Can any speakers of Chinese and Arabic translate these?

Natural languages and linguistics
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alice
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Can any speakers of Chinese and Arabic translate these?

Post by alice »

I found these in a fantasy novel; can anyone translate them? I've included what seems to be a translation of the Chinese one just in case.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x-2GaE ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jqpc7V ... sp=sharing
Last edited by alice on Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Linguoboy
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Re: For speakers of Chinese and Arabic

Post by Linguoboy »

Ugh; unjoined Arabic characters.

The translation matches the Chinese in the second instance, however. The poem is "Ode to the Plum Blossom" (卜算子-咏楳) by the Song Dynasty poet Lù Yóu (陸游), in case you're interested in comparing other translations.
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alice
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Re: For speakers of Chinese and Arabic

Post by alice »

You might need to wait a few seconds before the images load.

In the same book, another piece of what looked like Arabic turned out to be Arabic letters,but in isolated form, and written from left to right.
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alice
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Re: Can any speakers of Chinese and Arabic translate these?

Post by alice »

Nobody at all? I find that very surprising.
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kodé
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Re: Can any speakers of Chinese and Arabic translate these?

Post by kodé »

Sorry! Yep, for the Arabic, the letters are unjoined, and they don’t appear to make any sense. (Although since they’re unjoined, its nigh-impossible to figure out the word boundaries, which makes trying to see if it’s actually Arabic words much more difficult). My guess, not being terribly proficient in Arabic, is that this is gobbledygook … but I could be wrong. Best case scenario, some words might be real, but the person writing them doesn’t know how Arabic works at all.
Linguoboy wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 10:50 am Ugh; unjoined Arabic characters.
I *know*, right?! It’s such a gross feeling to read that.
Kuchigakatai
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Re: Can any speakers of Chinese and Arabic translate these?

Post by Kuchigakatai »

There's spaces in the line though, and these should be word boundaries.

آيا نم نياز به حس شوخ طبعي دارم؟

Google Translate identifies it as Persian, translating it as "Do I need a sense of humor?" or "Do I need to feel good?". No idea as for its accuracy though.
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Raphael
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Re: Can any speakers of Chinese and Arabic translate these?

Post by Raphael »

Well, I suspect that if it was complete nonsense, Google Translate wouldn't be able to do much with it.
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Re: Can any speakers of Chinese and Arabic translate these?

Post by hwhatting »

I only have beginner's Persian, but I recognise some words - e.g. da:ram "I have" at the end of the sentence. So GT's identification seems to be correct.
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