Polyglottal Telephone 14

[finlay]

OK, here we go; here is the official order. It's not too late to change, but I'd rather not have to. Sorry to Aeetlrcreejl and Timmytiptoe, who weren't available until at least the second half of July, but I'm anticipating the thing being over by then.

Rules:
1. if you are not translating from or into English, you must also provide an English translation so that the rest of us can keep up. PM this, and the translation into your language, to me; and PM your translation only directly to the next person in the chain. Under no circumstances should you post translations in this thread, and do not send your English translation to the next person in line unless your link is English. (also, try to keep spoilers minimal if you're posting about it in the thread.)

2. Post in here to say that you've finished your link. Keep up with the thread, as well, in case I change anything.

3. Stick to your deadline. Everyone has 3 days allotted to them, but in practice we tend to finish them off quicker than that, so if you've reached your deadline, you're probably taking far too long. If you haven't received the text by three days before your deadline, it's up to you to PM me and ask what the hell is going on.

4. Above all, have fun...

Team A
1. Finlay: English → Latin (by 9 Jun)
2. Bob Johnson: Japanese (12 Jun)
3. treskro: Mandarin (15 Jun)
4. Zoris: Spanish (18 Jun)
5. Ossicone: Swedish (21 Jun)
6. Ulrike Meinhof: French (24 Jun)
7. Serafín: Old Spanish (27 Jun)
8. candrodor: English (6 JUL)
9. Qwynegold: Finnish (9 JUL)
10. Tatapyranga: Portuguese (12 JUL)
11. jmcd: German (15 JUL)
12. tubragg: English (18 JUL)

Team B
1. Faiuwle: English → Spanish (by 9 Jun)
2. Viktor77: French (12 Jun) [You couldn't get Estonian or Latvian because no-one else offered, but feel free to do them anyway ]
3. MisterBernie: German (15 Jun)
4. Lyhoko Leaci: English (18 Jun)
5. Jetboy: Ancient Greek (21 Jun) [If you can't find a dictionary, I guess you can do Latin instead, since hwhatting has both down on his list ]
6. hwhatting: Polish (24 Jun)
7. Emma: Italian (27 Jun)
8. Astraios: Hebrew (30 Jun)
9. Mr. Z: Spanish (3 Jul) [If you find it too difficult, you can switch to English, since míkl will do both]
10. míkl: Afrikaans (6 Jul)
11. merijn: Dutch (9 Jul) [This is a lousy link, I know, so if you want you can also do into Zulu; again, nobody else offered Zulu so I couldn't put that down]
12. Tsulaokiw: French (12 Jul)
13. Sevly: English (15 Jul)
done.

Register your interest here.

Also if someone wants to offer a text for translation, that'd be grand. However, note that if you do so, you'll be put first translating directly out of it – if you play at all.

Edit: (for new people putting their names on the list)
Remember, you can pick any natlang, old or modern, and you can also pick well-known conlangs as long as they have publicly available resources online (a Lojban, Klingon or Esperanto link would be cool).

Please put your list in the format
From: XXXX, YYYY, ZZZZ
To: XXXX, YYYY, ZZZZ (note that the important part is putting "From" above "To" so that I don't get confused and put them the wrong way round)
and italicise any that you're not as comfortable with and underline your native language.
This is the format I'm using for my own records so it just helps me to keep things clear. You can also describe more specifically any constraints you would have on using any of the languages. If you are capable in a language but don't want to translate to or from it (particularly if you don't want to translate to or from English), don't put it in your list.

I'll give you a maximum of a week, but probably more like 4 days, depending on how many people are putting their names on the list.

[Astraios]

Me me!

Any direction: French, Hebrew, Lakota.

To: Spanish, Italian.
From: Spanish, Italian, German, Mandarin.


EDIT: Formatted according to finlay's instructions.

[Bob Johnson]

I'm in.

From: French, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, German.
To: Classical Japanese, Modern Japanese

(and just for you, finlay, I will include a kana transcription and gloss)

Unfortunately my English is not good enough to use it in a PGT.
(... okay unless absolutely necessary, you're no fun. In that case I can go from either form of Japanese as well.)

Edit: Formatted.

[Nesescosac]

I'm in, although I can't participate until August.

Into and out of English, Bengali, Latin, German, French, and Finnish.

[finlay]

Unfortunately my English is not good enough to use it in a PGT.
(... okay unless absolutely necessary, you're no fun. In that case I can go from either form of Japanese as well.)

That's fine. More people should be picky, really, unless everyone's picky, in which case it becomes more difficult again. I am copying the lists verbatim, so if someone doesn't put English in their list, they're not going to get English. And in truth, I try to avoid it if I possibly can anyway – generally I end up with it either because I have to kludge two chains together or someone can only translate to/from English and one other language.

