Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Translating "Imagine" (< Code-switching in music)

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 10, 2007, 3:57
Mark J. Reed wrote:


> "Imagine" should be an easy song to translate if your lang has a word > for "saccharine". Bleah. ....
Now, now....
> If you're going to translate something from the Lennon oeuvre, > "Mythago Wood" is a better candidate in a similar vein, IMO.
Never heard of it....
> > On 10/9/07, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote: >> Den 9. okt. 2007 kl. 21.49 skrev David J. Peterson: >> >> > Huh. You know, if you're working with an auxlang, or an >> > a posteriori language, it might work pretty well, but with an a >> > priori language, two words come to mind immediately: "imagine" >> > and "religion". I can think of several creative ways to do "imagine", >> > but the word "religion" entails so much in English. How might >> > one translate it in a language with an ill-defined culture, or a >> > radically different culture? ....Anyone have an equivalent word in any >> > of >> > their languages?
Of course. Kash has: çañuke (colloq. çañuk) to imagine, suppose, hypothesize, fantasize, daydream about; (as adj.) imaginary, hypothetical. And the usual derivatives. It's intrans., the object is introduced by the prep/conj. liri +N ~lire +S. It's related to the word for 'dream (while sleeping)'-- çayu.-- and _I think_ it's a compound of that + _kayi_ 'alive'; not sure where the nasal came from--- I tend to forget, over time, how some Kash words came about :-( As an interjection, çañupo 'just imagine!', ta pole çañuk '(I,you,he, etc.) can't imagine!' As for religion: a little more difficult, but how about añareyal '(Kash) religion as an institution/organization, "The Church", < areyal 'temple'-- although it's a vastly different animal than the Terran stuff Lennon probably had in mind. I suppose it could be generic........
>> >> I'd like to have a go at that song too, but give me a moment. Have to >> go to bed now, and busy day tomorrow.
Likewise; also I need to hunt up my sheet music version as I don't know it by heart :-)

Reply

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>