THE GLOSS THREAD

[Yng]

We often get threads in here asking about very specific things and how various languages deal with them. These are usually pretty interesting, of course, but they only demonstrate the machinery under the hood of a given language in a very small way. Furthermore, this approach means we often don't get to see some of the comparatively everyday things, like different distributions of TAMs, or some of the rarer things that languages do, the sort of things which don't really come up in cross-linguistic comparison even though they might well crop up regularly in discourse. For this reason, I'm suggesting that people studying different languages, or native speakers of different languages, choose a short piece of text - maybe more than one, if they feel like it - and gloss it and explain interesting things that crop up, hopefully including stylistic elements and information flow, which we often miss out in our glosses of single sentences. I'm going to begin with a Classical Arabic short story, taken from Fishbein and Bonnebakker's A Reader of Classical Arabic Literature, which I studied from as part of my Arabic course this year. The story is from Abū l-Farāj al-ʾIṣfahānī's Kitāb al-ʾAġānī or Book of Songs, first published in 1285, which was originally set to music although apparently the musical notation is now unreadable. The story is told from the perspective of Buṯaynah, the lover of Jamīl, whose story of tragic love is paradigmatic in Arabic literature; Jamīl has gone off fighting, and Buṯaynah hasn't heard any word from him in a long time. Although Buṯaynah is the main narrator, the story - like many in Classical Arabic collections - begins with an ʾisnād or sanad, which is a chain of transmission explaining how the story came to the writer; these probably began in ḥadīṯ literature and spread to other genres (ḥadīṯs being extra-Qur'anic scriptural traditions which are often the basis for Islamic legal judgements and whose veracity was and remains, obviously, very important).

‮وقالت جميلة: حدثتني بثينة, وكانت صدوقة اللسان جميلة الوجه حسنة البيان عفيفة البطن والفرج, قالت:
wa-qālat Jamīlatu: ḥaddaṯat-nī Buṯaynatu, wa-kānat ṣadūqata l-lisāni jamīlata l-wajhi ḥasnata l-bayāni ʿafīfata l-baṭni wa-l-faraji, qālat:
wa=ā/qwl-at Jamīlat-u: a_a/ḥddṯ-at=nī Buṯaynat-u, wa=ā/kwn-at ṣadūqat-a l-lisān-i jamīl-at-a l-wajh-i ḥasn-at-a l-bayān-i ʿafīf-at-a l-baṭn-i wa=l-faraj-i, ā/qwl-at
and=PERF/say-PERF.3sg.FEM Jamīlah-NOM.INDEF: PERF/relate-PERF.3sg.FEM=1sg Buṯaynah-NOM.INDEF and=PERF/be-3sg.FEM very_honest-ACC.CONST DEF-tongue-GEN.DEF beautiful-FEM-ACC.CONST DEF-face-GEN.DEF beautiful-FEM-ACC.CONST DEF-statement-GEN.DEF modest-FEM-ACC.CONST DEF-body-GEN.DEF and=DEF-sexual_organs-GEN.DEF, PERF/say-3sg.FEM
And Jamīlah said: Buṯaynah told me, and she was very honest of tongue, beautiful of face, fine of speech, modest of body and sexual organs, she said:

This is the ʾisnād. From here on in I'll gloss perfective (māḍī) and imperfect (muḍāriʿ) forms of verb stems more simply, but here I've given the root (e.g. qwl) with the ablaut marked as nonconcatenative morphology (/). Any given Arabic verb will have a perfective and an imperfective stem which co-occur with perfective and imperfective affixes respectively; these stems are formed by internal vowel changes or ablaut. ḥaddaṯat-nī shows the perfective stem, *ḥaddaṯ: the imperfective equivalent is tu-ḥaddiṯ-u.

Also of interest here is the list of Buṯaynah's qualities, which makes use of a genitive-esque structure similar in meaning to but more broadly applicable than the English 'long-haired' construction: this consists of an adjective followed by the noun it would usually modify, which takes the genitive as if it were the possessor of the adjective: ḥasnata l-bayāni, 'fine of speech'. Note that the adjective agrees with Buṯaynah in that it is feminine and singular; if it were annexed to a noun, it would also agree in definiteness (with a definite noun, with an indefinite noun it does not take indefinite marking but acts instead as if it were in a genitive relationship with the following noun and takes construct endings, as demonstrated here) and case (here it is accusative because it is the predicate of the verb kāna 'to be').

