Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

TRANS: Without Words, Without Silence

From:Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>
Date:Saturday, February 5, 2000, 5:43
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.