Re: John in Terkunan

Philip Newton ziánvalye:
>> Scotto Hlad iziánvalye:
>> Regimonti has  Vèrbu (masculine) for "word" and went to  Vèrbe (feminine)
>> for "verb." I had a quick misalignment in my brain as I thought this through
>> making "word" feminine and "verb" masculine. That would have presented a bit
>> of a translation issue and a bigger theological issue (a feminine Christ). I
>> would have resolved it by using the masculine article "lu" with the feminine
>> form to preserve theology. I'm curious if there are any conlangs that have
>> "word" as a feminine noun and how this translation would follow particularly
>> in the light of what could become an heretical translation.
>
>Surely, languages in which all nouns have gender will have so many
>nouns of seemingly arbitrary gender that this is less likely to be a
>problem?
>
>For example, I don't think that just because "das Wort" is neuter in
>German means that God is necessarily inanimate.
In Portuguese, “Palavra” (Word) is feminine, just like Spanish “Palabra” and
Italian “Parola”. Thus, that verse from John reads:

“No princípio era a Palavra, e a Palavra estava junto de Deus e a Palavra
era Deus.”

But three of the Portuguese translations I have here use “Verbo” (Verb), a
masculine noun, instead of “Palavra”:

“No princípio era o Verbo, e o Verbo estava junto de Deus e o Verbo era Deus.”

Anyway, the “feminineness” of “Palavra” doesn’t pose a problem here. By the
way, “Deus” is a masculine noun here (the feminine would be “deusa”, anyway).

Ah, lastly, here it goes in Classical Ályis:

“Inélis Li Ályæs, hi Li Ályæs Ivlástæs hi Li Ályæs Li Ástæs.”

The translation is more or less literal, save for the implicit copulæ. “Li”
is the honorific particle, which came to life as a definite article and has
long lost that function. It becames the infix -l- when a case prefix is to
be “chained” to its corresponding word, ídharasly speaking. ;-)

Hmm, all that alliteration was not on purpose. Cool. :-)

See ya!
- Abel Chiaro.

--
“Hæ ástis ínar lástethe!”