Elkar?l translation request

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pne
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Elkar?l translation request

Post by pne »

Here's a little challenge for y'all, to keep me from wrapping my brains around the grammar & vocabulary that closely:

Can you please translate for me into Elkar?l the sentence "If you can understand this, you can speak Elkar?l"? I'm considering swapping it for the Cadhinor in my current Slashdot .sig (which is in Verdurian and Cadhinor at the moment; the Verdurian is the same as the phrase in my .sig here). Variations such as "You know the Elkar?l language if you are able to read this" or whatever are fine, as long as the general meaning is the same.

Preferably with a word-for-word translation (or even better, morpheme-for-morpheme) so I can see what's going on. Thanks in advance!
[i]Esli epei eto cumprenan, shris soa Sfaha.[/i]
[i]e'osai ko sarji la lojban[/i]
[img]http://shavian.org/verdurian/images/mizinamo.png[/img]

Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

For what it’s worth, here’s my entry:

“If you can understand this, you can speak Elkar?l”:

J?n n?omqebat shobu ???mu b?th?t gg?n-ban bb?th bb?thu elkar?l b?that ddu.
Have reader-A knowledge of-written can-same anti-if `(`speak language of-elcari can-A`)`
And the breakdown:

J?n = "have, possess"
n?omqebat = n- (agentive) + ?om “read” (= the reader) + -qeb-at (assigns anaphora A)
shobu = shob “know” + -u (nominalizer) = “knowledge&#8221("have" (action) + "knowledge" (causer = thing possessed) = "to understand");
???mu = ? “of” + ??m “write” + -u (nominalizer) = “of (what is) written” (i.e., the sentence)
b?th?t = b?th “can, be able to” + -?t (indicates that the intender is the same as the experiencer, i.e., the reader)
gg?n-ban = gg?n “if” + ban (negative) (creates an if-then statement with the same order as the English, and opens a subordinate clause)
bb?th = “speak”
bb?thu = bb?th + -u (nominalizer) = “speech, language”
elkar?l = elk “create, make” + -a (act) = “creation” + -r (adjective) = elkar “creator, maker, (i.e., elcar) + -?l (genitive plural) = “of the elcari”
b?that = b?th “can” + -at (anaphoric reference A) = “A (the reader) can”
ddu = closes the subordinate clause begun with gg?n-ban

Not perfect, perhaps, but it’s the best I could come up with (my apologies if anyone posted theirs in the meantime). Any comments?

Ad onlel?n,
Glenn

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Post by Ihano »

Here's my stab at it (Glenn's helped):

??m n??m ??mu t?l-x?k b?th?t gg?n-ban dda shob?t bb?thu elkar?l add.
read reader writing on-surface-of-flat-object can-same then {know-same language of-Elkar?l}.
If the reader can read the writing on the surface of the flat object, then he knows the language of Elkar?l. -->
If you can read this, you can speak Elkar?l.

It's hard to be self-referential in Elkar?l, but when we're talking about something on a piece of paper (a computer screen?) I like to use t?l-x?k, "on the surface of the flat object." I avoided anaphora assignment in favor of using -?t in every case for "reader."
So voy sur so?n otr?n cot?n ci-min?i e fsiy.

Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

Ihano wrote:Here's my stab at it (Glenn's helped):

??m n??m ??mu t?l-x?k b?th?t gg?n-ban dda shob?t bb?thu elkar?l add.
read reader writing on-surface-of-flat-object can-same then {know-same language of-Elkar?l}.
If the reader can read the writing on the surface of the flat object, then he knows the language of Elkar?l. -->
If you can read this, you can speak Elkar?l.

It's hard to be self-referential in Elkar?l, but when we're talking about something on a piece of paper (a computer screen?) I like to use t?l-x?k, "on the surface of the flat object." I avoided anaphora assignment in favor of using -?t in every case for "reader."
Not bad; “writing on-surface-of-flat-object” certainly sounds like something an elcar would say, and “read what is written” is more compact than “have knowledge of what is written” for “to understand”. I hadn’t necessarily realized that a subordinate clause doesn’t have to be a full-blown sentence as such, but there are examples in the grammar.

My only question concerns the phrase shob?t bb?thu elkar?l; shouldn’t that be bb?thu elkar?l shob?t, since the purpose and the intender (here represented by –?t) come after the experiencer (the thing known)? (I have a similar question about the example in the grammar chnq?t q?ch (mother want) for “Mother wants”; since Mother is the intender, it seems as though it ought to be q?ch chnq?t.) Or am I getting the functions mixed up?

In a weird way, composing sentences in Elcarin is almost easier than in the other languages—it’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. And no conjugations or declensions to worry about…

Ad onlel?n,
Glenn

Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

..I also just note a mistake in my entry: I used gg?n-ban...dda rather than gg?n-ban dda...add. Oops! :? (In my own defense, I did type the thing up at 2:00 AM local time.)

Say...we have the Elcarin names for the elcari, uesti, ilii, ktuvoki, murtani, and trolls (ebdunmaki), but what do they call the icelani, flaids, and gdeoni? I didn't find any of the latter in the lexicon. (I suppose the gdeoni might be rij qhuuuuush-ch?nk?n = "really, really big dudes." :mrgreen: )

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Post by zompist »

Glenn Kempf wrote:My only question concerns the phrase shob?t bb?thu elkar?l; shouldn?t that be bb?thu elkar?l shob?t, since the purpose and the intender (here represented by ??t) come after the experiencer (the thing known)?
Shob is a purpose, and I intended it as 'to know that (the action)'... it isn't clear how you say 'to know a language' or 'to know astronomy', since purposes have only one argument. I think the best solution is an idiom: gg?t X Y shob X means that X knows field of study Y-- literally, X knows how to use it.

So that gives us:

??m n??m ??mu t?l-d?k b?th?t gg?n-ban dda gg?t?t bb?thu elkar?l shob?t add.
read reader writing on-surface-of-flat-object can-same then {use-same language of-Elcars know-same}.
If the reader can read the writing on the surface of the flat object, then he knows the language of Elkar?l. :>
If you can read this, you know Elkar?l.

I changed x?k to d?k assuming that the flat object was rectangular, which a computer screen would be.

I like the way that gg?n-ban business turned out. If you're curious, while I was working all this out, I kept a list of unanswered questions: how will bodily actions work? how about dialog? how about if-then sentences? It was rather neat that very few of these things required any new syntactic resources.
Glenn Kempf wrote:(I have a similar question about the example in the grammar chnq?t q?ch (mother want) for ?Mother wants?; since Mother is the intender, it seems as though it ought to be q?ch chnq?t.) Or am I getting the functions mixed up?
No, that's my mistake. Q?ch chnq?t it is.

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