Re: Ayeri: Menan Coyalayamoena ena McGuffey

Carsten wrote:
<<
I began translating the first McGuffey Reader today, but I
found that Ayeri's syntax is way more difficult than the
English one.
 >>

Well, I don't know about that.  It just seems to where more of
it on its sleeve than English does.

Carsten continues:
<<
English words are often shorter and
accordingly easier to read at sight, at least the words
used in the first lessons of McGuffey's. I wonder how such
a primer for Ayeri first-graders would look like if there
are no short, easy words. Maybe using a simplified, more
colloquial language?
 >>

Since no one's ventured a reply yet, I'll give you my thoughts.
First, though the words are longer and more morphologically
complex, they don't look all that tough.  I mean:

Veneyin ang manimpiyà.

That's a sentence with three elements.  That's not too bad.  Plus,
you're comparing Ayeri to an essentially *isolating* language,
English.  There's just no way to compare.  I mean, how can you
beat "He ran home"?  Three syllables, yet an entire sentence.
So I think it should be natural that English sentences are shorter
and less morphologically complex than Ayeri, and that I think
you shouldn't worry about.  I *certainly* don't think you should
simplify the language.  Consider a real world.  Would you want
to teach children an entirely different form of the language?
They'd end up learning too languages: Real Ayeri at home and
on the playground, and Simplified Ayeri in school.

Something more towards addressing your concern, though, is
that the subject matter should be readily understandable to
children, and the expression should be as direct as can be in
Ayeri.  If that method is more complex than English, it doesn't
mean (I think) that children will have a harder time learning it
than they do English.  After all, they will be hearing it all the
time.  And (and this is important) children actually do learn
Georgian.  As far as I'm concerned, if a child can learn Georgian,
*anything* is possible.  ;)

So, the basic point is this: What you've got looks good so far.
I think you should continue.

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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