Re: TRANS: Without Words, Without Silence

Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...> 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 Draseléq:


    Kis Lüsar, Kis Anrrin

    Lif kuaqon lonaq rintreston, "Kis lüsar, kis anrrin,
    brun i gimain thubursim?"

    Athmaq pon kuaqon, "Tanqámp i sinnot bäldaven,
    Frungdántulmes aithpatür. Faik doik nanek halth
    vel elgan sìnth i avvaidost dheth."



Interlinear:

Lif  kuaqon  lonaq     rintreston,
from teacher ask.3sPST monk

    Etym: rin-trest-on, 'with-walk-er' (one who walks
    with [some other person]). This was the traditional
    name of monks, in this culture. They walked and saw,
    taught or learned, and then (after the Enlightenment)
    some became proselitist.


"Kis     lüsar,  kis     anrrin,
 without voicing without silence

    _Lüs_ means 'voice', and <-ar> is the verbal action suffix.


brun i gimain thubursim?"
how  * truth  POS.say.PV.3s

    I have no verb for 'express', but I've reinforced the meaning
    using passive voice so that -bur(s)- can be taken to mean more
    than simply 'say'.


Athmaq      pon       kuaqon,
reply.3sPST 3sMAS.PSS teacher

"Tanqámp i sinnot bäldaven,
 always  * spring remember.1s

Frungdántulmes       aithpatür.
middle+king+land.GEN south+side.LOC

    This of course translates as China = 'Middle Kingdom'.


Faik doik  nanek   halth
here there sing.3p birds

vel   elgan    sìnth   i avvaidost   dheth."
among fragrant flowers * uncountable kinds

    _dhe_ means 'kind' (of objects), 'race, kin' (of people,
    but not as we know it), and 'colour', so it's a bit
    ambiguous sometimes. But 'flowers of uncountable colours'
    would be _avvaidost dheth i sìnth_, i. e. the other way
    round.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html