Astraios wrote:Anyway, this is a very awesome thread.
Miigwech!
Quick correction: what I initially translated as "from Latin to Ojibwe" should instead read something like "Indian minister", describing the translator Peter Jones. And speaking of Jones, given some of the characteristics of the text and given his band and where he was born, this looks to be written in an early-1800s version of Eastern Ojibwe (it doesn't show modern EOj.'s characteristic syncope because the syncope change only occurred in about the 1920s and 30s).
Continuing with...
First page:
(3) Keshamunedoo dush keekedooh, Tahgah, tahwahsayah: me dush goo kewahsayahnig. (4) Keshamunedoo dush ooge menahwenon ewh wahsayah: Keshamunedoo dash ooge nanahwenon ewh wahsayah, kiya weh pasahkeeshkog. (5) Kezhik dush ooge ezhenekahdon owh Keshamunedoo ewh wahsayah, Tebik dush ween ooge ezhenekahdon ewh pasahkeeshkog. Kahoonagooshig dush kiya kahgahgezhabahwahguk, me ewh netum kegezheguk.
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1:3
Keshamunedoo dush keekedooh, Tahgah, tahwahsayah: me dush goo kewahsayahnig.
Gizhe-manidoo dash giigido, daga, daa-waaseyaa: mii dash go gii-waaseyaanig.
God DISC.SQ speak, come.on, MODAL-be.bright.light: it's DISC.SQ EMPH PAST-be.bright.light-OBV-CONJ.
"And God said, 'come now, let light shine': and then indeed light shone."
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1:4
Keshamunedoo dush ooge menahwenon ewh wahsayah:
Gizhe-manidoo dash ogii-minawinoon iw waaseyaa:
God DISC.SQ 3-PAST-good-look(?)-sg.OBJ that(INAN) be.bright.light:
"And God considered the light to look good:
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Keshamunedoo dush ogee nanahwenon ewh wahsayah, kiya ewh pasahkeeshkog.
Gizhe-manidoo dash ogii-nenaawinaan iw waaseyaa, gaye iw beshagiishkaag.
God DISC.SQ 3-PAST-divide-TI-sg.OBJ(?) that(INAN) be.bright.light, and that(INAN) dark<IC>-be:II-CONJ.
"and God divided the light and the darkness."
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1:5
Kezhik dush ooge ezhenekahdon owh Keshamunedoo ewh wahsayah,
Giizhig dash ogii-izhinikaadaan aw Gizhe-manidoo iw waaseyaa,
Day DISC.SQ 3-PAST-thus-call-TI-sg.OBJ that(AN) God that(INAN) be.bright.light,
"And God called the light 'day',
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Tebik dush ween ooge ezhenekahdon ewh pasahkeeshkog.
Dibik dash wiin ogii-izhinikaadaan iw beshagiishkaag
Night DISC.SQ CONTRASTIVE 3-PAST-thus-call-TI-sg.OBJ that(INAN) dark<IC>-be:II-CONJ.
"And on the other hand he called the darkness 'night'."
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Kahoonagooshig dush kiya kahgahgezhabahwahguk, me ewh netum kegezheguk.
Gaa-onaagoshig dash gaye gaa-gagizhebaawagak, mii iw nitam gii-giizhigak.
PAST<IC>-be.evening-CONJ DISC.SQ and PAST<IC>-morning-?-be:II-CONJ, it's that(INAN) first PAST-day-be:II-CONJ.
"And evening and then morning, it was the first day."
EDIT: Commentary now up:
There's some more examples of obviation here. I wrote in a previous post how if there's more than one third person animate referent in a clause, only one can be proximate, and any others must be obviative: a distinction marked both with suffixes on the nouns themselves as well as in the verbal morphology, demonstrative agreement, etc. What I didn't mention was that even inanimate nouns are treated as obviative if there's a proximate noun in the same clause. The difference is that the inanimate noun, if expressed with a distinct NP, isn't marked for obviation; the distinction is marked on the verb, however. Thus, in verse 3, the verb
gii-waaseyaanig "there was bright light" includes the inanimate obviative suffix
-ni. The only problem here is I'm not sure what triggered the obviation, since earlier in the same sentence the same verb occurs without obviative marking. :\
There's a few examples here of the particle
mii, which is extremely common, but very difficult to define or explain, let alone gloss concisely (I've gone with "it's"). It has a number of different functions. One is as a sort of discourse sequencer, or mover of discourse, similar to
dash (with which it frequently co-occurs). Another is as a completive marker of sorts. Finally, it is often used as a focusing particle, with predicative properties. In such cases clauses opened with
mii are often translated into English with cleft constructions, and hence my glossing of it as "it's". It almost always conditions a following verb to be conjunct, as here.
There's more examples of initial change in these verses, in this case in its role in forming participles (like
beshagiishkaag "that which is dark [i.e., darkness]", changed conjunct form of
bishagiishkaa, "be dark") and the role, which I mentioned in my first post (and also described
here years ago), of focusing attention on the situations surrounding an action rather than the action itself (like
gaa-onaagoshig "when it was evening" or "it was then evening", changed conjunct form of
gii-onaagoshin "it was evening").
One interesting aspect of Algonquian languages are so-called "relative roots," which...I don't know how to describe very well. Valentine's description will do for now: "Relative roots are used to specify various relations between a verb and some element, which may serve to indicate the predicate's source, reason, manner, location, quantity, degree, or extent." Here a good example is in verse 5, which begins
Giizhig dash ogii-izhinikaadaan aw Gizhe-manidoo iw waaseyaa, "and God called the light 'day'". The relative root occurs in the verb
izhinikaadan "call something (inanimate object) thus", where the relative root is
izhi- "thus, in such a way", and the complement of the relative root is what or how God called the light, namely
giizhig "day" (note that this is distinct from the grammatical object of the verb, which is
iw waaseyaa, "the light"). A relative root's complement always precedes the verb containing the relative root--as here.
In the second line of verse 5, I've glossed
wiin as the contrastive particle. However, the contrastive particle is homophonous with the third singular (animate) pronoun
wiin (and I assume derives from it historically). I don't have enough experience with the use of either the pronoun or the contrastive particle to know which sense is more likely here, and it could easily be the 3sg pronoun.
Finally, note that in the dialect I'm familiar with, "morning" is
gigizheb-, but here it is evidently
gagizheb-, judging by Jones' spelling <gahgezhab->. This form of the word is characteristic in modern Ojibwe of the dialect spoken around Manitoulin Island, which is a form of Odawa (though Jones presumably spoke a variety of Eastern Ojibwe, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post)
[EDIT: fixed stuff about "makadewikonaye"]
