Re: Informants, Issytra, The Gospel of Bastet

----- Original Message -----
From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>


> The joys and pains of the conlanger's Good Friend, the Delete Button.
So is going NOMAIL, which I have to do on a regular basis.

> > Issytra (not the goddess, but an elderly scholar named for the goddess)
> > is my "amanuensis"; she does all my "translating" for me in Conlang
> > Relay Games.  Therefore if she gets something wrong, I can blame it on
> > her.  <G>
> Ah, yes, I remember her well from my browsing through the archives of past
> Relays. I believe she was the inspiration for my Ebisedian informant's
> hardheaded linguistic pedantry. :-)
Flattered!  She was also the translator for Boudewijn Rempt's hot little
poem called "Strolling" in Denden; back in 1999, I think;  he dared me and
anyone else to translate it; Issytra took it up and put it on a website that
I think I dismantled.  This was when all the blue ribbon stuff was an issue
on the Internet.

> As I used to relate, my Ebisedian informant was at one time completely
> illiterate in Roman letters (as far as Ebisedian orthography was
> concerned, anyway), and he would give me these plaques inscribed with the
> Relay translation in full _sanoki'_, which I had to then painstakingly
> transcribe to Roman orthography which could be sent to the next person in
> the Relay. This process usually takes some time, and is error-prone, as
> reading that elaborate script called _sanoki'_ isn't exactly my piece of
> cake. Hence, the Relay Torch moved a bit slower when it came to me, and
> the result has silly things like spelling mistakes. :-P
You sent your text in full sanoki' to the next person in a RELAY?  You are
evil.

> Nowadays, after persistence and insistence, my dear informant has finally
> picked up the Roman transcription of Ebisedian, and is therefore able to
> produce translations which I can send directly. Nevertheless, he is still
> not very competent in Roman letters, and sometimes gets them wrong. (So I
> still have an excuse for spelling mistakes in Relays. :-P)
It's convenient, isn't it.  Issytra, who is a native of Teonhea, should have
translated hejvan as "be absent," in the last Relay, but she got absent
MINDED and translated it as "be present."  She must have been thinking "not
be present."  Or she doesn't handle English very well.  At any rate, she
threw things off!  :)

> And on bad days, he switches into literal-Ebisedian mode, where he reads
> foreign texts with Ebisedian grammar or writes English "translations" in
> Ebisedian word order, resulting in completely incomprehensible gibberish.
> I still have to reprimand him for that ...
> > Arais Aijjy is my seventeenth century commentator, who comments on the
old
> > pagan holy books in Teonaht.
>
> Ah, nice concept. Reminds me of one Esani [?&"sani] the Wise (whose name,
> incidentally, means "Mr Wise"), some of whose writings I have obtained via
> my Ebisedian informant:
>         http://quickfur.yi.org:8080/~hsteoh/conlang/Esani-1.pdf
>         (Analysis mine, with help from my informant.)
>
> [snip]
AAACK!!!!  You just snipped out my plug, with Web address, to my Gospel of
Bastet selection!!!  I'll read your Esani text if you'll read my Bastet
poem!! :-} I fully intend to, since I need to find out more about these
Ebisedi.


        http://www.frontiernet.net/~awen/bastgosp.html

This doesn't come with a commentary by Aijjy, but I think I could raise him
from the dead and have him talk about it.
I'll also have to get "The Book of Gods" finished and up on a website.

Karyts,
Sally

> Ph.D. = Permanent head Damage
How true.

scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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