and, plus'
>
>Enough for now; we started running into vocab problems at this point (and
>even this is still subject to change) .....and already corrected several
>errors just in the course of copying this :-)))) More to come.
>
>Some possibilities: 1. less awkward title maybe:  _o lä:ra i bavel_ 'the
>tower at Babel'
>2. /layar/ (watch)tower appears to be a Kash loanword; should create a
>native form.....
>3. for puposes of Lañ-lañ mythology, "bavel" could be "babvil' which
>litterally translates "confused/gibberish speech"*-- but maybe over the
>millennia, "babvil" got scrunched/reduced to /babil/ bavel ~ bavle
>
>*which led to IMO a very amusing word: /babap/ bavab ~ bafpa 'speak
>incoherently, speak gibberish', with an irregular noun deriv. pfapfa
>'nonsense'
>
>Reactions?????
Have you mentioned what the reduplication does? I also don't remember what
IRR is.

It looks like you've accomplished a lot already. It takes me quite a while before
I can translate actual texts. In fact, the Babel text will probably never be
translated into MNCL5 (someday I hope to find out the actual name of the
language), considering the native speakers' attitudes toward translation. First,
they believe that the translation should convey the meaning of the text rather
than be a literal translation. The translator is thus expected to fully
understand both the text and the audience. At the same time, the translator
is supposed to be true to his/her own values. As a result, editorial comments
will be added to texts the translator disagrees with. Given that the native
speakers tend to be atheists ....

On the other hand, all this is probably inconsistent with borrowing a large
number of words from English etc.

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