Re: A new translation exercise (was: lexicons)
| From: | Padraic Brown <pbrown@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, March 31, 1999, 20:15 |
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On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Irina Rempt wrote:
> Here's a translation exercise of my own: the first paragraph of the
> story about Grandpa and the Dragon (to be found in whole on my web
> page in Valdyan and English), that I originally wrote in Valdyan (no
> translation from the Dutch).
>=20
>=20
> When my great-great-grandfather was a young man, he travelled
> out into the world. First he went west; there was only sand
> there. Then he went north; there was only snow there. Then he
> went east; there the mountains were too high and
> great-great-grandfather couldn't climb them. At last he decided
> to travel south, on foot, on horseback, by cart and by boat. In
> the south he saw the largest city in all the world.
>=20
In Kernu:
Henny jowenck=E8z le meu sengogge,=20
In the youth of the my ancestor
ys henny therres le mounde ys itenu.
he into the lands of the earth he travelled.
Nonck, li meir ys fu; mays fussa aci sulment sabouls. =20
Now to the west he went but she was here only sand
Tonck, li freidh ys fu; mays fussa aci sulment la nev=E8s. =20
Then to the north he went but she was here only the snow
Detonck, li suil ys fu; mays aci fussna uchoel mont=E8s
And then to the east he went but here she was a high mountain
e mo sengogs las ne potu montar-als. =20
& my ancestor them not could scale-them
Nonck, ys le ir li geil ys dongenasot:=20
now he the go to the south he set his mind
perry mbeth, perry mmarch, perry ncar, perry ncorrach. =20
by the foot by the mare by the cart by the boat
Henny ngeil, ilalla ys la ciwtatte la plu mhagna=20
in the south there he the city the most large
le mounde ys wedev.
of the world he saw
There's no word for great-great-grandfather, so we use 'ancestor' in
stead. West is meir (towards the sea), north is freidh (to the cold),
east is suil (to the sun), south is geil (to the Gauls). It can be seen
that in Kernu, like Spanish, the verb 'ir' is suppletive. Only more so.
Since the "there was" clauses don't indicate possession, we can (thank
god) evade a series of messy do- clauses and use "sa" + "esser": in this
instance, "fussa" is the emphatic form, which tacks the pronoun on the end
of the verb. Anymore, there is less and less degree of "emphasis" between
"fussa" and "sa fu". "fussna" is an agglomeration of "fu + sa + na", na
being the indefinite article.
You can see the basic SOV structure very clearly, and also the peculiar
repetition of the personal pronoun (at the start of the clause and just
preceeding the verb). "wedev" is imperfect in form, but perfect in sense,
as verbs of sense and thought use only the imperfect in the past.
"dongenasot" reminds me of Faliscan tongeo (to think), and although both
mean to "think", dongenar literally means "put to the mind": do (prep. to)
+ n (sign of nasal mutation on masc. def. art. (which has since buggered
off)) + cen- (root for "head") + -asot (3. sing. perf. ending, itself
composed of -a- (1st conj. vb.) + -s- (perf. stem) + -o- (Latin perfects
in -av- --> -au- --> -o-) + -t (the ending)). It also ought to be noted
that in verbal compounds, Kernu uses "cen-" borrowed from Goidelic rather
than the native "pen-".
Henny and perry: all prepositions may suffix an article, but several have
evolved "frozen" forms, where one form does for all possible combinations.
For example:
=09definite=09=09=09indef.
=09co-li=09co-lis=09(dative)=09cun-ni
=09cun-el=09cun-ys=09(oblique)=09cun-en
=09(with the)=09=09=09(with a)
have all been reduced to cunny. Context helps one sort out which is
meant. Usually.
-als: Kernu has the odd proclivity of stating object pronouns twice:
=09ys las ne potu montar-als
=09he them not could climb-them
which is particularly helpful if the first pronoun is dative, where there
is no gender distinction.
For that matter, lots of things are doubled (or even trebled): maboun,
excellent, is composed of mati- (good) + bono- (good); indefinite pronouns
are almost never seen alone, but almost always travel in herds
=09ke tu a conient?=09Who are you seeing?
=09ce cestyn mbenne...=09This woman...
where ce cestyn contains four pronouns.
Padraic.