Re: Babel in Lyanjen

From: "Matt M." <matt_mcl@...>
> Someone mentioned the story of Babel (_Genesis_ 11:1-9). Apologies for any
> perceived Abramocentrism in this choice of text; I'm not a Christian or a
> Jew, but it's still a pretty interesting piece of literature to translate.
Don't worry about it.  The Babel Text is a rather frequently conlang-translated
document.

See http://www.langmaker.com/babel/babel.htm

[snip]
> Sek majar kasamat eblasir in necanen ju in ebla'modat.
[snip]

What's the function of the Lyanjen apostrophe?

> Note: For "God, the Lord, etc.," I had to come up with something new, as the
> Shrislia do not have a term for such a personified deity.
Is there a reason why the tetragrammaton name might not simply be borrowed, in
this case at least?  [This isn't about you personally at all--after writing it,
I see it looks like it, but I mean nothing negative--I'm just reminded of this
in general.]  I've noticed several people doing translations like this mention
their languages have no _word_ for this kind of deity, [which is all well and
fine, especially in conworlds where they are known not to exist] but don't seem
to consider borrowing the _name_ of this particular one.  [The Hebrew form of
'Jehovah' _is_ in the original of this text...]  Is this Sapir-Whorfianism
creeping in?  I mean, in English that name isn't in common use for some reason
[why?], but in (say) Spanish, 'Jehová' is a lot more common and does show up en
la Biblia (RV version anyway)... [Even otherwise, 'Lord' which is the usual
substitute, is just an ordinary human title--although a rather high one in
English, compared to (say) what appears in Luther 'Herr', or in other Spanish
'Señor'... I think this is like what you've done for Lyanjen, which appears to
be roughly equivalent to English's 'Lord God' as well as 'kamisama'.]

[In other words, is it just me that notices things like this?]

> Therefore I took a
> page from the Japanese and used Crisac, the name of the Shrislia's
> deification of the animist spirit of the universe + an honorific title; a
> nice calque of the Japanese "Kamisama".
I like that.  Is it /'kri.sak/ ?

    *Muke!

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