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Re: Useful phrases for tourists

From:Irina Rempt <ira@...>
Date:Thursday, February 25, 1999, 21:06
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