Although ṣadūqata looks like it's a standard feminine adjective, many adjective ablauts in Classical Arabic are typically invariable for gender, and this one - which is an intensive derivation - is one of them. The book argues that this -at- may thus be taken as a further intensification of the adjective.

والله ما أرادني جميل رحمة الله عليه بريبة قط ولا حدثت أنا نفسي بذلك منه,
wa-ḷḷāhi mā ʾarāda-nī Jamīlun raḥmatu ḷḷāhi ʿalay-hi bi-rībatin qaṭṭ wa-lā ḥaddaṯtu ʾanā nafs-ī bi-ḏālika min-hu,
wa=ḷḷāh-i mā ʾarād-a=nī Jamīl-un raḥmat-u ḷḷāh-i ʿalay-hu bi=rībat-in qaṭṭ wa-lā ḥaddaṯ-tu ʾanā nafs=ī bi-ḏālika min=hu
by=God-GEN NEG want.PERF-3sg.MASC=1sg Jamil-NOM.INDEF mercy-NOM.CONST God-GEN.DEF on=3sg.MASC by=bad_thing-GEN.INDEF never and=NEG ask.PERF-1sg I self-1sg by=that from=3sg.MASC, and=TOP DEF-tribe-ACC.DEF leave.PERF-3PL.MASC
By God, Jamīl, God's mercy upon him, never wanted anything bad from me, and I never asked it of him either.

وإن الحي انتجعوا موضعًا, وإني لفي هودج لي أسير
wa-ʾinna l-ḥayya ntajaʿū mawḍiʿan wa-ʾinn-ī la-fī hawdajin lī ʾasīru
wa-ʾinna l-ḥayy-a ntajaʿ-ū mawḍiʿ-an wa-ʾinn=ī la=fī hawdaj-in l-ī ʾa-sīr-u
and=TOP-1sg PRED=in howdah-GEN.INDEF to-1sg 1sg-travel.IMP-1sg.IMP
The tribe had left the place (where they'd been camping), and I'm in one of my howdahs, travelling along

Here Buṯaynah invokes God, reassuring the audience of her and Jamīl's good character, and then launches into the narrative. The change of topic is indicated by the particle ʾinna, usually translated in old-timey translations as 'indeed', which is sometimes (e.g. in rhetoric) a decent translation, but here isn't. ʾinna fronts the subject of the verb in the clause it subordinates - subject fronting is also common with new information - and along with a number of other subordinators (called the 'sisters of ʾinna in the Arabic grammatical tradition) forces it into the accusative. In classical language it is often accompanied by la-, which attaches to the predicate of the subordinated clause (as in la-fī here). We can also see here the use of an imperfective verb, ʾasīru, in what is usually called a 'circumstantial clause', translated in English with a participle. Although Arabic has a pluperfect, it is far more optional than the English and isn't used here, in spite of the fact that in English this would be background information - exposition explaining what happened before the main narrative - and would be in the pluperfect as such.

إذا أنا بهاتف ينشد أبياتًا, فلم أتمالك أن رميت بنفسي وأهل الحي ينظرون
ʾiḏā ʾanā bi-hātifin yunšidu ʾabyātan, fa-lam ʾatamālak ʾan ramaytu bi-nafs-ī wa-ʾahlu l-ḥayyi yanẓurūna
ʾiḏā ʾanā bi=hātif-in yu-nšid-u ʾabyāt-an, fa=lam ʾa-tamālak-ø ʾan ramay-tu bi=nafs=ī wa=ʾahl-u l-ḥayy-i ya-nẓur-ūna
lo_and_behold I in-voice-GEN.INDEF 3sg.MASC-recite.IMP-IMP stanza.PL-ACC.INDEF, then-NEG 1sg-control_oneself-APO SUB throw.PERF-1sg in-self=1sg and=people.NOM.CONST DEF-tribe-GEN.DEF 3pl.IMP.MASC-watch.IMP-3pl.IMP.MASC
when suddenly I heard a voice reciting stanzas, and I was unable to stop myself from throwing myself to the ground with the people of the tribe watching

