Re: The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

On Tuesday 10 August 2004 13:22, Philippe Caquant wrote:
> --- Sylvia Sotomayor <kelen@...> wrote:
> > híja ñamma jaláe jarwá ñamma jánne to ñamma jawíra
> > jakíthi rá;
> > conditional-future make/do/become+3p.sg.agent
> > mountain unmade-thing
> > make/do/become+3p.sg.agent beginning from
> > make/do/become+3p.sg.agent burden
> > stones to/away.
> >
> > He who would un-make a mountain makes a beginning
> > from making burden of stones
> > (taken) away.
> >
> > He who would remove a mountain starts by carrying
> > stones away.
>
> I understand "remove" is not exactly "un-make"; it
> would rather be "to take away from this place", "to
> make disappear".
>
> The word "by" denotes "method", IMO. There is
> instrument (by what means), and there is method (which
> way). One can remove a moutain using a shovel and a
> wheelbarrow, that would be instrument. One can remove
> it by carrying away stone after stone, that is method.
>
> A variant of this aphorism is: "The journey of
> thousand li begins with a single step".
>
No, remove and un-make are two different things, but I think un-make is the
better word to use here. After all, you're not whisking away the mounting to
another location, nor are you making it invisible, you are removing bits and
pieces of it until it is gone. Hence, un-make.

ñi jánne la jaréta jalí óraen to jaráka án;
make/become beginning be journey li 4096 from step 1.

One step makes the beginning of a journey of 10,000 li.

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
kelen@ix.netcom.com

Kélen language info can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html

This post may contain the following:
á (a-acute)  é (e-acute)  í (i-acute)
ó (o-acute)  ú (u-acute)  ñ (n-tilde)

áe ñarra anmárienne cí áe reharra anmárienne lá;

Reply