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Here's a way to stretch those conlang muscles of yours (since we're all conlangers here). I am going to post a song (specifically the Skye Boat Song) in this thread, and what you need to do is to translate it into your conlang. You may change the actual words around as you need to, but be sure that your translation fits the following three criteria:
1. It must keep the basic meaning of the song intact.
2. It must keep the same meter and rhyme scheme.
Other than that, it's free for all! So, without further ado, here are the lyrics:
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Note: the audio version changes the sex of the subject from male to female. For the purposes of the challenge, we will be talking about a man, as the original lyrics were about a man.
Happy translating!
Last edited by VT45 on Fri Mar 13, 2015 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Here's the first verse in Yaufulti, kind of. It's a bit awkward, because it's got like obligatory tense marking and stuff, and verbs must mark the dependents. But apart from that, it almost sort of fits the meter - like the only problem is the first line is too long, so there are two options: basically the second line can be the verb "sinfuinanteza" (you will sing me it) or "tepe falusesa" (is he me?). So either way you're kinda missing the whole meaning of the original. Without the verb, the first line might be interpreted as "this is a song of a boy who's left" or something rather than "you will sing me a song of a boy who's left" - so probably better. Let's go with that.
Sayakapetalen nanfutai sinfuinateza
a-go.out-boy his-song FUT-PFV-sing-AGR-1-2
"a song of a boy who's gone" Tepe falusesa?
1SG NFUT.INT-COP-AGR
"is he me?" Supuinasegu naitale
a-merry-soul-with the-seas-on
"over the seas with a happy heart" Sekaize nupulasa.
Skye-to PFV-sail-AGR
"he sails to Skye"
x-sampa cos i'm lazy (usually most of these syllables would reduce to schwa or something and the stress pattern wouldn't match the english song so i'm just gonna write them unreduced):
[sajakapetalen:aFvuDai (SiFvujnaneZa)]
[tepe falusesa]
[suBuinaseGu nainale]
[sexaiZem:ulasa]
Actually, this poem was written by Stevenson. It's apparently sung to the tune of the Skye Boat Song for the 'Outlander' TV series, but it isn't the Skye Boat Song.
But anyway, yeah: most language will not naturally have this rhythm and meter. And as for the improbability of a translation that both fits the metre AND is reasonably elegant in the conlang...
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Zo on litulli zi ngaili gu yezh,
/zoʊ oʊn leɪ.'|ul.leɪ zeɪ ŋa.'il.eɪ gu jɛʒ/ to 1SG song sing.2 about gone child Ppai, maimil taa dai da?
/ʘaɪ 'maɪm.il ta: daɪ da/ say could <1M>be that boy Ppa bi aung, illauipine dlu,
/ʘa beɪ aʊŋ eɪl.laʊ.ip.'eɪn.ə dłu/ merry of soul RP.<3M>sail day Weng aia zo Sega.
/wəŋ 'aɪ.a zoʊ 'səga/ over sea to Skye
Sing me the song about the missing child,
To say, could that boy be I?
Merry of soul, he sailed the day
Over the sea to Skye.
Longdizh, beba, yai nun aia,
/'loʊŋ.deɪʒ 'bəba jaɪ nun 'aɪ.a/ billow breeze island and sea Naibyex bi mio nun e,
/'naɪ.bjəɣ beɪ 'mi.oʊ nun ə/ PL-mountain of rain and sun Ta me nu line, beix nu line,
/ |a mə nu 'leɪ.nə |a 'bə.iɣ nu 'leɪ.nə/ be good ATTR everything fair ATTR everything Ta lia on nu yeng gu.
/ |a 'li.a on nu jəŋ gu/ be PST.be 1SG ATTR all gone
Billow, breeze, island and sea,
Mountains of rain and sun,
Everything that's goodness, everything fair,
All that was me is gone.
The normal word for "sea" would be xyelumein, which doesn't exactly fit the meter, so I went with aia, which is a slang word closer in meaning to "big pond". It takes down the original level of formality of the song, but doesn't damage the meaning much.
Tana, Iáin voyre so Meď im soa mezinä, řo pro sudir soa mezinä, ac pro spasian soa mezinë ab ilun.
Since we had several people rise to the challenge, I'd like to raise the difficulty a bit. So if you're willing and able, here's another English language song for you:
Once upon a time and long ago,
I heard someone singing soft and low.
Now when day is done and night is near,
I recall this song I used to hear:
My child, my very own,
Don't be afraid, you're not alone.
Sleep until the dawn,
For all is well.
Long ago this song was sung to me.
Now it's just a distant melody
Somewhere from the past I used to know
Once upon a time and long ago.
Fong sawong kbau reph kambum ki pai gê, sô na ka lán reph hai? Thó ki pha ban yai, o bum ki hú o ki lo khá cu Sgai.
Fu na railau, dum na tiyau, P’ungk’a wí ú na kā, Bum thú na thú kambum to î, de cí ya na thac ta.
---
Phonetic transcription:
[fːɔŋ sːəwɔŋ kʰpaʊ̯ rɛɸ kʰəmbʊm kʰɪ pʰaɪ̯ ke̤]
[sːo̤ nə kʰə lan rɛɸ haɪ̯]
[θo kʰɪ ɸə pən jaɪ̯ | ɔ kʰɪ hu pʊm]
[ɔ kʰɪ lɔ xa ʔʊ skaɪ̯]
[fːʊ nə raɪ̯laʊ̯ | tʊm nə tʰɪjaʊ̯]
[p'ʊŋk'ə wi u nə kʰə̤]
[pʊm θu nə θu kʰəmbʊm tʰɔ i̤]
[tɛ ʔi jə nə θəʔ tʰə]
--
Back Translation:
"Sing the song of the boy who left [his] home
Was I that young boy then?
