Re: The Swallow Song

>     ===============================
>     [Note the dialect -- is that Doric? I assume so
>     because of the back [a] as in "tan" and the -mes
>     1st.pl personal ending, but I've never had to
>     work with much that wasn't Attic-Ionic]
    The soundchange [a:] > [E:] is found ONLY in Attic-Ionic, so in
theory it could be any other dialect. IN practice the only other
dialects we have literature in are Doric, Aeolic (i.e. Lesbian) and
Boeotian.
    I can tell you right off the bat that this isn't Boeotian, as that
is one hell of a dialect and you would notice it right away.
    The two most striking featurs of Aeolic are /n/ > <i> / _s, so that
e.g. accusative plurals end in -ois, -ais, and feminine participles end
in -oisa, and an accent which is recessive in all but a handfull of
words (my favorite euphemism for a female homosexual is "I hear SHE
speaks with a recessive accent!") Alas, there don't seem to be any words
with an ns cluster in this poem, so the first feature isn't any help. As
for the second... well words like turoû and gastéra don't show a
recessive accent, so this proves, if nothing else, that whoever
published this text doesn't think it's Aeolic ;)
>
>     É:lthe, é:lthe khélido:n
>     kalàs ó:ras ágousa
>     kaloùs eniautoús
>     epì gastéra leuká
>     epì nôta mélaina.
>     Paláthan su prokúklei
>     ek píonos oíkou
>     oínou te dépastron,
>     turoû te kánustron
>     kaì púrna khelidò:n
>     kaì lekithítan
    Pheu, pheu, talais! All these wonderful food words for me to
reasearch... but I'm leaving town tomorrow for a 10-day Mad Latinists
Convention (we get to speak Latin for a week and a half almost non-stop.
Where else can you get that kind of immersion in a dead language?),
which means my internet access is goign to be sporadic at best.
    It's a shame too, because some of you might want to know exactly
what those food items are before you try to translate!

>     ouk apo:theîtai.  póter' apío:mes è: labó:metha?
>     ei mén ti dóseis... ei dè mé:, ouk eásomes
>     e: tàn thúran phéromes e: toupérthuron
>     e:  tàn gunaîka tàn éso: kathe:ménan
>     mikrà mén esti, rhadío:s min oísomes.
>     all' ei phére:s ti,
>     méga dé: ti phérois.
Notice that oisomes, phere:s and pherois are all from the same verb.
Also, it's a matter of taste I suppose, but I would have transcribed the
iota subscript- rha:idio:s.

>     ánoig', ánoige tàn thúran khelidóni
>     ou gar gérontés esmen, allà paidía.
    Have fun, folks!

JDM


>
> ===================================
> Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier
>
> "Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
>   entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
> autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
>   erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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