Re: Trivial Translation Exercise

Hallo!

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 23:54:59 +0200,
Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:

> Inspired by a poster ad for cosmetics, which undoubtedly
> stole it from somewhere else:
>
> "You can't add more years to your life, but you can add
> more life to your years."
>
> Of course, this only works in languages where one word
> is used for both the content and the span of a life...
In Old Albic:

Na  acaratha            nahajas    araremas    cvajasana thamasana,
not AOR-can-3SG:P-2SG:A add-VN-OBJ year-PL-LOC life-ALL  2SG-LOC-ALL

sal acaratha            nahajas    cvajasas araremana   thamasemana.
but AOR-can-3SG:P-2SG:A add-VN-OBJ life-LOC year-PL-ALL 2SG-LOC-PL-ALL

The aorist here is an example of the gnomic aorist, which is used
to express timeless truths.  ALL means allative case; note the
suffixaufnahme on the 2nd person pronouns (the locative case expresses
inalienable possession).

Nice little exercise!

Greetings,

Jörg.