Re: Useful phrases for tourists

On Mon, 22 Feb 1999, Sylvia Sotomayor wrote:

[zap]

> So, how does one say these useful phrases in other languages:
It's acquired a lot of commentary...

The Valdyan phrasebook:

> A beer, please.
Brudyn, peray.

brud -yn         per   -ay
beer  UM (nom-s) grant 2s-PRS

-yn is the "unit marker"; _brud_ is the amber-coloured sligtly
alcoholic drink brewed from grain (real beer in Valdyas!), _brudyn_
is one portion of it. The nominative singular is not marked.

_Peray_ is generic "please", the second person singular (used as
imperative) of _pera_ "to grant". Asking a favour of more than one
person is done with _peraye_ (second person plural).


> Where is the bathroom?
Cuyat dushas, peray?

cu yat  dush -yas           per   -ay
Q  here piss place (nom-s), grant 2s-PRS

_Cuyat_ implies that the speaker assumes that there is indeed a
"piss-place" somewhere near and wants to know where exactly;
otherwise they'd use _cuyom_ "where, anywhere except here" (and leave
out the "please", presumably). In this context it would denote
exasperation: "isn't there a &#%@ piss-place anywhere in this
mud-hole?".

_Dush_ "urine" is incidentally also used to mean *really* bad beer.


> Don't shoot, I'm a tourist.
Nacashay, naperay, ine tanesan.

na- cash  -ay    na- per   -ay    ine  ta- neas    -an
NEG throw 2s-PRS NEG grant-2s-PRS P1sS DIM journey -er (nom-s)

_Casha_ means "throw, hurl" but is mostly used for archery; usually
it's clear from the context what is being thrown.

Note the double negative: "don't shoot, don't grant" ("please").

The emphatic pronoun _ine_ is used as topic: "as for me, I...".
Valdyan, like Russian, doesn't have the copula "to be" so this
clause, lacking a verb, needs a pronoun to indicate person.

_Tanesan_ is, literally, "a person on a little trip", someone
travelling for pleasure, from _neas_ "journey" with the diminutive
prefix ta- and the suffix -an denoting a person doing something
habitually or by profession (there must be a technical term for that,
but I can't look it up in the Dictionary of Linguistics because I'd
have to know the term to look it up, and my husband who is a
professional linguist doesn't remember either; does anyone know it
off the top of his/her head?).


> I don't speak Valdyan.
Ilanea Valdyis na ilainan.

i- lain  -ea    Vald  -yis         na   i lain  -an
d  speak acc-s  Valda place-gen-s  NEG  d speak 1s-PRS

_Ilain_ "language" is the dual form of _layen_ (alternating with
_lain_) "speech, utterance"; it's one of the several dual forms in
Valdyan that have lost any dual meaning, like _dayen_ "water as a
liquid" -> _idain_ "water in nature", _dach_ "stomach" -> _idach_
"guts", _list_ "clean" -> _ilist_ "change of clothes". These take the
singular form of the verb.

Some (former) duals have evolved so much into separate words that
they have acquired a plural: _idaini_ "sea", the plural of _idain_
that is itself the dual of _dayen_ "water".

Some other duals still have dual meaning, but with a twist: _nane_
"mother" -> _inane_ "parents" (with its plural _inani_ "several pairs
of parents"; _inani somoch_ "ancestors", literally "parents
four-times"), _nute_ "child, infant" -> _inute_ "twins", _lone_
"spouse" -> _ilone_ "married couple", _best_ "stocking" -> _ibest_
"trousers". These can take either the singular or the plural form of
the verb; animates like _inute_ more often the plural, inanimates
like _ibest_ more often the singular.

_Valdyas_ has the -yas suffix meaning "place, region". It's called
after the river Valda, that runs through the whole country from north
to south. In most words with this suffix the -y- is pronounced as a
glide: _beryas_ "nest" ("hatching-place") has two syllables; or it's
assimilated: _Ryshas_ "region of the river Rycha" from /rych-yas/.
The name of the country, however, is always pronounced with three
full syllables, /'val-dy-as/.

   Irina