Re: Online Sheli Poetry Translation

Here is my attempt at translating the poem into Neryv. I've also
included translation from that into english, to see how well the poem
survived my mangling ;) Also, as Sheli doesn't have verb tenses but
Neryv does, I took the liberty of manipulating the tenses a bit to see
how it would look. The translation into english went pretty well, except
the very first line. The "tree-legs" should be read as "legs that are
trees" rather than "legs of trees". In Neryv, this is quite explicit and
would most likely be taken metaphorically.
Enjoy!

In Neryv:
ryces ehakap xyd
dohoke efatep donoz ropyb
atnaparap hapehu napacod cepatu
dobed pekyt ropeko
pewas ebowaz fejez

In conlang X-Sampa:
[r\iTIs IS&k&p Did
  dVSVkE If&tIp dMnMz r\Mpib
  &tn&p&r\&p SApES n&p&TMd TEpAt
  dMbId pIkit r\VpEkV
  pIw&s IbMw&z fIjIz]

In English:
Thick tree-legs
forcefully, slowly carved air.
Barge on ocean swims
to rock. Pirates will take
red tusks to marketplace.

~Trinsic

> Date:    Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:48:24 -0800
> From:    "David J. Peterson" <dedalvs@...>
> Subject: Online Sheli Poetry Translation
>
> I completed a new page on my website awhile back, and,
> after a successful test run, I'm going to announce it here.
>
> Basically, I wrote a poem in Sheli, and I've put resources
> online for anyone to translate it.  I've attempted two
> translations, and a friend of mine has done two, as well.
> The page is here:
>
> http://dedalvs.free.fr/sheli/poetry.html
>
> The point of the page is not so much the poem, as the
> translation.  I've never been good at writing poetry,
> so I was amazed that I was actually able to fit one
> together.  The point is to see how different people
> translate it.  The idea is based on a book by Eliot
> Weinberger called Nineteen Ways of Looking at
> Wang Wei.  Here's an Amazon link:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0918825148/104-0791613
> -1996740?v=glance
>
> The point of the book is to show nineteen different
> translations of a single four line poem by Wang Wei.
> They're all very different, and each conveys a unique
> image (though some very, very poorly).  I thought it
> would be a neat experiment to try to replicate what
> Weinberger did, but with a conlangy twist.
>
> Anyway, I invite anyone to translate the poem.  And,
> as I say on the page, it doesn't necessarily need to be
> a translation into English (though if it is, I'll probably
> need your help in pinning down how your translation
> works).  I think it would be especially interesting to
> translate the poem into a different language and then
> back into English.  It'd be like our translation relays,
> except the translator isn't in the dark.
>
> So, that's it.  I look forward to any and all contributions.
>
> -David (who needs a sig!  I'll work on it)

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