Mightily he rowed his little boat, and navigated well
and he came to faraway Skye"
"wind and rain, ocean and island"
Mountains of water and sky
Good things and Beautiful things
every part of me has been taken"
---
I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out; it's not perfectly grammatical, but obviously songs and poetry don't necessarily have to be. The second line of the second verse is pretty ambiguous in meaning; the preposition ya has a roughly similar range of meanings to the English "out of," and Makh Thandim speakers might be more likely to interpret the line as "mountains coming out of the water and sky," but the original line is fairly odd anyway.
I don't think any of my other conlangs would be well suited to this kind of thing; they either consist mostly of words with too many syllables or have too many obligatory suffixes to make it practical.
VT45 wrote:Since we had several people rise to the challenge, I'd like to raise the difficulty a bit. So if you're willing and able, here's another English language song for you:
Once upon a time and long ago,
I heard someone singing soft and low.
Now when day is done and night is near,
I recall this song I used to hear:
My child, my very own,
Don't be afraid, you're not alone.
Sleep until the dawn,
For all is well.
Long ago this song was sung to me.
Now it's just a distant melody
Somewhere from the past I used to know
Once upon a time and long ago.
How does the tune go?
Tana, Iáin voyre so Meď im soa mezinä, řo pro sudir soa mezinä, ac pro spasian soa mezinë ab ilun.
zhe qho njqezhex rqala tse xardzu
bzhume qho num zha
gqeza zgu kezdashixs gamu
mqushu lu mashixts ska
loose back-translation:
"tell me the tale of the guy who isn't here
and what if I'm that guy?
one day he was happy and he got on a boat
and went to a place called Skye"
njqezhex is an expanded form; in ordinary speech it'd be njqex (n-q-ji-ex). the last line is not particularly grammatical
I am not sure if there is a native Amqoli word for 'island'; it'd probably borrow it from Duhai or Enzielu, so it'd be something like labzu < naf y or... what is the Enzielu word for 'island', something like rĕtsvĕxia/rĕtsvĕhu, so datseshu maybe. w/e
de im redi gon, an long long go
mi e som man sing, sof an lo
wen di de a don an nay a ne
memba mi dis song, a mi yus e:
mi cal, yu mi on cal,
yu in les fe, y'in soso lon
yu les slip, til nay a don
kos ol a ray
long long taym dis song, yus sing pon mi
dis de im soso yon melodi
som pah kom di pas, a mi yus no
de im redi gon, an long long go
gloss:
de im redi gon an long long go
day 3s ANT gone and long~INT ago
"once upon a time" as a formula for starting a story is "wen de im redi gon" in Sajiwan ("on a day that's already gone"). I left out "wen" to fit the metre, though it could be added as an upbeat. "long" is repeated as an intensifier.
mi e som man sing sof an lo
1S hear INDEF person sing, soft and low
"som" is the indefinite article, but is only used in case where the referent is non-specific, i.e. neither speaker nor listener have knowledge about the referent.
wen di de a don an nay a ne
when DEF day PROG done and night PROG near
Sajiwan is zero copula, but the aspectual markers "a" (progressive) and "u" (habitual) are used when no other verbal particles are present. The distinction between "a" and "u" is roughly that between Spanish "estar" and "ser".
memba mi dis song a mi yus e
recall 1S DEM song FOC 1S HAB.PST hear
Sajiwan has a single word for remember and recall, "memba". To stay in the metre, I reversed "memba" and "mi", which is highly marked (if not downright wrong), but in a song there's some poetic licence. "yus" is the past habitual marker, but unlike English "used" does not take an infinitive. To fix the metre, I added a focus particle "a".
mi cal yu mi on cal
1S child 2S.VOC 1S own child
"cal" [tʃɐl] is child in the sense of "offspring", otherwise it's "pikin". Since "my own child" must refer to the former, I used "cal". I added vocative "yu" to fix the metre.
yu in les fe, y'in soso lon
2S NEG IMP fear 2S NEG just alone
"les" is a mild imperative, which can have a variety of related meanings ("im les stodi" - "he should study"). I contracted "yu" to keep to the metre.
yu les slip, til nay a don
2S IMP sleep until night PROG done/dawn
"nay a don" can mean both "the night is finished" as "the night is dawning". There's a number of syllables more than in the original, but I think I can get away with it.
kos ol a ray
because everything PROG right
"everything", "all", would normally be "olda ting", but that obviously doesn't fit the metre. Old fashioned "ol" is used therefore.
long long taym dis song, yus sing pon mi
long~INT time DEM song HAB.PST sing to 1S
"pon" is a very universal preposition with many meanings, all with a notion of involition on the part of the experiencer or patient it governs.
dis de im soso yon melodi
DEM day 3S just far_away melody
There's a verbal particle ("a" or "u") missing (see remark above), which is not permissable in normal speech, but often encountered in poetry or song.
som pah kom di pas, a mi yus no
INDEF place coming.from DEF past FOC 1S HAB.PST know
"pah" (< "part") is used instead of "ples" (< "place") when a general location is meant instead of a specific one ("a wo pah yu kom?" - "where do you come from?" vs. "a wo ples fi ki de?" - "where are my keys?"). "kom" is one of many verbs that serve as adpositions or the like. It's object is the place coming from. I again used a focus particle "a" to fix the metre. "no" means "know" in the meaning of "to be acquainted with". The meaning of "to have knowledge of" is covered by "se".
de im redi gon, an long long go
day 3S ANT gone and long~INT ago
