Random text/translation thread

[akam chinjir]

Here's a thread where you can share occasional texts or translations, when you don't feel they need a thread of their own and they don't really fit anywhere else but you'd still like to share or solicit feedback. I've sometimes wanted a thread like that, hopefully others will find it useful and fun and interesting.

[akam chinjir]

Here's one to get things going. It's meant to be an Akiatu elder stereotyping the upland-dwelling Hrga̰nje and the island-dwelling Iqę́hhǫ, who get referred to as the Bird People and the Fish People, respectively; a bit of world-building (and rhetoric-building, and maybe also philosophy-building).

Code: Select all

matiwi      miku =su  waicu         titi hwi taki mawa wai, kimuki   wai sawi 
Bird.People water=FOC lie.down(HAB) how  NEG grab find TOP  that.way TOP 1p   

hakja=su  waicu         hwi taki mawa. kati=wati cija         mwi muki  ma
fire =FOC lie.down(HAB) NEG grab find  3p  =LOC  be.necessary SS  water SUB 

wuɲiku,  wahi kja  ikuri.ikuru papija hana.  tija kja  ɲukitau wai, 
approach but  COMP fluttering  jump   return now  COMP rain    TOP  

makwaja     maka  tasi      a   tamwi. ki  mihja-kwaja  hatau miku  acatau 
return.home go.up be.hidden LOC wood   DET drink-spirit great water bless  

jaku,     hawa     matiwi      hja       mihja mati.
stay(PFV) and.then Bird.People only.then drink sink(PFV)

The way the Bird People do not know water is the way that we do not know fire. Needing water, they approach, but fluttering about they dance back. When it rains they take shelter at home up in the trees. Their greatest drinkspirits bless the water and only then do the Bird People drink it down.

Code: Select all

jisakiwi    miku =su  waicu         titi hwi taki mawa wai, kimuki   wai
Fish.People water=FOC lie.down(HAB) how  NEG grab find TOP  that.way TOP

sawi wamika=su waicu         hwi taki mawa. tija kja  pahu     pahu
1p wind  =FOC  lie.down(HAB) NEG grab find  now  COMP be.angry REDUP(INC)

wai sawi=wati karata.ratta hwakatima      japaku aja, kawiwiki itaiwi itijau
TOP 1p  =LOC  IDEO         ceremonial.hat blow   away IDEO     ropes  push   

waku wija.       wahi kja    sawi waicu.waicu miwa waɲi  ma  wamikaru,
pull be.strained but  COMP   1p   ordinarily  NEG  think SUB breathe   

suwasu jaku      hawa     rawu         rawu.      sawi wamika=su  titi
sleep  stay(PFV) and.then be.satisfied REDUP(INC) 1p   wind  =FOC how  

parawara, kimuki   wai jisakiwi     miku =su  parawara.
wander    that.way TOP Fish.People  water=FOC wander

The way the Fish People do not know water is the way that we do not know air. When it gets angry, it blows our hats tumbling away and, howling, it stretches and strains our ropes. But normally we breathe without thinking, we sleep and are refreshed. The Fish People swim in water the way we swim in air.

[Pabappa]

My current sig:



Poswa (original):
bwubwa: Pabibo! Pibo!
baby.boy: vegetable-INSTR-1p! happy.1p!
boy: I'm eating vegetables! I'm enjoying myself!

bammapa: Pybampave! Pappote!
baby.girl: silly-surprise-see-2P! cheek.talk-agent-GEN-Ø-2P!
girl: You're silly, seeing by surprise! You're an idiot!

bwubwa: Peppebwop, bubwafom wa bupie mumbobwop. Pustoppama pabambo.
baby.boy: secret-1P<CAUS>-ACC, cook-1P-DAT and lay-1P.past bubble-1P<CAUS>-ACC. forehead-inside-see study-1P
boy: So I know the secret, because we cooked, and laid this to make it expand. With my brain I'm studying it all.

bwubwa: Pwapiomba *pobo* wa bamambabo.
baby.boy: cover-REFL-1P-ACC-3P *eat-1P* and make.happy-PASS-TR-1P.
boy: Because it covers me, *I'm eating* and I'm enjoying it.

