Re: "Verimak": jumping into the translation marathon

On Sun, 9 May 1999, Sally Caves wrote:

> >
> > ma tan nahaun'per'qiraw qiraw
> > or GEN winter     anger anger
> > Or the anger of the angry winter
>
>             It's even more tautological than that:      "Or the winter's
> angry angers."  This
>       may be due to my poor glossing of
>       _nifuorod_, which is the Teonaht version
>       of Lat. _furor_.
>
  Denden has two forms that can be glossed with 'anger' or 'fury',
  but they are mere phonetic variants, no doubt conditioned by the
  speakers native tongue: /qiraw/ and /giraw/. There also exist
  contracted forms: /qraw/ and /graw/, but they are very late.

>
> > di    e.di       qinadin quelday.ju  ga
> > 2sMGH poss.2sMGH office  success.CRT NOM
> > The success you attain in your office
> >
> >   _Qinadan_ is especially a civil service job, in the Imperial
> >   government, the most sought after kind. This sentence is sure
> >   to grab the attention of every Charyan in the audience.
> >
>
>    and "office" was supposed to have been modified:  "takremait office,"
> where _takremait_ is an adjective.
>   You can throw out my gloss "secular."  That doesn't
>   give the right meaning.  The other two words do.
>   _uarfy ritimika_ is "you have accomplished, done,
>   completed." Forever.  This makes the meaning of _takremait_
>   much clearer.
>
>   And the poem and its subject clearer.
More like 'your job is done'? There's not really the
concept of a life's work, so I can only translate this explicitly
with _ande_ life: _edi ande nizoa ga_ 'your life is complete'.

>
> > e.di       ram   di    ambar.ju.moi.nai
> > poss.2sMGH money 1sMGH collect.CRT.FUT1.PRF
> > The riches you will have collected.
> >
>
>   This is probably the one instance in which either you  or Irina would
>   find the poem culturally incompatible.
>   The _rilbet_ that is taken here is a reference to one
>   of our famous gospel parables.  The rest of the poem is
>   free of Christian reference.
>
This was a difficult passage. I first had something like
_edi kahod getyunonai_ 'you have taken pennies', but that
didn't come out right.

> >
> > utaima.zi p   gesen p   manushe
> > hat.AUG   and book  and medicine
> > Crowns, books and medicine
> >
>
>     Fascinating!  As I said in an earlier post,    these terms (crown, book,
> caduceus) are
>     metonyms.  How would that change your
>     Chaldyan interpretation?  Of course, metonyms
>     and other symbols are the hardest to transfer
>     from one language to another.
>
Almost impossible - especially since the holder of the crown, the
emperor, can not only kill the living at his whim, but also quicken the
dead, if he chooses to. Perhaps _chay p yondirin p rayir_
'might, learning and healing'.

> >
> > and  yechan yiman  dayun.ju.ni dayun
> > and  dust   always become.CRT.HAB
> > And will always become dust.
> >
>
>         You need the sense of compulsion that is    expressed in _hmai_.
I rather think that's part of the meaning conveyed by the
certainty suffix <-ju> CRT, which can be used to indicate
factuality, inevitability, compulsion and certainty.

> >
> > sheshedan.dir p   qaivan.dir tuoy  qaivan.dir suwonir.ju.ni
> > suitors.p     and lover.p    young lover.p    give_up.CRT.HAB
> > Suitors, young lovers and lovers are certainly giving in.
> >
>
>        You need the sense of _aibban_, which is   unnamed in the poem, but
> is the subject of it.
>    They follow "this" --
>
My glossed version read as follows:

myelden      j\xf5ven, deluanharn, rav\xf5yarn:
sheshedan.dir tuoy   qaivan.dir  qaivan.dir
suitors.p     young  lover.p     lover.p
                     beminde     minnaar

e      aibban nomdwa      tanahs,
asfran d      yiman  -ini suwonir
to     this   always HAB  succomb

But I can't make Denden of it - no doubt a gap both in my
knowlegde of Denden and my understanding of the text. I'm
eagerly awaiting other versions.

>
> Pretty good, Boudewijn!
>
Hm. I noticed some atrocious spelling errors in my English - I should
learn to use ispell when I type something after eleven o'clock!

Boudewijn Rempt  | www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt