Re: New Translation Exercise >>> The Actual Song Lyrics

[Andrew Smith <hobbit@MAIL.EARTHLIGHT.CO.NZ>]

On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Steg Belsky wrote:

> "freedom, freedom, for all the children,
>  so that they won't tell us what to eat and what to think.
>  freedom, freedom, for all the children,
>  a great great great freedom!
>
  Liberdad, liberdad, per lla blant dud,
  si che yno nu h-addigera rhen ke fanugar e ghe bensar.
  Liberdad, liberdad, per lla blant dud,
  yn ran, ran, ran liberdad!

>  so that they won't ask us to do what we don't want [to do],
>  and so that they won't say things that we don't understand.
>  so that all the children will go up into the trees
>  and all the adults will become small.
>
  Si che yno nu roara rhen ffager nu ngwolen rhen,
  e si che yno digera rhen di llo chos ke nu nghomprenen rhen.
  Si che lla blant dud fontara in llo h-arfur
  e llo h-addullt thud wenirant di fuin.

>  freedom, freedom, for all the children,
>  a great great great freedom!"
>
  Liberdad, liberdad, per lla blant dud,
  yn ran, ran, ran liberdad!

An interesting little exercise that was quickly done with all the words at
hand.  It brings out all the sounds in Brithenig that I like to hear, lots
of voiced stops and fricatives.  Some tricks came into play.  I decided
that the first line was a vocative and made lliberdad soft and without an
article: Freedom!  O Freedom!  For all the children...  (Nouns exposing
themselves in public speech.  Shock!  Horror!)  "They" became "yno" the
impersonal noun.  "Children", in Brithenig, is a singular noun rather than
a plural.  I was surprised when addigera rhen, a negative verb phrase,
ended up with an aspirant mutation in front of it, caused by the pronoun
"nu", rather than a nasal mutation, which does not occur with an initial
vowel anyway.  I left it in because it did occur naturally.

- andrew.

Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz
Q. Why are there so many Smiths in the Phone Book?
A. Because they all have telephones!

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