فبقيت أطلب المنشد فلم أقف عليه, فناديت: أيها الهاتف بشعر جميل ما وراءك منه؟
fa-baqītu ʾaṭlabu l-munšida fa-lam ʾaqif ʿalay-hi, fa-nādaytu: ʾayyahā l-hātifa bi-šiʿri Jamīlin mā warāʾa-ka min-hu?
fa=baqī-tu ʾa-ṭlab-u l-munšid-a fa=lam ʾa-(w)qif-ø ʿalay=hi, fa=nāday-tu: ʾayyahā l-hātif-a bi=šiʿr-i Jamīl-in mā warāʾ-a=ka min=hu?
then=stay.PERF-1sg 1sg.IMP-look_for-1sg.IMP DEF-reciter-DEF.ACC then-NEG 1sg.IMP-find_out.IMP-APO on-3sg.MASC then-call.PERF-1sg: VOC DEF-voice-ACC.DEF with=poetry-GEN.CONST Jamīl-GEN.INDEF what behind-ACC=2sg.MASC of-him?
and I kept looking for the reciter but I couldn't find him, so I called out: O voice with the poetry of Jamīl, what news have you of him?

This line shows an archaic construction ʾiḏā... bi- where ʾiḏā, normally meaning 'when' or 'if', takes the meaning 'suddenly there was' or 'lo and behold'. It can also take a kind of subject, as here, and in many ways acts like a verb. This section also demonstrates a second kind of circumstantial clause with a wa-, where a clause is subordinated using the word 'and' ('and the people of the tribe are watching...'), the apocope form of the verb after lam (a negator with past meaning but which takes an imperfective-looking verb in what is often called the jussive), which has no mood markers, and an assimilating verb ʾa-fiq, which loses its first consonant in the imperfective (but regains it in the perfective). Warāʾ-a has an accusative ending, placing it in the category of preposition-like constructions called the mafʿūl fī-hi in Arabic grammar: many words can be transformed into locatives or temporals by the addition of an accusative ending (ʿaqib, 'heel', > ʿaqiba, 'straight after, right behind'). We can also see the various uses of the connecting particle fa-, which indicates some kind of temporal or causal progression; like 'and' in English spoken narrative it is used to move from one event in the narrative to the other.

‮وأنا أحسبه قد قضى نحبه ومضى لسبيله, فلم يجبني مجيب, فناديت ثلاثًا
wa-ʾanā ʾaḥsabu-hu qad qaḍā naḥba-hu wa-maḍā li-sabīli-hi, fa-lam yujib-nī mujībun, fa-nādaytu ṯalāṯan
wa=ʾanā ʾa-ḥsab-u=hu qad qaḍā-a naḥb-a=hu wa-maḍā-a li-sabīl-i=hi, fa-lam yu-jib=nī mujīb-un, fa=nāday-tu ṯalāṯ-an
and=I 1sg.IMP-account-1sg.IMP=3sg PERF pass.PERF-3sg.MASC vow-ACC.CONST=3sg.MASC and=pass.PERF-3sg.MASC to=path-GEN.CONST=3sg.MASC, then=NEG 3sg.MASC-respond.APO responder-NOM.INDEF, so-call.PERF-1sg three-ACC.INDEF
Believing him having finished his vow and passed on his way. But nobody answered, then I called three more times

وفي كل ذلك لا يرد علي أحد شيئًا
wa-fī kulli ḏālika lā yaruddu ʿalay-ya ʾaḥadun šayʾan,
wa=fī kull-i ḏālika lā ya-rudd-u ʿalay-ya ʾaḥad-un šayʾ-an
and=in all-GEN.CONST that NEG 3sg.MASC.IMP-answer.IMP-3sg.IMP on=1sg one-NOM.INDEF thing-ACC.INDEF
and each time nobody responded with anything.

فقال صواحباتي: أصابك يا بثينة طائف من الشيطان, فقلت: كلا
fa-qāla ṣawāḥibāt-ī: ʾaṣāba-ki yā Buṯaynata ṭāʾifun mina š-šayṭāni, fa-qultu: kalā!
fa=qāl-a aw/ṣāḥib-āt=ī: ʾaṣāb-a=ki yā Buṯaynat-a ṭāʾif-un min l-šayṭān-i, fa=qāl-tu: kalā!
then=say.PERF-3sg.MASC PL/friend-PL.FEM=1sg: befall.PERF-3sg.MASC=2sg.FEM VOC Buṯaynah-ACC.DEF visit-NOM.INDEF from DEF-devil-GEN.DEF then=say.PERF-1sg: certainly_not!
My friends said: you have been visited by the Devil, O Buṯaynah! But I said: certainly not!

