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

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]