Re: Long Languages

Irina Rempt <ira@...> wrote:

> Drasel=E9q seems to be a very long language: when I did the translation
> of Pablo Flores' bit of play (where are you, Pablo, and have you read
> it?) some Valdyan sentences came out less than half the length of the
> original.
Hi! As I explain in another post, I couldn't read *anything*
during the last two weeks or so... But I'm now doing it.

Yes, Drasel=E9q is a bit long. The verbs are particularly ugly,
I think; for example, the third person singular past tense
is marked by -=FCaq, which is *very* long, and phonetically
bothering. The ancient language had _uyaku_ as an optional
particle for this purpose; Drasel=E9q transformed it into
_=FCaq_ and a suffix, but it's still long, given the simplifying
tendency of Drasel=E9q. The long passive participle mark,
-tentan (for -ten verbs) is another such example. I've
thought of shortening them but I'm stuck with lots of
written "settled" texts that I'd rather not change.


--Pablo Flores