[treskro]

To: English, Mandarin, Hokkien/Minnan/w/e you want to call it, French
From: English, Mandarin, French, Japanese , (possibly any Sinitic variant written in Chinese characters)

[Lyhoko Leaci]

Either way: English, German

[finlay]

I'm in, although I can't participate until August.

Do you have a date from which you're not available (if it's not now)? It's just that August is two months away and I think it's very possible that the telephone might be over by then. But if I can fit you in as the first person or something, would that be alright?

[Ossicone]

From: Spanish, Swedish, English
Into: Spanish, Swedish, English

[MisterBernie]

To/From: German, English, French

July 9/10 is not good for me, but apart from that, at any point really.

[Nesescosac]

I'm in, although I can't participate until August.

Do you have a date from which you're not available (if it's not now)? It's just that August is two months away and I think it's very possible that the telephone might be over by then. But if I can fit you in as the first person or something, would that be alright?

I'm not available from Monday (4 June) until Late July.

If you can't fit me in, it's no problem.

[tatapyranga]

goodformat

from: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan, French, Finnish, Russian
to: Portuguese, Spanish, Finnish, Russian

(I don't want no German this time, nor English neither, unless there is no other way).

[Jetboy]

Into: English, Latin, Ancient Greek
Out of: English, Latin

I (μὲν) don't know too much Greek, but I'm not horrible at it, and indirect questions and purpose-ish clauses and such are easily formed enough that I could probably go into it; but my knowledge (δὲ) of the perfect and pluperfect is inexistent, so I probably couldn't translate out of it. Also, the Perseus online English-Greek dictionary's down; if it doesn't come back up, I won't be able to do the Greek. But Latin and English I'm pretty confident in.

[Viktor77]

To: English, Spanish, French, Estonian
From: The same, also Latvian.

Would love to do Estonian if anyone is willing. French and Spanish get boring. I will not be available July 20-Aug 1st.

[Bob Johnson]

I'm sorely tempted to learn enough Lojban in the next couple weeks to translate out of it. How hard could it be?

Edit: ... or Klingon. I forgot I actually have the Klingon Dictionary.

[faiuwle]

From: English, Spanish, Latin, Japanese
To: English, Spanish, Latin.

I have a possible text (which may need to be edited, in case it is too long, or to get rid of proper names if desired, and to dejargonify a couple words). If you like it, I'd prefer to translate it into Spanish to start it out. However, I will not be available from June 15 until July 12, so if you decide to use it and it doesn't work out for me to translate it before the 15th, just leave me out of this one.

[Ser]

From: French, Written Arabic/Standard Arabic, Old Spanish, Spanish, English, Mandarin
To: French, Written Arabic/Standard Arabic, Old Spanish, Spanish, English

[hwhatting]

Count me in.

From: German, English, Russian, Latin, French, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Ancient Greek

To: German, English, Russian, Polish, French, Dutch

I'll probably be off-line from July 8th - 25th, so depending on the number of participants, better put me in somewhere near the start..

[makvas]

From: English, Spanish, Mandarin
To: Spanish

Obviously I could translate to English if needed, but I'd rather not do that again.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

from: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, French, Old Swedish, any Gallo-Iberian Romance
to: Swedish, French

And of course English if absolutely necessary, but I'd rather that we get someone who's not very comfortable with it translating into, say, Catalan for me to translate from, rather than using English as an easy way out.

[Mr. Z]

Into: Hebrew, English, Spanish*
From: Hebrew, English, Spanish*

*I don't really know Spanish, but I have some knowledge of it, and if it is needed and the text is not too complicated, I guess I can handle it. I really don't know if I'm better at translating into or from Spanish.
Also, if it is possible, I'd like to translate from Hebrew this time if it is either English > Hebrew or Hebrew > English for me.

[finlay]

I'm sorely tempted to learn enough Lojban in the next couple weeks to translate out of it. How hard could it be?

Edit: ... or Klingon. I forgot I actually have the Klingon Dictionary.

Good enough for me.

But frankly, I've always found Lojban grammars a nightmare to try and learn from because they insist on using "native" terminology instead of familiar linguistic terminology (what was it again, something like selbri instead of "predicate word", or even better, "verb"). There's some bullshit reason for this... like it disassociates it from the connotations of the english word. wank

[tubragg]

From: Swedish, English, Norwegian, Danish, French, German, Turkish
To: Swedish, English

EDIT: Oh, and I'll probably be unavailable from July 24 to July 31.

[míkl]

From: English, Spanish, Afrikaans
To: Spanish, Afrikaans (Although Afrikaans would be a laugh)

I'm free until mid August, but we might be finished by then anyway.

[Timmytiptoe]

I'm probably available from the second half July to the end of August, but that might change.

Anyway:

From: Dutch, English, Latin, Ancient Greek
To: Dutch, English