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Re: TRANS: Without Words, Without Silence

From:Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>
Date:Saturday, February 5, 2000, 7:21
One thing that I failed to mention is that I took some liberties with the
text, most notably changing the name "Fuketsu" into "teacher."

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Patrick Dunn wrote:

> After all this time on the conlang list, I finally offer a text to > translate. It's from _The Gateless Gate_, a collection of Zen buddhist > stories. > > In English: > > Without Words, Without Silence > > A monk asked his teacher: "Without speaking, without silence, how can you > express the truth?" > > His teacher observed: "I always remember springtime in southern China. > The birds sing among innumerable kinds of fragrant flowers." > > In My Nameless Language: > > Agverbi, acsanan > > monaco rog de rabhu: "agdicende va acsanan, ec at tiposs le declar eta > vero?" > > rabhu respond: "vel sember ezacar eta ver ba Cate nejef. a aves jisiru > ba tavek de geni innumerabili de fli sui." > > Parallel > > Ag-verbi, ac-sanan > without-words, without-silence > > The [g] in ag- turns to a [c] before unvoiced consonents. > > monoco rog de rab-hu: ag-dicende va ac-sanan, > monk asked of teacher-his without-speaking and without-silence > > rog is the 3rd person masculine perfect conjugation of le rog, to ask. > dicende, of course, is the gerund form of le dic, "to speak." > > ec at ti-poss le declar et-a vero?" > how you you-can to declare DO-DEF truth? > > "at" is the rising register 2nd person pronoun, used with superiors, > teachers, and in prayer. > "le" is the infinitive marker > "et" marks the direct object > "a" is the definite article > > rab-hu respond: "vel sember e-zacar et-a ver ba Cate nejef. > teacher-his replied:"I always I-remember DO-DEF spring in.the China south. > > vel is the falling register 1st person pronoun, used with inferiors, > students, and the young. > ba is a contraction of be+a "in the". > Cate is a coined word for "china." > > a aves ji-sir-u ba tavek de geni innumerabili de fli sui." > the birds they-sing in.the midst of kinds innumerable of flowers fragrant. > > jisiru is the imperfect third person plural of le sir, to sing. >