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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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Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>