A drum roll! A fanfare! Here it is!

From Fabian I received this beautiful piece of poetry:

    ja qumbu tel odejedai binde suodeyam
    bi lok le tel jejejedai bender esper
       il verv ler sonog
    bi odewu tel muejedai
       alala lama baa ler zososu snaal
    bi suodeyam perninejedai bama wakda


And this is the Valdyan (I admit that it's much less poetic):

Rachla moy arnei halsean halesit
Rozein rachlei jat foyin morhiyis sali
   sudine dir arnei shonean shonynesit
Halla jat havein laziena numena laynesit
Valan alea halsean jat chynesit.

The large bird shall sing a song of itself
This bird of the river's feathers shall dance,
   between the clouds of some ground, a dance of themselves
This song-bird shall speak of the night's awesome stars
Every monarch shall hear this song.

-----------------------------------------

rachla     moy         arnei      halsean    halesit
bird-nom-s large-nom-s self-gen-s song-acc-s sing-INC-FUT-3s

rozein      rachlei    jat  foyin
river-gen-s bird-gen-s this feather-nom-c

morhiyis     sali sudine      dir
ground-gen-s some cloud-loc-c among

arneni     shonean shonynesyit
self-gen-p dance   dance-INC-FUT-3p

halla     jat  havein      laziena    numena        laynesit
song.bird this night-gen-s star-acc-c awesome-acc-p speak-INC-FUT-3s

valan   alea  halsean    jat  chynesit.
monarch every song-acc-s this hear-INC-FUT-3s

-----------------------------------------

As Fabian's text is in the prophetic tense, I've put mine into the
inceptive future, used for prophecies and expectations (which may be
very trivial, like "It's going to rain" or very high-flown, like
"This book shall not be found again until the end of time"). It's
remarkable that Fabian's poem seems to be all about the same bird
("This bird ..."), whereas mine (below) clearly was about three
different birds. At least the birds are still there, now I wonder
where the king came in!

I had to make quite a lot of new words: "river", "feather", "cloud",
"among", "dance", "awesome" (see below), "hear" and, from an existing
root, "ground" ("earth-place").

If you recognize the root /num/ "awe" as the same that's in
"numinous" you're right; I noticed when I found the word and didn't
make an effort to change it. It means strictly the breathless
wide-eyed kind of awe when faced with gods or similar powers -
"Terribilis est locus iste" - not simple human reverence.

I could have used _dorachla_ (with the augmentative prefix) for
_rachla moy_, but that implies that something is intrinsically, not
incidentally, large: if Sesame Street were in Valdyan, Big Bird would
be called Dorachla.

"Of itself", "of themselves" can mean, in Valdyan as well as in
English, either "uniquely its own" or "about itself, having to do
with itself".

-----------------------------------------

And this is what it started out as:


Hanleni halsen varyenan laynat
Daysinen verein idanla le listat
Havien hinla laziena forat
Culea rachleni arlea a chalat?

The song of the starlings speaks of heroic deeds
In the morning rain the heron washes its clothes
In the night the lark worships the stars
Who sees the true nature of birds?

hanleni        halsen     varyenan          laynat
starling-gen-p song-nom-s heroic.deed-acc-p speak-PRS-3s

daysinen   verein        idanla      le  listat
rain-loc-c morning-gen-s heron-nom-s RFL rinse-PRS-3s

havien      hinla      laziena    forat
night-loc-s lark-nom-s star-acc-c worship-PRS-3s

culea rachleni   arlea       a chalat
who   bird-gen-p truth-acc-s Q see-PRS-3s

-----------------------------------------

Grammatical terms:

nom  - nominative
acc  - accusative
gen  - genitive
loc  - locative
s    - singular
p    - plural
c    - collective plural
3    - third person
PRS  - present tense
FUT  - future tense
INC  - inceptive aspect
RFL  - reflexive pronoun
Q    - question particle


Well, I can only say: "If you think I'm telling tales, then you find
out if it's true!" (that's what my .sig says)

   Irina


            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastinay.
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (English)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)