Re: colorless green ideas

Going through old Tirelat documentation, I ran across a translation of
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

Zharshai zimi xhula jazezijan xhazarpini.

I compared this with my recent translation of "Colorless green dreams
sleep furiously" for CALS.

Saj žarĕšaj ziimi žaadi żazaŕpini vyzëzišaj.
NOM.PL colorless green dream furiously 3p-sleep-AOR

Besides the obvious differences in romanization (and the substitution of
"dream" for "idea"), there are a few interesting points. When I did the
first translation, either the "case/number markers" (like "saj") weren't
yet obligatory, or the language didn't have them. The verb prefix ja-,
which looks like the current 3rd person singular jĕ-, confirms that the
singular/plural distinction was not yet in the language. The aorist
tense is a recent development; the original translation uses the
"hearsay non-past" tense.

The other difference appears to be an actual error, influenced by
English word order. Adverbs precede verbs in Tirelat, as in the recent
translation "furiously sleep". So I'm thinking it might be useful to go
back over some old translation exercises, retranslate them into modern
Tirelat, and compare.

Replies