Re: translation exercise

Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>:

> I was in a department store today and they were playing over the
> loudspeaker a (rather dreadful, IMHO) song which was popular here a few
> years ago called "Closing Time".  A repeated line in the chorus struck
> me as an interesting example of compressed English, and I thought it
> might make for a good subject of conlang translation.  Without further ado,
> here 'tis:
>
>         I know who I want to take me home.
>
> Maybe I've just been hypersensitized to complexity, and this is
> actually perfectly straightforward and transparent to non-natives, but
> it strikes me as the sort of thing that might present translation
> difficulties, and may not survive the operation as a single sentence.
>
> What do you think?
I think that's one obnoxious sentence!

Lemme see if I can work out a Tairezazh version ...

Ta srát fendz ta zrón shu sen dhekst sous daive dzhi ta.

"I know whom I want that he/she/it will go home with me.", pretty literally.

Strikes me as well less elegant than the English. Oh, well - IIRC, elegance
was never a design goal for this lang! Hm, straying a bit farther from the
original, something like this, perhaps:

Ta srát dhékents sous daive dzhi ta vda ta zrón.

"I know whose going home with me I want."

Sounds better, but is rather skipping the difficulty, isn't it?

For the purposes of this exercise, I calqued German _nach hause_ "home (adv)",
lit "to house", as _sous daive_. Should be inventing a native variant, I know.

                                                             Andreas

PS Yes, Tairezazh mandatorily distinguishes sentience/animacy/personhood in
interogative pronouns, but ony optionally and indirectly in 3rd sg pronouns.
It's a bug not a feature!