The English translation is much longer than the original because the babies are speaking in disconnected thoughts, which translate to entire sentences in English and therefore repeat many of the same morphemes.

adapted from Marvin Comics November 19 2000, but not really a translation. My dialogue is much simpler.

other notes:

my translation of pwapiomba as "because it covers me" is probably wrong ... I really cant figure out what I meant there and i didnt take notes when i wrote it. The gloss is accurate but it seems a bit odd. Now that I think about it, I may have come up with an ad-hoc translation for cocoa ... if there was a word /pwapwu/, then "it comes from pwapwu" would indeed be pwapiomba. That would make more sense. But I never added such a word to the dictionary.

A few years ago, I had a conversation at work that played out almost exactly like this, which made me enjoy this particular strip much more. The two of us could even pass for grown-up versions of the babies in the comic.

[Nortaneous]

Here's the prelude to the monologue of Shquqou in a moderately archaic poetic Hlu retelling of the Vtsznxmqye Pvpchqpye Zzxzzyx (or, if you prefer, the Úsênman-ye Pùtywà-ye Nênî), an epic relating the Hathic invasion of Narng, their defeat at Zot, and the founding of the Empire of Zzxzzyx.

Poetic Hlu admits of a lot of flexibility in word order and a lot more compactness and ambiguity than you'd get elsewhere. Standard Hlu is verb-final and suffixing, so the syntax is customarily tortured to admit decent rhymes - and since there's a great deal of cultural influence from Zzxzzyx, the empire that contains their territory, Hlu poetry (and high-register prose) can just take its word order from Zzyxwqnp. The Vtsznxmq was originally written in Zzyxwqnp, of course. Definite articles are uncommon - since the standard meter for war poetry is the pretty compact Kalevala meter, so there isn't much room for them, and they're a recent innovation that's absent in Zzyxwqnp.

Ykoeku yaehlae choe thuem jjangnihl | yoeqnga hliddaesae i thwiyihl
[kjɤku jæɬæ cʰɤ tʰɯm ʄaŋniɬ | jɤʔŋɔ ɬiɗæsæ i tʰɥijiɬ]
Ykoeku yaehlae y-khoe thuem jjangnihl | yoeqnga hli-ddae-sae i=thwiyihl
Shquqou demon of=DEF ocean north | 3SG.M all HABIT-destroy-NONF of=everything

Ykoeku thuesaeqyi i ddoeny kueny | yKatnahl myahltuen yemak yhloeythueny
[kjɤku tʰɯsæʔji i ɗɤɲ kɯɲ | kjɔtnɔɬ mjɔɬtɯn jemɔk ɬjɤjtʰɯɲ]
Ykoeku thue-saeqyi i=ddoeny kueny | ykatnahl myahltuen yemak y=hloeythueny
Shquqou kill-NMLZ.A of=man myriad | of=Katnahl evil most of=red-spear

Koentue gahle wong hlituesae | yo gas yDue hnami oebansae
[kɤntɯ ⁿgɔɬe wɔŋ ɬitɯsæ | jo ⁿgɔs ⁿdjɯ n̥ɔmi ɤⁿbɔnsæ]
Koentue gahle wong hli-tue-sae | yo gas yDue hnami oe-ban-sae
Komthag great against HABIT-offend-NONF | city and of=Narng rubble PST-COP.CAUS-NONF

ggwak gas ddoeny gas bodicila | caeddue thueny aybohli lihla
[ɠwɔk ⁿgɔs ɗɤɲ ⁿgɔs ⁿboⁿdicilɔ | cæɗɯ tʰɯɲ ɔjⁿboɬi liɬɔ]
ggwak gas ddoeny gas bo-ddici-la | caeddue thueny aebohli lihla
barbarian and man and CAUS-gather-3 | peasant spear PASS-CAUS-come 3PL

nwaya lihla kokha ykoet hmi | hlyomhla yngwe xi yac qwiyoyi
[nwɔjɔ liɬɔ kokʰɔ kjɤt m̥i | ɬjomɬɔ ŋwje çi jac ʔwijoji]
nway-a lihla kokha ykoet hmi | hlyom-hla y=ngwe xi yac qwiyo-yi
order-3 3PL sword arrow with | fear-3PL.POSS of=death for no_one scatter-REFL

hoeny i Katnahl ggwakhmun woenya | hoeny i Cihlae ddoenyhmun woenya
[hɤɲ i kɔtnɔɬ ɠwɔkm̥un wɤɲɔ | hɤɲ i ciɬæ ɗɤɲm̥un wɤɲɔ]
hoeny i=Katnahl ggwak-hmun woeny-la | hoeny i=Cihlae ddoeny-hmun
language of=Katnahl barbarian-DAT speak-3 | language of=Cihlae man-DAT speak-3

