Re: North Wind and Sun in Obrenje

Christian Thalmann sed:

>I found the expression "the more ..., the more ..." particularly
>difficult to translate. How do you guys do it in your langs? Lengthy
>circumscriptions, idioms or dedicated conjunctions?
With a |nu- X e- Y| pair. Such pairs are common in Rhean, with various
correlatives (I think that's what they are).
Nuin kunim, er tafam.
what I-like, that I-eat
I eat what I like.

Nudom sis (c'e), edom g'uf (c'e).
where smoke (is), there fire (is)
Where there is smoke, there is fire.

Using |nubie X ebie Y| would mean "the degree in which X happens, in that
degree Y happens."

Nubie oonigiz, ebie tirgyaie kaec'az.
as-much big-they-are, that-much forcefully they-fall
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

And of course, a discussion about English "the more ... the more ..." should
end with an example we all know.

"Beans, beans, the musical fruit."

Fa'si, fas'i, sangitec' üyaf
Nubie tafat, ebie buskit
Nubie buskit, ebie aykiostac'et,
Rhu pai razadom fas'in tafyamu!

Okay, so it doesn't rhyme...
But the more I try to make things poetic, the less they retain their
original meaning.
(Nubie maruin karidiksoyu sacek fröbam, ebie zetra imic'nan mu akstvaz.
as-much things-PL.ACC poetic-DAT make I-try, that-much original meaning-ACC
not they-keep)

NS

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