Re: Morning Prayer in Jases Lalal

>>> Lelandconlang@CS.COM 3/9/2004 11:44:03 PM >>>
This is a rough translation of the first prayer in the Eastern Orthodox
morning prayer service. (I may remark I am translating a number of Christian texts
into Jases Lalal (and hope to do Jewish and Muslim ones) because the local
religion has certain stylistic similarities to the Abrahamic religions, being
monotheistic and patriarchal (I would not pretend all modern Jews or Christians
are patriarchal, but the style of the religious literary tradition tends to
be.)

Zajew Zasal
Morning Prayer

Zases zabax, mawab,  wawew babal hahha sasasyh
Heaven's holy king, comforter, truth's spirit all places (in)
babbe fahah kakoh habse, zahaleh kapas fahah bafeh bahab,
are and all things fill, blessings' treasury and life's giver
babvez fahah babyf sahsez. Hahha dadadyh kavav babof
come and us (in) dwell.    All    evils from    us
zardez fahah babek zawuh babef badazoh kadvez.
purify and your goodness-by our souls save.
 The original (in English translation) is:
O heavenly king, o comforter, the spirit of truth which art in all places and
fillest all things, the treasure of blessings and giver of life, come and
abide in us. Cleanse us of all impurities and of thy goodness save our souls."
I may note the "of thy goodness" raised the issue of causitive (recently
discusssed here in another context); I take "of thy goodness" to be intended to be
causitive ("because you are good, save us") but Jases Lalal has no separate
causitive case.  The options were either instrumental (zawuh) "by goodness" or
locative plusadposition (zawyh kavav) "from goodness."  I chose the
instrumental at the time, but I think locative might be better.
John Leland
========================================
Is there a reason that ~87% of your words (26/30) have two syllables? I know you
mentioned in an earlier post that phonology is not your main interest, but at
some level that has to play a part. I was just thinking of the audible flow of
the text, which to me comes of as strong-weak for [nearly] every word. To my
ears, that is too regular for prose, though not for poetry. (I tend to prefer
languages with a healthy mix of word lengths.)

Just curious...
James W.