Re: JABBERWOCKY (was: Universal Translation Language)

On 29 May 99, at 7:57, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> At 12:13 am -0500 29/5/99, Tom Wier wrote:
> >Gary Shannon wrote:
> ....
> >> Ambiguity is an essential part of any language.  What would poetry be
> >> without deliberate ambuguity.  How would you translate "'Twas brillig
> >> in the slithy toves..." into an unambiguous IAL, since the whole piece
> >> is _meant_ to be ambiguous, and would lose all its "meaning" if it were
> >> disambiguated.
<snip>

> No, sorry, I do not see all the words as portmanteaux. To me, at
any rate,
> it remains ambiguous.  I agree whole-heartedly with Gary on this: 'since
> the whole piece is _meant_ to be ambiguous, and would lose all its
> "meaning" if it were disambiguated.'
>
> Now, for those who like translation exercises for their conlangs, how
> about the Jabberwocky?   :)

Herman Miller, I think, proposed a similar challenge in 1996, and I
translated Jabberwocky into Thauliralau.  Here's a copy of my post
from then.

:::

  From: JIM HENRY
    To: CONLANG ML
  Date: 08/01/96 at 20:28
    Re: CONLANG: So what are
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: conlang@diku.dk

Robert Neaves wrote:

HM> >We should come up with some sort of interesting conlang
game or
HM> >neatest-lang-of-the-month or something, anything.



Herman Miller replied:

HM> That might be interesting.  Say, a translation of Jabberwocky
into various
HM> conlangs?




Agh! That *would* be interesting. You would have to demonstate
how you
come up with portmanteau neologisms in your conlang, and form
words for
"brilig," "slithy," and so forth out of similar roots in your conlang as
English "broiling" and "dinner", "lithe" and "slithy." Or, if not with
those concepts in particular, you would have to work a liberal
helping
of portmanteaus into the translation, in order to convey the flavor of
"Jabberwocky" to speakers of your conlang. Should we require that
the
translations scan and rhyme? Here's a rendering in ethouka
Thauliralau
that rhymes and uses Carrollesque portmanteaus, though it doesn't
scan
particularly well.

Ke tii iye soumiratiza ragau.
The time one broils-things-for-dinner when.
'Twas brillig, and

Kii toza* masouga izalonau rau
The toves* curling-wet moved-circularly and
The slithy [lithe and slimy] toves/Did gyre [go round like a
gyroscope]
and gimble [make holes like a gimlet]

Remuu kuu sethamau ro. Kii porogozou** muuthegithe
dug holes the go-far within. The borogoves** [were] flimsy-sad
In the wabe [way-beyond and way-behind the sundial]. All mimsy
[flimsy
and miserable] were the borogoves,

tha, rau kii rathou amwuuluu le.
very, and the raths bellow-whistled fast.
and the mome raths outgrabe ["between bellowing and whistling,
with a
kind of sneeze in the middle"].

* - There's no v in Thauliralau; z is the closes fricative.
** - Carroll gives no etymology for "borogove" or "rath".

How's that for forty minutes' work?

Ke tii iye soumiratiza ragau.
Kii toza* masouga izalonau rau
Remuu kuu sethamau ro. Kii porogozou** muuthegithe
tha, rau kii rathou amwuuluu le.

syllables: 11,11,16,9. Needs more work.

Jim Henry III
Jim.Henry@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~jim.henry/gzb/gzb.htm
*gjax zaxnq-box baxm-box goq.