Category: T

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talōnte

talnoote

talōnte

So, first sentence of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:

il talōnte tiēlen ñi le rā jahāwekien nō il ñi lerāka jawāna sū jakīþa ja pa antēnnā ōl;

talōnte is one of the few (two?) defective nouns. It carries no prefix and inflects to talōnti for a plural which can be either collective or distributive, it doesn’t matter. It also never appears by itself; instead it always follows il, which makes it part of a clause-level modifier dealing with time. So, what does it mean, already?

It means “yesterday” or “ago” as in il talōnte wījtē “three yesterdays” meaning “three days ago”.

“Yesterday…”

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antēnnā

anteennaa

antēnnā

Before I get to this word, a note on the next several weeks, if not months.

Every so often the conlanging community gets together and has a relay. A relay is a game we play, much like Telephone, where one receives a text in someone’s conlang, translates it into one’s own conlang, and then passes the text with sufficient grammar and vocabulary notes along to the next person. Some people believe in faithfully translating whatever they get, even if it is somewhat (or quite a bit 🙂 ) nonsensical. Others, and this includes me, believe in fixing up any text they get so that it makes sense to a person who speaks their conlang. This includes more than fixing grammar errors. It can involve changing all sorts of things when the speakers of the conlang are non-human or have a vastly different conculture than the creator of the text.

In honor of the relay that we are currently having, (the 18th Conlang Relay, subscribe to the Relay mailing list for news of this and subsequent relays), I will go through most of the as yet unblogged vocabulary for the LCC2 Relay Text, the LCC3 Relay Text, and the 17th Conlang Relay Text. By the time I am through I may be able to blog the 18th Conlang Relay text, whatever it turns out to be. 😉

So, the LCC2 Relay Text was a story about a talking rock. I had a word for talking as in currently speaking, but not a word for talking as in able-to-talk. Hence, this word. It is derived from the same root as the word for “story”, which I haven’t blogged yet.

This word occurs in the title and throughout the story, generally in inanimate singular to agree with jakīþa “rock”.

xiēn jē jakīþa jatēnnā;
Concerning the talking rock.

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tō jāo … tō

toospacejaaospacespacespacetoo

tō jāo … tō

The last sentence (number eleven) of the Babel text:

tō jāo sete sawēra λi waxāon tō sū āke ōrra ñamma anwaxāon tō antaxōni tēna ā λi ārōn;

Kēlen has several coordinating conjunctions. tō jāo … tō is one of them, though it is nearly interchangeable with several non-coordinating conjunctions, such as tō which signals a reason and tō tūaþ which signals intent. tō jāo … tō and its alternates tō jāo and tō … tō jāo signal a consequence and is often translated “so” or “therefore” and could be translated “consequently”. The instrumental marker used with ñi is also tō. Sentence eleven deals with the consequences of the Lord’s wrath, and so:

“Therefore (tō jāo) their name is Waxāon [Confusion] because (tō) there the Lord made confusion of (tō as instrument) all the languages.”

And that’s it for the Babel text. Tune in tomorrow for something else.

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tō

too

tō

We’re on sentence 6 of the Babel text:

il aþ ñi λi ārōn rā āke tō sema mo sarōña jamāonre nīkan jakōnōr ja ōrra ñatta;

tō is in many ways similar to tō tūaþ in that it also conjoins clauses, signalling that the second clause is a consequence of the first clause. tō tūaþ specifically signals intended effect; tō signals a reason.

“And then the Lord went there to…”

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tō tūaþ

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tō tūaþ

Continuing from yesterday on the fifth sentence of the Babel text:

ē teteñ ien hēja ñanna lewēra tō tūaþ wā ñi ñēim makkepōlien rā anmārwi āñ pēxa;

tō tūaþ conjoins clauses and signals that a reason is to follow. I tend to translate this as “in order to” or “in order that”.

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te & la

te

te by itself can be either the past tense of se or of la. When in doubt, assume la, since se is usually inflected.

la

la is a relational that takes an object and asserts its existence. So, in the third sentence of the Babel text

ē teteñ ien
hēja ñanna jacālmi jajūti nā
aþ te sāim nīkan jacālmi ñe jakīþi
aþ te sāim nīkan ancēwri ñe anhērmi;

te merely asserts that the object or situation (sāim nīkan jacālmi ñe jakīþi in the first te clause, and sāim nīkan ancēwri ñe anhērmi in the second) is so. It is in the past tense because the whole narrative is in the past tense.

And they to each other (said)
we should make many baked bricks
and they with bricks as stones
and they with mud as mortar.

And that ends the third sentence. The fourth tomorrow.

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antaxōni

antaxooni

antaxōni

antaxōni is generally translated as “language”, though it includes more than speech and grammar. It specifically includes pragmatics and kinesthetics and customs of a culture.

ñi antaxōni cī;
“Fiat lingua!”

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antōrren

antoorren

antōrren

the quality of having come to the natural point of completion of a process or an event, finished, ended.

The second part of yesterday’s noun phrase is antōrren. Since this is modifying the inanimate singular jacēha “attempt”, it is also inanimate singular. So in this sentence from the North Wind and the Sun, the thing which the North Wind is finally doing is ending its attempt at blowing the cloak off the wanderer.

illoren ñamma jacēha jatōrren ā mūrāna masīrien;
Finally, the North Wind stopped trying.