Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: con-translation (was: Semitic/Celtic Ties)

From:Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
Date:Sunday, March 21, 1999, 17:36
Semitic and Rokbeigalmki explanations below:

On Fri, 12 Mar 1999 20:03:45 +0000 "Raymond A. Brown"
<raybrown@...> writes:
>A Semitic 'translation': >"The engraved monument which I set over my resting place in Land of >Beauty. >THE ENGRAVED MONUMENT.'
>Another Semitic 'translation': >'The engraved monument which I, Enete son of Sippai, have erected. >THE >ENGRAVED MONUMENT.'
Okay....here's my evaluation of the Semitic explanations: "epioi" - i have no idea what this is supposed to mean, or how they got "engraved monument".....the only words i know for "engraved" and "monument" come from the roots HhRT and NTzB, respectively. "zETanTE" #1 - the first one seems to interpret this as some equivalent of the Hebrew _zeh ssamti_ ({ss} = sin), "this i put". So, assuming that "epioi" has something to do with monuments, "epioi zeh samti" means "i put this monument" or "this monument, which i put". "zETanTE" #2 - the second one interprets this as the beginning of this name, but i don't see how they got "which I" from _zET(a)_. "par siPai" - the first one is more interesting....it explains this, neglecting the space, as _b-ars yfai_, equivalent to Hebrew _b'eretz yofi_, "in (the) land of beauty". I like this one :) "par siPai" - the second assumes that the {p} is /b/ and the {P} is a /p/ or geminated /pp/, a continuation from before, _(a/e)nete bar sipai_, "Enete son of Sippai". I don't know about the three symbols...they sort of look like they could mean "the engraved monument" in some kind of Chinese-style ideographic characters, although i don't see why it would use a symbol for "the" at the beginning....the Semitic languages i know would say "the-monument the-engraved", with a need for either no "the" symbol or two.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------- >THE INSCRIPTION >For those who would like to find 'proof' that their conlang was >actually >used in Crete of the 3rd cent. BC - and for others - I give a >transliteration of the inscription. Greek eta /e:/ is represented as >'E', >theta /th/ by 'T' and phi /ph/ by 'P'.
>epioi >zETanTE >par siPai > >As far as I can manage in ASCII the three Linear symbols are: > > | | /|\ /\ > |_|_| /_|_\ /__\ > | | / | \ > | | | >
The evidence is inconclusive, but this may be a Rokbeigalmki legal text of a child "divorcing" his/her parents. It seems to be written in either a very degenerated dialect, or it could have been transcribed by a non-native speaker. "epioi" == ei/e - fyao - i == [vocative/imperative] - mouth - and "zETanTE" == zhesh-a - n(yih) - tze == the-artist - not - your "par siPai" == bar - sidfarit == child - jumpiest The splitting of the sentence into different lines doesn't seem to have any significance. Possibly the court scribe wasn't a native Rokbeigalmkidh, which would explain the sloppy and inexact use of Greek letters instead of the more phonetically fitting Rokbeigalmki letters, as well as the general lack of word-breaks in the series of characters. _epioi_ "e" could either be one of two exclamations - _e!_, using the tense-vowel [E] for imperative, to mean "do what the court is telling you", or _ei!_ [ej], the vocative, meaning "hey you, pay attention, this is important". "pio" seems to represent _fyao_, [Pjaw] "mouth", used here as some kind of title or name. A non-native speaker could confuse the bilabial fricative with a plosive, and therefore transcribe it here with a {p}. "i" is simply the conjunction _i_ "and". _zETanTE_ "zETa" seems to be an attempt to represent the Rokbeigalmki word _zhesh-a_ [ZES?a], "the artist". The use of a title or occupational last name here indicates that {pio} _fyao_ above is also such a title, possibly meaning a soothsayer, singer, lecturer, or "human microphone" who would serve as a speaker's mouth by repeating what is said in a loud voice so that the audience can hear. "n" is an understandably basic transcription of the short-form word _nyih_ [njI], for "not" or "no" by a non-native speaker. "TE" is close enough to the actual Rokbeigalmki _tze_ [(ts)E] to assume that the person pronouncing the decision said this clearly and slowly. Also, the use of the singular "your" instead of the plural, _tzme_, also indicates a slower, more exact pronounciation, directed to each party - "Mouth" and the Artist - individually. _par siPai_ "par" is probably _bar_, "child" "siPai" seems to be an intense contraction of _sidfarit_, "jumpiest", which could be a description of the child him/her-self, or could mean semi-figuratively "jumping to get out of the relationship with the parents". The THREE SYMBOLS however, *aren't* Linear! They're actually Rokbeigalmki letters, probably the signature initials of the three people involved, "Mouth", the Artist, and the Child: OU [&w] AU [O] but the last one is more complicated...it seems to be an II [aj] surrounding a rotated EI [ej]. The child's name might begin with a diphthong unknown in Rokbeigalmki, something like [&j]. Therefore, it has been proven that the inscription is actually a public record of the child "/&j/"'s divorce from his/her parents, "Ou" Mouth and "Au" the Artist, signed with their initials, reading: _e! (ei!) fyao i zhesh-a - nyih tze bar sidfarit. ou. au. /&j/._ "(hark)! 'Mouth' and the Artist - not your jumpiest child. Ou. Au. /&j/."
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Convinced? > >Now do better :-) > >Ray. >
Well, i'm not sure if it's "better", but it sure is different.... :) (no new words were coined) -Stephen (Steg) "hhalomot zeh b'emet" ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]