Re: alíta na-lahéap

On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 00:15:55 -0500, Amanda Babcock Furrow
<langs@...> wrote:

>à alíta na-lahéap vó'c ki'tyraisödàhlv'n!
>
>a     a'lita   na-   la-    h-     'ea   -p    'vo   -k
>OPT   N        REL   INCEPT EPENTH V.INF IMP   2p.PL ACC
>O     year     which begins        to be       you
>
>ki-  tirai -so -'da -K- -v   -n
>FUT  ADJ   EQU CAUS OPT PERF 3p.N
>will happy be  make may      it
>
>O may the year which is beginning make you all happy!
That's a rather long wish!  Is that particularly formal, or is
that the usual way of saying it?

The Njenskan calendar's new year is the day after the solstice,
so we're a bit late for this -- but, in the singular:

Thandi hel handeis!
thand-i      hel   hand-eis!
year-SG.ACC  good  experience-OPT.2PS
Have a good year!

hel has conontations of a feast, a warm fire, a cheery song
and family. Not the same kind of "good" as righteous or just.
"Merry" might be a better translation in this case, but oh well.

For all of you, in the plural:
thandi hel handádd!

Njenska is normally SVO, so I'm not sure why this is (S)OV
but it just seems better that way.  Maybe it's a fixed
expression? A lot of optative phrases seem to go SOV...

Thandi hel handádd,

Joel