Re: Translation Challenge: Foucault's Pendulum

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:52:39 -0700, Sylvia Sotomayor <terjemar@...>
wrote:

>On 7/29/06, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Sylvia Sotomayor" <terjemar@...>
>>
>> > enn�pren '(mathematical) rationality'. Getting this from sanity was a
>> > stretch, but needed for the congruence in English of mathematical
>> > rational and mentally rational. So, irrational numbers are actually
>> > insane numbers.
>>
>> I had trouble with this, too; I basically think that Teonaht would have
>> different terminology for mathematical concepts: I have a word for
>> "rational" (racodel), but it means "full of reason, full of logic."  The
>> opposite, "full of unreason" doesn't really describe pi.  Pi is
reasonable
>> on its own terms, just one's we can't fathom.  Irrational numbers:
>> unfathomable numbers? bottomless numbers?
>>
>
>Yes. I haven't made a word yet for 'ratio' but 'rational [number]' is
>probably related to that instead.
>
>> > tam�l 'root' from root for 'birth'
>>
>> Interesting!  Tamol means "child" in Teonaht.
>>
>The root m�l yields bases:
>em�l 'infant'
>em�lanen '(birth)-mother'
>m�l 'womb'
>m�l�n 'pregnant woman'
>ram�l 'embryo'
>and now tam�l
>
>The baseword for 'child' is Ä«s, which is related to an old
>unproductive diminutive -isse, which is part of the word for 'pi'.
>
>--
>Sylvia Sotomayor
>terjemar@gmail.com
>www.terjemar.net
>=========================================================================
To: "Sally Caves" <scaves@...>
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 1:18 PM
Subject: OFFLIST: rational (WAS: Translation Challenge: Foucault's
Pendulum)

Hi.

---In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Sylvia Sotomayor" <terjemar@...>
>>enn�pren '(mathematical) rationality'. Getting this from sanity
>>was a stretch, but needed for the congruence in English of
>>mathematical rational and mentally rational. So, irrational
>>numbers are actually insane numbers.
>
>I had trouble with this, too; I basically think that Teonaht would
>have different terminology for mathematical concepts: I have a word
>for "rational" (racodel), but it means "full of reason, full of
>logic."  The opposite, "full of unreason" doesn't really describe
>pi.  Pi is reasonable on its own terms, just one's we can't
>fathom.  Irrational numbers: unfathomable numbers? bottomless
>numbers?
[snip]

I had assumed that you and Sylvia and everyone on list already knew
this; and maybe you do, but you're talking as if ignoring it, so:

The term to translate would be "incommensurable" rather
than "irrational".

In English the terms "rational" and "irrational", when applied to
_types_ of _numbers_, come from the word "ratio", not from some
synonym for "reason".

Older English translations used the term "commensurable number" to
mean a number which is the ratio of two whole numbers, and the
term "incommensurable number" to mean a number which is not such a
ratio.

---