So - Shquqou, scourge of the northern seas, destroyer of all, killer of ten thousand men, vilest among the berserkers, habitual offender against the divine order, leveler of the cities of Narng, and so on, gathers an audience of barbarians and men, of peasants and warriors, threatens them with swords and arrows so none of them run for fear of death, and speaks to the barbarians in the language of Katnahl and to the men in the language of Cihlae, and... delivers a long sermon on obscure points of theology.

It is worth mentioning that Hlu is not known for the quality of its poetry.

[akam chinjir]

Pabappa. I wonder how much of my trouble grasping the glosses comes from my ignorance about Poswa, and how much from the fact it's supposed to be baby talk

One particular question: the morpheme glossed TR in bamambabo, I'm curious what exactly it does. Is it some kind of applicative? Does it have a periphrastic alternative? (...reading about applicatives today...)

Nortaneous. Rhyming in a conlang... did you let yourself cheat? I've only done one snatch of song in Akiatu, and I managed to find an appropriate rhyme, which was nice; but in general I find story-telling daunting enough (the conpeople are supposed to place a premium on story-telling), no real idea what I'll do when it's time to plot out poetic and musical traditions.

[Nortaneous]

Nortaneous. Rhyming in a conlang... did you let yourself cheat? I've only done one snatch of song in Akiatu, and I managed to find an appropriate rhyme, which was nice; but in general I find story-telling daunting enough (the conpeople are supposed to place a premium on story-telling), no real idea what I'll do when it's time to plot out poetic and musical traditions.

CCVC syllable structure makes it a lot easier, especially since the vowels have a pretty skewed distribution -- *-e *-i *-u all merge to -i in most cases, and -a -ae are common.

[Pabappa]

Pabappa. I wonder how much of my trouble grasping the glosses comes from my ignorance about Poswa, and how much from the fact it's supposed to be baby talk

One particular question: the morpheme glossed TR in bamambabo, I'm curious what exactly it does. Is it some kind of applicative? Does it have a periphrastic alternative? (...reading about applicatives today...)

Im not familiar with applicatives, but skimming the Wikipedia article I'd say that this indeed qualifies as one. I 've always thought of it as a transitive verb marker, TR being the abbreviation for transitive, but perhaps applicative would make more sense since some of the intransitives like pabibo "Im eating vegetables" are in fact syntactically transitive. Thanks for the info.

whoops, i missed the other part of your question. One deficiency in Poswa is that there is often only one way to express something. The plus side is that sentences are surprisingly compact, but the downside is that there isn't much room for freedom of expression. All verbs with definite direct objects must use the transitive verb endings ... if I tried to do it with the shorter intransitive endings, it would either have a different syntactic meaning or be ungrammatical. (I think "I....it" is considered a definite object, it just is one that is omitted from the sentence.)

[Yalensky]

Vtsznxmqye Pvpchqpye Zzxzzyx
Zzyxwqnp

Are these placeholder names? An especially opaque orthography? A transliteration of an abjad?

[Vijay]

"Seeing by surprise"?

[Pabappa]

Someone acting silly will often stumble around as though they were blind, only seeing things as they bump into them or are otherwise surprised.

I didn't really need to provide that detailed of an etymology, since the speakers perceive that morpheme as an indivisible unit, but I didn't want to just translate it as "silly" either since I think it's more specific.

[Kuchigakatai]

Vtsznxmqye Pvpchqpye Zzxzzyx
Zzyxwqnp

Are these placeholder names? An especially opaque orthography? A transliteration of an abjad?

The second thing.

<v y> are syllabic consonants and <q> is a vowel (based on X-SAMPA [Q]), and <p t x> following a vowel or syllabic consonant are tone markers. There are some shenanigans involving double consonants and nasalization.

