ñe
is a comparative. By itself it expresses an inexact equivalence. So jacālmi ñe jakīþi is “bricks as stones” and ancēwri ñe anhērmi “mud as mortar”, meaning here that the one substance is used in place of the other.
ē teteñ ien
hēja ñanna jacālmi jajūti nā
aþ te sāim nīkan jacālmi ñe jakīþi
aþ te sāim nīkan ancēwri ñe anhērmi;
And they to each other (said)
we should make many baked bricks
and te they with bricks as stones
and te they with mud as mortar
sāim
Apparently I haven’t been blogging personal pronouns as they come up.
sāim is a 3rd person paucal pronoun, so “they, them”. I use paucal to mean a group or a collective, since that is how the paucal pronouns are generally used. However, if the group or collective is large (for arbitrary measures of large), a plural pronoun will often be used. Since the two main characters or groups in the Babel text are the Lord God and the people who build the tower of Babel, and since the people generally act and speak collectively, the paucal sāim is the appropriate pronoun to use.
Other pronominal references in the third sentence include the 3rd person paucal reflexive in the inflected form of se, teteñ, meaning “they to each other” and the 1st person inclusive paucal agent in the inflected form of ñi, ñanna, meaning “we”.
So far then we know:
ē teteñ ien
hēja ñanna jacālmi jajūti nā
aþ te sāim nīkan jacālmi ñe jakīþi
aþ te sāim nīkan ancēwri ñe anhērmi;
And they to each other (said)
we should make many baked bricks
and te they with bricks ñe stones
and te they with mud ñe mortar
ñe I will discuss tomorrow, and then te.
anhērmi
A collective noun designating mortar, defined as a semi-fluidic substance used to hold bricks together, and appearing 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;
ancēwri
A collective noun designating mud and appearing 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;
jacālme
Brick, as in a building block of shaped clay. The third sentence of the Babel text has to do with bricks.
ē teteñ ien hēja ñanna jacālmi jajūti nā
aþ te sāim nīkan jacālmi ñe jakīþi
aþ te sāim nīkan ancēwri ñe anhērmi;
The word even appears twice, both times in the plural. Other nouns appearing in this sentence include the stative anjūta “baked” appearing as jajūti and modifying jacālmi to make “baked bricks”, the plural jakīþi “rocks, stones”, and the collectives ancēwri and anhērmi.
il aþ
is an il word meaning “and then”, expressing something subsequent to something else. In the second sentence of the Babel text:
il ñatta jarēþa rūānnie il ñatta jamāesa japōññe sū jekiēn xīnār il aþ ñatta āke jamāramma;
it acts as part of a coordinating conjunction connecting the three clauses in the sentence. So:
while:
they made a journey from the east
during which:
they found a plain in the land Shinar
and then:
they made there their home
While they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and made there their home.
-mma
This suffix is a shorter way of saying nīkamma, expressing association with a 3rd person entity. So, in the third clause of the second sentence of the Babel text:
ñatta āke jamāramma
jamāramma would mean “their home”, –mma referring to the same 3rd person (paucal) entity as –atta in ñatta. The clause means “they made there their home”.
What do you mean, “your spot”? This is obviously my spot.
āke
there, yonder. This word implies a much further distance than the usual word for “there” xō, which I notice just now that I haven’t blogged. Hmm.
In the second sentence of the Babel text:
il ñatta jarēþa rūānnie il ñatta jamāesa japōññe sū jekiēn xīnār il aþ ñatta āke jamāramma;
āke occurs in the third clause as the object of ñi inflected for a 3rd person paucal agent, along with jamāramma, which is jamāra “home” with the not-yet-discussed suffix –mma.
sū
This prepositional particle denotes location at, in, or on somewhere. In the Babel text, the phrase sū jekiēn xīnār is a prepositional phrase headed by sū. jekiēn means land, and xīnār is a representation of the proper name Shinar. So sū jekiēn xīnār is “in the land of Shinar”. The second clause (ñatta jamāesa japōññe sū jekiēn xīnār) of the second sentence (il ñatta jarēþa rūānnie il ñatta jamāesa japōññe sū jekiēn xīnār il aþ ñatta āke jamāramma;), therefore, is “they found a plain in the land of Shinar”.