Re: Trans: 'I love you'

David Peterson wrote:
>
> In a message dated 4/18/01 6:43:10 PM, tb0pwd1@CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU writes:
>
> << Yup.  The "mer" sound seems absolutely perfectly iconic, to me, for love.
> It sounds cozy and warm. >>
>
>     I've always believed that the word for "love" should never have a nasal
> in it.  It's dishonest, as if you're masking the real sound, giving an
> impression of what it should be, closing off part of your jet stream.  Also,
> I don't like approximants or stops in the word for "love".  That's probably
> why I like the English version best of the natural languages I've heard.  In
> my languages, love will usually be composed of some of the following
> consonants: [l], [Z], [z], [v], [B] (not bilabial trill), [D], [T], [S] or
> (sometimes) [s].  Of vowels, always [e], [E], [i], [u] or [y].  (Of course,
> if any of you have fantastic memories and remember what "I love you"
> translated into in my language Dangelis, then you'll see I broke a couple of
> these rules.  I wanted it to have two approximants as to flow with the rest.)
Until I got to the vowels, Ajuk was doing well - "Zhos" /Zos/, which
would make "I love you" be:
 "Nomap zhosapa odip." - from a man to a woman
  /'nomap 'Zosapa 'odip/
 "Nomip zhosipa odap." - from a woman to a man.
  /'nomip 'Zosipa 'odap/
 "Nomap zhosapa odap." - from a man to a man.
  /'nomap 'Zosapa 'odap/
 "Nomip zhosapa odip." - from a woman to a woman.
  /'nomip 'Zosapa 'odap/

Yup, in Ajuk, all pronouns decline and all verbs conjugate by gender. I
didn't realize there was anything unusual about this until after the
fact. Those are the formal, yet still affectionate terms. In informal
speech, all for of them would become:
 "Nomep zhosepa odep."
  /'nomep 'Zosepa 'odep/
and ultimately:
 "Nomp zhospa odep."
  /'nomp 'Zospa 'odep/

All of these can be interlinearized, pretty much, as:
   I-G1 love-G1-1st.p. you-G2
where G1 is the gender of the speaker, and G2 is the gender of the
listener. In informal speech, the gender distinction collapses to only
inanimate/animate, so the gender distinction is lost.

--
Robert