[Nortaneous]

Vtsznxmqye Pvpchqpye Zzxzzyx
Zzyxwqnp

Are these placeholder names? An especially opaque orthography? A transliteration of an abjad?

The second thing.

<v y> are syllabic consonants and <q> is a vowel (based on X-SAMPA [Q]), and <p t x> following a vowel or syllabic consonant are tone markers. There are some shenanigans involving double consonants and nasalization.

<z> is also a vowel (a convention taken from Natqgu, where <c q r x z> /ɔ ʉ ɞ æ ə/)

There's an alternate orthography, which would be used for a slightly different dialect. In the <q>-is-a-vowel dialect, /e ə/ still contrast after /s j/, so they have to be different vowels - and at that point you may as well analyze all of /a ɒ e ə o i u z̩ v̩/ as phonemic. But some dialects have merged them to /ə/ after /s/ and /e/ after /j/, so you can analyze it as having only /a ə i u/ - so instead of (ignoring tones) /v̩sə̃mɒ̃je pv̩cɒje zənz̩/, you have /usə̃mãjə putjwajə zəni/ and a lot of rules - /i u/ fricate except after /j w/, /a/ is [ɒ] after labials, /ə/ is rounded after labials and fronted after /j/, and so on. And since there aren't so many vowels, you can get away with only <a e i u>, so úsênmanye pùtywàye zênî.

[Pabappa]

Retiring another sig, so I want to post the translation here. I never wrote it down as I made the image, and Im not at home so Im working with a somewhat out-of-date dictionary, but .... I'll do my best. This is almost certainly at least partly wrong. Also, Im not going to look at the original comic until Im done guessing what it was.

Paby pupupavo. Boppam mappem bapažo.
I see that all is of a wheel. [In] a mirage dream we are trapped.

Wabapi tupi pem pubupa.
I confess the empty womb; she dreams a plan.

Papop papampuva bloppopapio.
Rolling through the grass, we need to escape.

Okay, the original was here. @jaydarquem on Instagram.

I know my translation of the 1st panel is correct, and that the difference from the original is on purpose. I dont really remember what I was intending to do in panel 2, except that using /waba/ "empty womb" instead of a word that meant death in general was also deliberate. Panel 3 i only am confident of the last word, which means "we need to escape".

oh, okay, i see it now .... /papa/ "prison, cell" + /m/ (locative) + /puva/ "exit" plus the word for "we need to escape". so the 3rd panel is close to literal except i threw in a redundant /papop/ just to give it more repetition like the original.

[Pabappa]

I havent done any substantial work on any of my conlangs since September, and Im starting to lose my touch. I need something to keep my interest up. So ..... here's a prayer:

Pišiambose mapalafe Sipapa mapope žižžabe; Pompemembo pappežažo Wimpiuži, bombiuži, plempiuži. Num mateže tabaelase Passupe pepapi bittavi. Mamaežabes wibompepie, Pwappunom babiabe, žambabi. Tši.

Our beloved savior, As you hold open the gates of Heaven; Armies close in on us. Energize us, protect us, help us. Three in one, you guide us; may your will persist beyond the end of time. You unfailingly care for us; May you love and provide for us in the great homeland. Amen.

This is adapted from the Latin prayer O salutaris hostia:

O salutaris Hostia, Quæ cæli pandis ostium: Bella premunt hostilia, Da robur, fer auxilium. Uni trinoque Domino Sit sempiterna gloria, Qui vitam sine termino Nobis donet in patria. Amen.

O saving Victim, opening wide The gate of Heaven to us below; Our foes press hard on every side; Thine aid supply; thy strength bestow. To thy great name be endless praise, Immortal Godhead, One in Three. Oh, grant us endless length of days, In our true native land with thee. Amen.

Poswa poetry doesn't rhyme because all verbs and many nouns end in obligatory person markers, making rhymes too common to be meaningful. Instead, I decided to go for a 4-4 / 3-3-3 / 4-4 / 3-3-3 rhythm. (I dont know the technical term for that sorry). All words are stressed on their first sylalble, but one - syllable words receive weak stress and can count as part of a four-beat foot on either side. Also note that diphthongs count as one syllabic nucleus, not two.

