Relay Texts – Langs and Conlangs

June 13, 2011June 9, 2011

luhañen

We’re still on sentence 19 of the LCC4 relay text:

ñamma jōrre ewaþ luhañen temme ke λi tānre ien sere jatañēn ien jāo kēñ;

luhañen is a clause-level modifier that denotes a continual or progressing action. Here it modifies the clause temme ke λi tānre ien sere jatañēn ien jāo kēñ “Tānre said, ‘Do you like this?'”. So, as she finished stabbing him and he finished going under the river’s water, Tānre continues to ask her a question. Weirdness!

And that brings us to sentence 20, which is the simple se jatōrren; or “The end.” The moral to this story, so far as there is one, is apparently not to accost strange women on the road.

And that brings us to the end of the relay texts. I haven’t gotten around to updating the others to the point where I can blog them. So, I need a new topic. Any suggestions?

June 12, 2011June 9, 2011

anōrre

On to sentence 19 of the LCC4 relay text:

ñamma jōrre ewaþ luhañen temme ke λi tānre ien sere jatañēn ien jāo kēñ;

jōrre is the inanimate singular form of anōrre, which refers to something that has stopped. The word is singular here because it is referring to the woman’s specific action of stabbing poor Tānre. So, ñamma jōrre is “She made it stop” or “She stopped (it)”. I’ll do the second clause tomorrow.

June 11, 2011June 9, 2011

anhāri

We’re still on sentence 18 of the LCC4 relay text:

ñamma jatāŋŋi ānen antānre il aþ ñi sanārme rā jatāna anhāri tā;

“She quickly made many holes and then ” ñi sanārme rā jatāna anhāri tā; or “his body went to the river … under”. anhāri is “water” and coming as it does after the word for river, it refers to the river’s water. anhāri nearly always occurs as a collective noun, as befits a liquid. The singular form jahāra means “a drop of water”.

June 10, 2011June 3, 2011

antāŋŋe

We’re on sentence 18 of the LCC4 relay text:

ñamma jatāŋŋi ānen antānre il aþ ñi sanārme rā jatāna anhāri tā;

antāŋŋe refers to having a hole that goes from one side of the object all the way through to the other. A jatāŋŋe then is a hole, but a hole like a hole in a bucket and not a hole like a hole in the ground. So she made holes ānen antānre “quickly” and then … tune in tomorrow.

June 9, 2011June 3, 2011

anxūna

We’re still on sentence 17 of the LCC4 relay text:

ñamma jēste rā λi tānre sakīwa kiē ānen anxūna;

anxūna refers to a pattern and one characteristic of a pattern is that it repeats – so ānen anxūna means “repeatedly”. So she pushed the knife through Tānre’s skin repeatedly. Poor Tānre.

June 8, 2011June 3, 2011

jēste

So, sentences 16 and 17 of the LCC4 relay text (yes this one was a bit longer than usual):

selre jerrasōr ien jāo; ñamma jēste rā λi tānre sakīwa kiē ānen anxūna;

“My reply to you is this.” and then ñamma jēste…. jēste is the word for “knife” and she made it change location to (rā) through Tānre’s skin (λi tānre sakīwa kiē) and then ānen anxūna, which I will discuss tomorrow.

June 7, 2011June 3, 2011

-ēle and -ēri

-ēle

-ēri

Still on sentence 14 of the LCC4 relay text:

temme ien pa ē matēnnīkōnēri ē matēnnīkōnēle ī le ancē ja sere jāo;

Yesterday I said that matēnnīkōn more or less meant “spouse”. The suffix –ēri is a suffix that only applies to animate nouns and expresses an association with another animate, in this case a 2nd person animate, so “your”. Likewise, the suffix –ēle does the same thing, only with a 1st person animate, so “my” or “our”. So Tānre says here “Your spouse and my spouse and also I have the ability to tell you it.”

Did I mention this story was weird?

Now, I like to think that Tānre is trying to be clever (and failing), in that when he says “your spouse” he means himself as he hopes to be in the future, and “my spouse” is likewise the woman, and then he repeats referring to himself again, perhaps in the present? Not that the text says this explicitly, but otherwise we are left with two spouses that didn’t presumably exist at the beginning of this story.

Sentence 15, quickly, is:

serle jerrasōr ien jakēñ;

“Your reply to me is what?”

“What do you say to that?”

June 6, 2011June 3, 2011

matēnnīkōn

We’re on sentence 14 of the LCC4 relay text:

temme ien pa ē matēnnīkōnēri ē matēnnīkōnēle ī le ancē ja sere jāo;

So, a matēnnīkōn is someone who is/was engaged in the jatēnnīke ceremony with someone. Here this translates as “spouse” or “husband” or “wife”. More on this sentence tomorrow.

June 5, 2011June 3, 2011

kā

We’re on sentences 12 and 13 of the LCC4 relay text:

temme ke λi tānre ien pa liēn ancē ja selre ien jasōra wījtē ja la riwēra; temme ke macēna ien serle jāo kā;

Two line of dialog here. First, Tānre says, “I have the ability to tell you the three words of your name.” Then the woman says “Tell it to me.”

I mentioned yesterday that in sentence 11, the woman used cī, a hortative which is often used as a polite imperative. Here she uses the actual imperative, kā, as a sign of her growing impatience with poor Tānre.

June 4, 2011June 3, 2011

hi … hi

We’re on sentence 11 of the LCC4 relay text and the woman is still speaking:

hi pa riēn ancē hi serle jāo cī;

Here are two clauses conjoined with the coordinating conjunction hi … hi. This indicates that the first clause is a supposition: “you have the ability” and the second clause is a result of that supposition: “you tell it to me.” So, “If you have the ability, then tell it to me.”

Note also that the woman is using cī which is not an imperative but a hortative. This is because it is considered impolite to use the actual imperative.