Some nice morphological stuff here: verbs with long vowels in their stem have that vowel shortened with a suffix beginning with a consonant (VVCC is not much liked by Arabic, although it does occur) and also in the apocope form, as in lam yujib < yujību 'he answers'. There's also a double plural, ṣawāḥibāt, which has both the internal plural of ṣāḥib 'friend' and a feminine plural suffix -āt; often these double plurals have a slightly different implication from the normal plural but in this case it's not clear what the distinction is. We have some nice euphemisms for death ('end his vow', 'go on his way'). You can also see Arabic's weird agreement pattern: verbs preceding a plural subject are always singular. In MSA there would be feminine marking on the verb preceding ṣawāḥibāt, but gender agreement is often messy in Classical Arabic; possibly the masculine singular form de-individuates the friends and treats them as a group.

لقد سمعت قائلًا يقول! قلن: نحن معك ولم نسمع!
la-qad samiʿtu qāʾilan yaqūlu! Qulna: naḥnu maʿa-ki wa-lam nasmaʿ
la=qad samiʿ-tu qāʾil-an ya-qūl-u! Qāl-na: naḥnu maʿa=ki wa=lam na-smaʿ-ø.
indeed=PERF hear.PERF-1sg speaker-INDEF.ACC 3sg.MASC.IMP-say.IMP-IMP! say.PERF-FEM.PL: we with=2sg.FEM and=NEG 1pl-hear-ø
I heard a speaker speaking! They said: but we are with you and we didn't hear.

فرجعت فركبت مطيمتي وأنا حيرى والهة العقل كاسفة البال ثم سرنا
Fa-rajaʿtu fa-rakibtu muṭayyimat-ī wa-ʾanā ḥayrā wālihatu l-ʿaqli kāsifatu l-bāli ṯumma sirnā
Fa=rajaʿ-tu fa=rakib-tu muṭayyimat=ī wa=ʾanā ḥayrā wālih-at-u l-ʿaql-i kāsif-at-u l-bāl-i ṯumma sār-na
then=return.PERF-1sg then=mount-1sg.MASC mount=1sg and-I confused grief_stricken-FEM-NOM.CONST DEF-mind-GEN.DEF dejected-FEM-NOM.CONST DEF-mind-GEN.DEF then travel.PERF-1pl
So I went back and mounted my mount, (feeling) confused, my mind grief-stricken and confused, and we set off.

ḥayrā is the invariable feminine singular form of ḥayrān, which has a plural in ḥuyārā; this is one of a small class of adjectives which has a feminine not formed by the addition of a suffix to the masculine. We see here qad again, which adds a kind of perfect connotation; here it is combined with la-, which is often found with qad and is often described as adding emphasis. We have to add a 'feeling' in the English to get

ولما كان في الليل إذا ذلك الهاتف يهتف بذلك الشعر بعينه
wa-lammā kāna fī l-layli ʾiḏā ḏālika l-hātifu yahtifu bi-ḏālika š-šiʿri bi-ʿayni-hi
wa=lammā kān-a fī l-layl-i ʾiḏā ḏalika l-hātif-u ya-htif-u bi=ḏālika l-šiʿr-i bi=ʿayn-i=hu
and=when be.PERF-3sg in DEF-night-GEN.DEF lo that DEF-voice-NOM.DEF 3sg.MASC.IMP-recite-IMP by=that DEF-poetry-GEN.DEF by=eye-GEN.CONST=3sg.MASC
And when it was night-time, there was the voice again, reciting exactly the same poetry

lammā, incidentally, is probably formed with mā (which among other things creates conjunctions from prepositions) and the preposition li-~la-, and belongs with other conjunctions (such as ʿinda-mā, more common for 'when' in modern Arabic and formed from ʿinda, 'by').

فرميت بنفسي وسعيت إلى الصوت, فلما قربت منه انفطع
fa-ramaytu bi-nafs-ī wa-saʿaytu ʾilā ṣ-ṣawti, fa-lammā qarubtu min-hu nqaṭaʿa
fa=ramay-tu bi=nafs=ī wa=saʿay-tu ʾilā l-ṣawt-i, fa=lammā qarub-tu min=hu nqaṭaʿ-a
then=throw.PERF-1sg by=self=1sg and=move_towards.PERF-1sg to DEF-voice-GEN.DEF, then=when draw_near.PERF-1sg from=3sg.MASC be_cut_off.PERF-3sg.MASC
Then I threw myself to the ground and I went towards the voice, and when I drew near to it, it cut off