Im too out of practice to give a Leipzig gloss, but i could give a very narrow literal tranlslation. the one i put up is close to literal, but not quite so much because it doesnt give the double meanings of some words. e.g. the god being prayed to here is female, but it turned out as I wrote the English that it's easier to just use "you" instead of e.g. "you, oh Goddess".

[Pabappa]

Okay here is my best guess at a gloss, a narrow translation, and finally notes on the prayer I posted above. Like most narrow translations, it is extremely wordy compared to the original, and gives the impression that Poswa is an extremely efficient language. This is especially so for religious terms that are difficult to express in any language not built around that religion.

Pišiambose mapalafe
bully-LOC-HYPC-1P-GEN-2P Mapa-rescue-2P
Dear one, who we bully, you oh Mapa who rescue us,

Sipapa mapope žižžabe;
salvation door-ACC-Ø-2P key-TR-2P
Your keys opened the door to salvation.

Pompemembo pappežažo
army-PL-LOC-1P attack-TR-1P.PASS
Armies attack us;

Wimpiuži, bombiuži, plempiuži.
energy-TR-2P.PASS.IMP, help-TR-2P.PASS.IMP, good.deed-TR-2P.PASS.IMP
Strengthen us, help us, do good for us.

Num mateže tabaelase
one three-ESS Tabaela-GEN-2P
Oh Tabaela, you are three in one.

Passupe pepapi bittavi.
victory-Ø-2P world-ACC-Ø-2P.IMP survive.beyond-2P.IMP
Let your victory survive beyond the world.

Mamaežabes wibombepie,
nurture-TR-2P-GEN cease-2P-NEG-2P,
You never stop caring for us.

Pwappunom babiabe, žambabi.
country-LOC womb-TR-2P, love-TR-2P.
Just as your womb provides for us, may you love us in the great country.

Tši.
will.of.God
Your will be done.

This prayer is addressed to a goddess, and in the prayer she is called both Mapa (first line) and Tabaela (fifth line). The worshippers believe in three goddesses, all female, and that the three goddesses are linked to each other and therefore can be addressed in a way reminiscent of the holy Trinity of Christianity, though there are important differences. A Poswob prayer would not switch from one goddess to another the way the Latin starts out addressing Jesus and then addresses God as "three in one". (Thats just my interpretation of it though; it could be analyzed other ways.)

The sentence "Oh Tabaela, you are three in one" would therefore not be commonly heard in the Poswobs' religion, but it wouldn't be blasphemous either, because many worshippers recognize that the goddesses cooperate with each other and some believe that they have a circular power structure in which each both leads and follows another, meaning that all three are supreme. Others, however, consider Mapa the true supreme deity and say that the other two goddesses are subordinate to her. In either view, the "three in one" view is unorthodox but not strictly incorrect.

The Poswa word mapal means "pregnant woman", and Mapa is often depicted as pregnant, but the words are only distantly cognate. (In fact, this might even be an error on my part, but Im not at home now so I might be just looking at an out-of-date dictionary. Even if it is an error, I could resolve it just by taking what seems to be a spurious /a/ out of the parent language form of the word.) The name Mapa originally meant "(one who) shadows with her womb", because goddesses are depicted as physically large and therefore her pregnant womb casts a large shadow over her worshippers. (But the only part that is cognate with the word for pregnant is /ma/ "womb".) The name Tabaela has no transparent etymology, and though it is just one letter off from words meaning school/playground, hill, mermaid, and crutch, I don't think the speakers would make much of a connection between any of these words and her name. (These four words are not cognate to each other, either.)

Poswa is a genderless language, so the only clue that the goddess is female is the last line of the main prayer, where the worshippers use the word babiabe, which means womb but is a transitive verb. This is both metaphorical and metonymical ... Mapa provides the miracles that humans require to get a newly conceived baby to term, and she also nurtures the worshippers as they grow, and thus, metaphorically "wombs" them just as a pregnant woman carries a baby.

The word for love, žam, once meant "protect", and still carries connotations of this former use. When humans love (žam) each other, it implies that one would risk their life for the other. But humans don't žam their gods because their gods are invincible. Thus, to say "I love Mapa", one would use an entirely different verb, and create a sentence like Mapas wufambo.


I had to use "the country" instead of "our country" because oddly enough, this is a word that actually gets one syllable shorter when the possessed form is used. "In our country" would be pwappiom and "in your country" would be pwappiem. The word *wibompepie in the first post is an error, as it should be wibombepie, but I dont want to edit that post now.

