Short tentative Ramyo translation
From: | Muke Tever <alrivera@...> |
Date: | Saturday, November 3, 2001, 6:17 |
Ramyo (aka Daimyo) is still a very infant-stage language.
I just now have invented a rather clumsy orthography that can handle all its
consonants.
And, I thought I'd try and make a complete sentence with the few words I happen
to have around. I wasn't as successful as I might like, but hey, I'm still in
the revising stage.
"Pirqoo gnägnäjhäändhquguudme mawqjhõjnatho."
/pi4?o: N&N&j\&:nD?ugu:dmE mAw?j\7~JATo/
very roughly, 'The rain isn't helping our dehydration'
Interlinear mit notes:
(Pitch marks are + high, - low, ^ falling, ~ rising)
pi+ri-.qoo
rainy NMLZR
A short /i/ disappears when an affix is added, whenever the phonetics allow it.
{qoo} /?o:/ and several other affixes have no phonemic pitch, but get it
"inferred" from the surrounding--in this case, because it's a long vowel
following a high pitch, it becomes falling pitch {pi+rqoo^} /pi4?o:/.
gnR-gnR-.jhä-ndhi+.qu-gu-di-.me
our .dry .sick .NMLZR
{gnR} is a reduced form of the full pronoun {gnark+} /NA4k/ meaning "this" or
"me". (Or it might possibly be the other way around, that {gnark+} is an
extended form...) It's doubled to emphasize plurality (this probably isn't
necessary, though).
{R} here is just a notation saying that this vowel is unspecified and must be
filled in by the next vowel (in this case the {ä} in {jhä-ndhi+} /j\&nDi/, so:
{gnägnäjhä...}
Due to a rather odd pitch restraint I don't understand, the same tone cannot be
carried for more than two vowel lengths; so the {jhä-} changes to {jhää^}, and
the same for {gud-}, so the final word is {gnä-gnä-jhää^ndhqu-guud^me-}
/N&N&j\&:nD?ugu:dmE/, with {me} inferring low tone from the previous syllable.
({me} is the main nominalizer for class VII roots like {qu-g-d}... {qoo} is for
class II roots like {p+r}. Class II is mainly verbs, and Class VII appears to
be states and condtions of the body, and also smells for some reason)
maw-qi+.jhõ-jna+.tho
not ruin G
{maw-qi+} /mAw?i/ is an adjective (although I wonder now whether I should have
used the verbal form {mow-qa-} /mow?A/...}
{jhõ-jna+} /j\7~JA/ actually does mean to ruin, or to spoil... in Ramyo you may
cure people, but you don't cure diseases (you don't want the sickness to get
stronger, do you?)
{tho} is an evidential that tells us the speaker knows this as firsthand
knowledge (as opposed to secondhand, which would be {puki-} /puki/, and to not
having any certainty at all, which would be {kew.} /kEw`/).
The final word comes out as {maw-qjhõ-jna+tho+} /mAw?j\7~JATo/.
*Muke!
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