Re: Translation Challenge: Foucault's Pendulum

Did it already!  You'll have to go to ZBB to see it, though. :)  Got stuck
on "singularity," thinking it was the mathematical term.

Sally

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carsten Becker" <carbeck@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 7:09 AM
Subject: FW: Translation Challenge: Foucault's Pendulum


> As seen on the ZBB. It's a real challenge, but worth it.
> See: www.beckerscarsten.de/conlang/ayeri/xmp_pendulum.pdf --
> I translated the text from German, as explained in that
> file. The German version of the extract adds some extra
> pepper to this, so I translated it into English for those
> who want to try. I don't know which version of both is
> closer to the Italian original, the official German one,
> which I used, or the English one. You'll see the
> differences.
>
> ----- Original Message: -----
>
> TRANSLATION CHALLENGE: FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM
>
> Or, a challenge for the semioticians - the first page of
> Umberto Eco's _Foucault's Pendulum_.
> This is a relatively complex passage, which should put any
> conlang through its paces. Is your conlang up to it? Go on,
> I dare you.
>
> << That was when I saw the Pendulum.
>
> The sphere, hanging from a long wire set into the ceiling
> of the choir, swayed back and forth with isochronal majesty.
>
> I knew - but anyone could have sensed it in the magic of
> that serene breathing - that the period was governed by the
> square root of the length of the wire and by pi, that number
> which, however irrational to sublunar minds, through a
> higher rationality binds the circumference and diameter of
> all possible circles. The time it took the sphere to swing
> from end to end was determined by an arcane conspiracy
> between the most timeless of measures: the singularity of
> the point of suspension, the duality of the plane's
> dimensions, the triadic beginning of pi, the secret
> quadratic nature of the root and the unnumbered perfection
> of the circle itself.
>
> I also knew that a magnetic device centred in the floor
> beneath issued its command to a cylinder hidden in the heart
> of the sphere, thus assuring continual motion. This device,
> far from interfering with the law of the Pendulum, in fact
> permitted its manifestation, for in a vacuum any object
> hanging from a weightless and unstretchable wire free of air
> resistance and friction will oscillate for eternity. >>
>
> (Dewrad, www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=17730)
>
> --------------------
>
> In the thread on the ZBB this is from there are also
> translation of the above into Icelandic and Indonesian -- by
> native speakers, but unfortunately without interlinears or
> any other explanations.
>
> Have fun,
> Carsten
>
> --
> "Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
> Tenena, Tyemuyang 19, 2315 ya 10:54:38 pd
>