[Pabappa]

In 2007 we must have had a translation challenge of "no smoking" because I found this image sitting on m yhard drive:

I decided to update it to Poswa as it stands today:

Both phrases mean literally "I forbid you to smoke". i could use a single word negative imperative like pupapapie "dont smoke!" but i like this construction better.

Neither of t he words is the same because Ive replaced so many of the origina lwords. The grammar hasnt changed much, but in 2007 i chose a VO word order becxause i wanted the negative morpheme to come first even though Poswa is and has always been SOV. now Im more comfortable sticking with the (S)OV word order that dominates the language.

The most obvious change is the sound of the language. The sign on the right has the aesthetic I was going for all along, but in 2007 my vocabulary was mostly word-generated bisyllabic roots with no etymology made up of smaller parts. Only by going back and deriving new roots from monosyllables in Play was I able to make roots like pupap- which comes from Play roots meaning "sun fire smoke" instead of just having a CVCCVC /maffel/ "smoke" with no internal etymology.

Im still waffling over whether the verb for "forbid" should be transitive in this construction. if it is, i need to change /požo/ to /požabo/. but historically the subjunctive derives from a compound ending in an intransitive verb. a non-standard gloss of the new version could be pupap- "smoke" + -epo "I control you" + požo "I say no".

those images look insanely huge on my screen, but Im using the browser zoomed in, and sometimes some elements seem to magnify more than they should.

[Man in Space]

Hopefully this is acceptable…I've been highly demotivated lately due to health reasons but I want to get back into the swing of things.

Áʕe këðné maȝĝ tóál nûkteð tóál. Láȝ ulka lełi ʕítʕor ki lü.
COP hope.of.success without resist ATT | make ready so.that motion.inwards 2PL PASS
"Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated."

A few notes on this one:
- The use of tóál 'ATTEMPTIVE' here implies that even trying to resist is futile.
- CT doesn't really distinguish verbs from nouns much aside from word-order constraints. Lots of zero-derivation, as here with nûkteð 'resist(ance)'. Note that it still takes a verbal marker (tóál, the attemptive) despite being employed as a noun.
- CT uses a lot of verbs of motion as opposed to adpositions (in the case of this language, inpositions) to talk about position and movement relative to something else.
- ʕítʕor ki lü—CT has VOS word order. You would expect ki '2PL' to be the subject here, but it's actually in object position. Instead of using a voice marker proper for the passive, CT employs a dummy subject lü. So here, the sense is more of "you will be made to come in"—i.e., you're going to be brought into the fold.

[Esneirra973]

Here's the Lord's Prayer in Salibian, my newest conlang which is spoken by the descendants of Crusaders in Lebanon. It is an Occitan-based creole with a Levantine Arabic substrate.

Paire-nou ke es en ṣel,
father-1P.POSS REL be.PRES in heaven
Our Father who art in heaven,

Santfikát es nom-ta.
hallow-PART.PST be.PRES name-2MS.POSS
Hallowed be thy name.

Mamlakou-ta bebni.
kingdom-2MS.POSS PRES-come
Thy kingdom come.

Blenta-ta es fait
will-2MS.POSS be.PRES do.PART.PST
Thy will be done

en terra com es en ṣel.
in earth as be.PRES in heaven
on earth as it is in heaven.

Da-nou en este diya pan-nou dyari,
give-1P.POSS in PROX.MS day bread-1P.POSS daily
Give us this day our daily bread,

î beperdna-nou per pekât-nou,
and PRES-forgive-1P.POSS for sin.PLU-1P.POSS
and forgive us our trespasses,

com nos beperdna-les ke bepekka contra-nou,
as 1P.NOM PRES-forgive-3P.OBJ REL PRES-sin against-1P.OBJ
as we forgive those who trespass against us,

î mech bemna-nou â tentasyou,
and NEG PRES-lead-1P.OBJ to temptation
and lead us not into temptation,

pero blebra-nou de mal.
but PRES-deliver-1P.OBJ from evil
but deliver us from evil.

Âmen.
Amen
Amen.

For those wondering about the pronunciation, Salibian orthography is heavily based on the Arabic Chat Alphabet.