Tesazo in Translation
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 10:11 pm
The most succesful conlanging project I've ever had entailed shittons of translations so I might as well commit to doing it again. God willing once a day, we'll see.
Tesazo is my current project; it's spoken in a large temperate plain region in the far south of my conworld; the grammatical leitmotif is of a SOV language which suddenly jumped into contact with hardcore head-initial ones, and suddenly changed to match, but with odd traces (i.e. Relative Clause-Noun is the usual way, or the prevalence of converbs). It's also sort of a ripoff of Thai, including the direct theft of vowels and perfective markers.
SIM=simultaneous; PRF=perfective; SBJ=subjunctive (also gnomic)
(U) s'opapiki zõztanna, ererespõk 'ti
(1p) see-SIM-3p.OBJ star-ACC know-ITER-1p.SUBJ.3p.OBJ well
Seeing the stars, I always realize fully"
"Looking up at the stars, I know quite well,"
Ken tõ unes pesamayũkka yayanak ũp ũp
REL 3p 1p.BENEF think-SBJ.3p.SUBJ.3p.OBJ-SR cat-PROX NEG NEG
That they don't think this cat for me."
"That, for all they care, I can go to hell,"
Note that in Tesazo ereo "to know," is an achievement, more comparable to English "realize," though much much more common and used in situations like English "know." Allowing for the stative sense of the original would require a more technical verb; I've used it with the iterative which in combo with the adverb suggests a habitual sense which is compatible with the following gnomic.
Note that the subjunctive is also used for gnomics; a product of its origins in the imperfective future of the protolanguage. More specific usages to come. The idiom "to not think this cat for X" means to not care, not give a shit about X.
Tired now :p
Tesazo is my current project; it's spoken in a large temperate plain region in the far south of my conworld; the grammatical leitmotif is of a SOV language which suddenly jumped into contact with hardcore head-initial ones, and suddenly changed to match, but with odd traces (i.e. Relative Clause-Noun is the usual way, or the prevalence of converbs). It's also sort of a ripoff of Thai, including the direct theft of vowels and perfective markers.
SIM=simultaneous; PRF=perfective; SBJ=subjunctive (also gnomic)
(U) s'opapiki zõztanna, ererespõk 'ti
(1p) see-SIM-3p.OBJ star-ACC know-ITER-1p.SUBJ.3p.OBJ well
Seeing the stars, I always realize fully"
"Looking up at the stars, I know quite well,"
Ken tõ unes pesamayũkka yayanak ũp ũp
REL 3p 1p.BENEF think-SBJ.3p.SUBJ.3p.OBJ-SR cat-PROX NEG NEG
That they don't think this cat for me."
"That, for all they care, I can go to hell,"
Note that in Tesazo ereo "to know," is an achievement, more comparable to English "realize," though much much more common and used in situations like English "know." Allowing for the stative sense of the original would require a more technical verb; I've used it with the iterative which in combo with the adverb suggests a habitual sense which is compatible with the following gnomic.
Note that the subjunctive is also used for gnomics; a product of its origins in the imperfective future of the protolanguage. More specific usages to come. The idiom "to not think this cat for X" means to not care, not give a shit about X.
Tired now :p