Re: "To slurp" in latin, is there such a thing?

2009/1/28 Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>

>
> Usually, 'to exist'.  E.g. in Korean 'chonjae' (Chinese loan, in
> Modern Mandarin: 'cun1 zai4', IIRC):
>
>   naneun ssaenggakhanda.     koro      naneun chonjaehanda.
>   I.NOM  think.verb_endindg. therefore I.NOM  exist.verb_ending
>
> Mandarin uses its locative copula 'zai4': 'to be (at a certain
> place)':
>
>   wo3 si1   gu4       wo3 zai4
>   I   think therefore I   am_(locally)
>
>
...both of which sentences sound extremely stilted to the native ear. There
is the problem that both Korean and Japanese are pro-drop, while the
philosophical premise of the statement requires the subject pronoun to be
present in both cases. To go slightly OT into the nuances of the
translations that Wikipedia posts,

(Korean)
1. The second "na-neun" is normally omitted because it is understood (Korean
is a pro-drop language).
2. Using "keureom" for therefore is less than formal and therefore slightly
jars with the vocabulary of the rest of the sentence. The full form
"keureomuro" or "ttaraseo" are probably better bets.
3. There is an alternative (more natural but less rigorous) translation,
"(na-neun) saenggak-hagi eso chonjae-handa", lit. "because (I) think, (I)
exist". Of course, quibblingly one could say that omitting the pronoun makes
the statement more universal etc.

(Chinese)
1. "Wo3" in Classical Chinese or the high-flown literary style imitated
connotes "my", but literally meant the accusative "me" rather than "I".
Normally, "wu2" is used for the nominative.
2. "Si1" is an example of what we are discussing in another thread - namely
a holistic verb in English that has multiple translations. It refers to a
more passive form of thinking, or one that is more superficial and does not
involve deep contemplation, such as thinking of something, or missing
someone, or an already-formulated philosophy/opinion, to have a
thought/idea. "Cogito" would actually be better translated in Chinese as
"kao3", which contains more of the active-brain connotation, but Descartes
original meaning permits "si1".
3. The translation, if I might say, carries a strong Taiwanese flavour to
it, and was probably filtered through the Japanese translation, with which
it bears a 1:1 relation. A closer approximation of the literary language
might be "Wu2 si1, gu4 zai4".

In Cl. Arithide, it would come out as "Dās fythai van issa".
Dās - I, topical case
fythai - to think, realis
van - suffix, "because"
issa - to exist, perfect aspect

Eugene

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