Re: French village

>From: Pablo David Flores <pablo-flores@...>
>Subject:      Re: French village
>
>Joe Fatula <fatula3@...> writes:
>> > Dear List-Members,
>> > You're in for something off-topic now. I've decided to put our little
>> > French-village story into Cornish.
>>
>> Our little French-village story?  I guess that means I've made something
>> that the list picked up.
>
>Me too, me too! I will spare you the whole interlinear because
>it's long and I have to check a few things. I was experimenting
>with an applicative voice in Terbian (split-S, if you recall)
>and got this:
(snip)

Me too. I'm doing the translation exercise for once, because I like the story.
=)

"Long ago, in a quiet village in France, there lived a miller. That miller
had three sons and two daughters. The oldest son wanted to become a knight
one day, but his father had no money to buy a horse. The middle son wanted
to become a monk, but the nearest monastery had no room for him. The youngest
son didn't know what he wanted to do. We don't know what the daughters wanted,
because stories in those days didn't talk about such things."

In Mamqian:
(ö - o-umlaut
ä - a-umlaut
ñ - n-tilde)

Tyhyä vöndör hrufyi vilukkena samejna Fraansit naa.
long.ago lived-SG miller village-INE peaceful-INE France-ADP in
Long ago, a miller lived in a peaceful village in France.

ADP = adpositional case
INE = inessive case
"Fraans" is a made-up loanword for France, based on the English name. Mamqian
is spoken in another universe, and has no names for the countries on our
Earth.

Löd sass isatehe fer isahete hrufyini.
existed-PL three and-son-PL two and-daughter-PL miller-POSS
The miller had three sons and two daughters.

Eelur sate nuaren meey isiy höniy-hlaska ayqonjne
wanted-SG son first be&PST-ACC SUBJ.AUX-ACC soldier-ACC-horse PER-grown
The first son wanted to be a horseman when grown-up,

SUBJ.AUX = subjunctive auxiliary. Subjunctive is here used for future. Unlike
all the other verbs in this sentence, this auxiliary is not in past tense,
because it has no past tense.
PER = perlative case
Mamqians do not know knights in the sense we do. They do not have riding
soldiers either, but their neighbours the Camzic do.

uu byrsjer hlaska luri merrni jei.
and afford-no-SG horse but parent-POSS his
but his parent could not afford a horse.

_luri_ "but" is an adverb, by the way, not a conjunction.
I could have used the word _merrte_ or _ulltu_ "father" instead of _merr_
"parent", but then I would have had to explain that Frenchmen were patriarchal,
unlike Mamqians, for whom it is the mother who has the money.

Eelur sate feren meey isiy suriy uu
wanted-SG son second be&PST-ACC SUBJ.AUX-ACC monk-ACC and
The second son wanted to be (future) a monk, but

A _suri_ is a person having more religious feelings than the average Mamqian,
whose religion includes little more than bargaining with dozens of little
nature spirits. The same word can also be used of monk/priests of Achramea,
a neighbour country of Mamqland.

meer qetqeey vilunma-suri wönenma.
was-SG too.much-ACC house-ILL-monk nearby-ILL
he was too much for the nearby monk-house (i.e. there was no room for him).

ILL = illative case
A Mamqian would not understand why a special house is required for being
religious, but according to the story, this seems to be the case in Fraans.

Qyrsjer sate sassen eeluy meey isiy jey.
knew-no-SG son third want&PST-ACC be&PST-ACC SUBJ.AUX-ACC he-ACC
The third son did not know what he wanted to be.

Qursjer eeluy saheteeo köy
know-no-SG want&PST-ACC daughter-PL&DAT that-ACC
It is not known what the daughters wanted,

uuter lälkäsjed mistäe ayoddi kööba.
and-CAUS speak&PST-no-PL story-PL PER-they that-ALL
because in their time, stories did not talk about that.

CAUS = causal case
ALL = allative case


- M. Astrand


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