Re: OT: NATLANG: Romanian orthography question

Quoting Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>:

> Here it is (UTF-8):
Beautiful, Yitzik! I can see the Cyrillic, but not at the same time as the
Latin-1, for some reason. In any case, here's the text in ASCII approximating
Romanian spelling conventions, followed by my attempted translation:

I pac dau s,tire domnietale za lukrul turcilor, cum am auzit eu c-împratul au
es,it den Sofia s,i aimintrã nu e s,i s-ãu dus însus pre Dun pe. I pac s' s,tii
domniata c-au venit un om de la Nikoloie de mie m-ãu spus c au vzut cu ochii
loi c-au trecut ceale corabii ce s,tii s,i domniata pre Dun pe însus. I pac s'
s,tii c' bag den tote oras,ele c' te 50 de omin c' fie în ajutor î' corabii.


_Bad_ translation:
(??I pac) I give notice to you (?za) the work of the Turks, how I have heard
myself that the general has left Sofia and (?aimintra) is not and he has gone
up to Dun-pe. (?I pac) that you know that a man from Nicolae has come to me and
said he has seen with his own eyes that those ships that you know have left for
Dun-pe. (?I pac) that you know that I put in all of the cities some 50 men
to be an aid in the ships.

Problems:

I pac: probably an idiom along the lines of "I regret to say". _I_ is probably
modern _îi_, and _pac_ looks like it shares a stem w/ _pãcat_, "sin". Compare
the modern idiom _din pãcat_, meaning "unfortunately".

za: I have no idea. By context "of" or "about", but there's no equivalent
modern preposition.

aimintra: Again, no idea. I've never seen it or anything similar, and it's not
in my dictionary.

I suspect that the name of the city Dun is actually _Dun-pe-însus_, or "Upper
Dun", despite the fact that the _însus_ part moves around.

Once again, thank you very much Yitzik!


--
JS Bangs
jaspax@glossopoesis.org

"We're counting on our virtues
   Because it's too hard to count the dead."
     -Jason Webley

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