TRANS: Pregnant Duchess (was Re: (CHAT) Re: weekly vocab)

> On Wednesday 03 April 2002 20:04, Roger Mills wrote:
> > There's an old story, of the teacher who told her class to write
> > a story including religion, the nobility, motherhood, and
> > mystery.  One student wrote:  "My god, the duchess is pregnant,
> > and no-one knows by whom."
>
In Kélen:

lanémar, ñi márja mamólón í samma masówa wá;

lanémar
O émar (a goddess),

ñi márja mamólón
LA(existence)+perfect(become) árja(female clan leader) pregnant-woman
[the two nouns rename each other]

í samma masówa wá
and-also SE(transaction)+3p.sg.source father not
[father is the object of the transaction, the goal of the
transaction is not referenced, and the source of the transaction is a
3p.sg entity, such as the pregnant duchess]

Oh émar, the árja is pregnant, and she does not give a father.*

*The Kéleñi don't particularly care who the father of the child is.
What is sometimes important is that the mother *name* someone, anyone
as the father. This isn't too important if the mother has low rank,
but an árja ought to name someone, even if it is someone impossible,
someone out of legend, or someone divine.

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com

The Kélen language can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html

This post may contain the following characters:
á (a-acute); é (e-acute); í (i-acute); ó (o-acute); ú (u-acute);
ñ (n-tilde);