Re: A new translation exercise (was: lexicons)

[Padraic Brown <pbrown@POLARIS.UMUC.EDU>]

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Irina Rempt wrote:

> Here's a translation exercise of my own: the first paragraph of the
> story about Grandpa and the Dragon (to be found in whole on my web
> page in Valdyan and English), that I originally wrote in Valdyan (no
> translation from the Dutch).
> 
> 
>       When my great-great-grandfather was a young man, he travelled
>       out into the world. First he went west; there was only sand
>       there. Then he went north; there was only snow there. Then he
>       went east; there the mountains were too high and
>       great-great-grandfather couldn't climb them. At last he decided
>       to travel south, on foot, on horseback, by cart and by boat. In
>       the south he saw the largest city in all the world.
> 

In Kernu:

Henny   jowenckèz le     meu sengogge, 
In the  youth     of the my  ancestor

ys henny    therres le     mounde ys itenu.
he into the lands   of the earth  he travelled.

Nonck, li     meir ys fu;  mays fussa   aci  sulment sabouls.  
Now    to the west he went but  she was here only    sand

Tonck, li     freidh ys fu;  mays fussa   aci  sulment la  nevès.  
Then   to the north  he went but  she was here only    the snow

Detonck, li     suil ys fu;  mays aci  fussna    uchoel montès
And then to the east he went but  here she was a high   mountain

e mo sengogs  las  ne  potu  montar-als.  
& my ancestor them not could scale-them

Nonck, ys le  ir li     geil  ys dongenasot: 
now    he the go to the south he set his mind

perry  mbeth, perry  mmarch, perry  ncar, perry  ncorrach.  
by the foot   by the mare    by the cart  by the boat

Henny  ngeil, ilalla ys la  ciwtatte la  plu  mhagna 
in the south  there  he the city     the most large

le     mounde ys wedev.
of the world  he saw

There's no word for great-great-grandfather, so we use 'ancestor' in
stead.  West is meir (towards the sea), north is freidh (to the cold),
east is suil (to the sun), south is geil (to the Gauls).  It can be seen
that in Kernu, like Spanish, the verb 'ir' is suppletive.  Only more so.

Since the "there was"  clauses don't indicate possession, we can (thank
god) evade a series of messy do- clauses and use "sa" + "esser": in this
instance, "fussa" is the emphatic form, which tacks the pronoun on the end
of the verb.  Anymore, there is less and less degree of "emphasis" between
"fussa" and "sa fu".  "fussna" is an agglomeration of "fu + sa + na", na
being the indefinite article.

You can see the basic SOV structure very clearly, and also the peculiar
repetition of the personal pronoun (at the start of the clause and just
preceeding the verb).  "wedev" is imperfect in form, but perfect in sense,
as verbs of sense and thought use only the imperfect in the past.

"dongenasot" reminds me of Faliscan tongeo (to think), and although both
mean to "think", dongenar literally means "put to the mind": do (prep. to)
+ n (sign of nasal mutation on masc. def. art. (which has since buggered
off)) + cen- (root for "head") + -asot (3. sing. perf. ending, itself
composed of -a- (1st conj. vb.) + -s- (perf. stem) + -o- (Latin perfects
in -av- --> -au- --> -o-) + -t (the ending)).  It also ought to be noted
that in verbal compounds, Kernu uses "cen-" borrowed from Goidelic rather
than the native "pen-".

Henny and perry: all prepositions may suffix an article, but several have
evolved "frozen" forms, where one form does for all possible combinations.
For example:

        definite                        indef.
        co-li   co-lis  (dative)        cun-ni
        cun-el  cun-ys  (oblique)       cun-en
        (with the)                      (with a)

have all been reduced to cunny.  Context helps one sort out which is
meant.  Usually.

-als:  Kernu has the odd proclivity of stating object pronouns twice:
        ys las  ne  potu  montar-als
        he them not could climb-them
which is particularly helpful if the first pronoun is dative, where there
is no gender distinction.

For that matter, lots of things are doubled (or even trebled): maboun,
excellent, is composed of mati- (good) + bono- (good); indefinite pronouns
are almost never seen alone, but almost always travel in herds
        ke tu a conient?        Who are you seeing?
        ce cestyn mbenne...     This woman...
where ce cestyn contains four pronouns.

Padraic.

> 
>             Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastinay.
>                      irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
>      http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/frontpage.html (English)
>     http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)
>