Although a few of the so-called 'derived verbs' have appeared in this text before, inqaṭaʿa (Arabic doesn't allow initial consonant clusters and adds an epenthetic vowel after a pause) provides a useful pretext on which to very very quickly discuss Arabic verbal derivation. Usually Arabic grammars will name ten ʾawzān (literally 'measures' or 'weights', often translated as 'forms') of the verb, each of which is ascribed a small set of reasonably predictable meanings; grammars of classical Arabic may add a further five forms which are typically found in poetry only. These forms are often misinterpreted as being flexional; in reality, they are derivational, and there are very few roots which exhibit more than perhaps six or seven of the ten. It's also a good idea to look at the forms - as at the rest of the large derivational ablaut system in Arabic, which is usually seen as deriving meaning from some kind of weird platonic abstract meaning present in the root - as verbalisers which can derive verbs from all sorts of different lexical classes: faʿʿala, for example, which is usually explained as an 'intensive' or 'causative' derivation from another verb, can be used to derive verbs from nouns with the meaning 'apply X to': ḏahhaba 'gild' < ḏahab 'gold'. Likewise, tafaʿʿala, usually described as the 'reflexive' or 'middle voice' equivalent of faʿʿala, often derives verbs meaning 'to act like': tabarjaza, for example, means 'to act bourgeois'. Even those verbs which are clearly originally just the result of the valency-modifying operations of some of the forms originally have often undergone significant semantic drift. This particular form - infaʿala - is a kind of impersonal or de-ergative formulation: it removes the agent and, sometimes, any implication of one from a transitive verb (in this case qaṭaʿa 'to cut off').

Also I suppose of interest here is the different wording of spatial relations - it's qarīb min, 'near from', and the same formulation is seen in the verb, qaruba min. Qaruba means 'be or draw near'; these sorts of stative~inchoative verbs are very common in literary Arabic.

فقلت: أيها الهاتف, ارحم حيرتي وسكن عبرتي بخبر هذه الأبيات
fa-qultu: ʾayyahā l-hātifa, irḥam ḥayrat-ī wa-sakkin ʿabrat-ī bi-xabari hāḏihi l-ʾabyāti
fa=qāl-tu: ʾayyahā l-hātif-a, rḥam-ø ḥayrat=ī wa=sakkin-ø ʿabrat=ī bi=xabar-i hāḏihi l-ʾabyāt-i
then=say.PERF-1sg: O DEF-voice-ACC.DEF, have_mercy_on.IMP-IMPER confusion=1sg and=soothe.IMP-IMPER tears=1sg with=news-GEN.CONST this.FEM DEF-stanzas-GEN
And I said: O voice, have mercy on my confusion and soothe my tears with the story of these stanzas

Here we see the imperative, which is formed from the imperfective apocope stem stripped of its usual prefixes; what might be seen as the underlying form *rḥam, from the verb raḥima, requires an epenthetic initial vowel i- which can be elided if there is a preceding vowel with no pause. sakkin requires no such prefix because there is no initial consonant cluster. Of semantic interest here, I suppose, is the word xabar, usually translated as 'item of news' but here not really idiomatically translatable in this way (i.e. concerns of semantic space, obvious to anyone familiar with a few languages). ʾabyāt, which we've already seen, is one plural of the word bayt. bayt typically means 'house' or in older Arabic and some dialects 'room', and crops up a lot in discussions of Semitic; here, however, it appears in what is probably a related sense 'verse' or 'stanza'. These two meanings, despite their probable common root, are distinguished by having separate plurals: houses is buyūt.

فإن لها شأنًا! فلم يرد علي شيئًا
fa-ʾinna la-hā šaʾnan! Fa-lam yarudda ʿalay-ya šayʾan.
fa=ʾinna la=hā šaʾn-an! fa=lam ya-rudd-a ʿalā=ya šayʾ-an
then=indeed to=3sg.FEM affair-ACC.INDEF. Then=NEG.PAST 3sg.MASC-answer.IMP-APO on=1sg thing-ACC.INDEF
Because there must be an important tale behind them! But answer came there none.

The first section shows fa- in a more causal than temporal sense; it can be translated here as 'for' or 'because'. ʾinna here is perhaps emphatic, and la-hā means here 'have', with -hā (feminine singular) agreeing, as is usual, with ʾabyāt (typically inanimate plural nouns take feminine singular agreement). La-hā and constructions like it are the usual way to express possession in Arabic. The sentence can be more literally translated as 'indeed they have an affair! Also interesting in this sentence is the syntactic behaviour of ʾinna: it was mentioned before that ʾinna places the subject of the sentence into the accusative and typically fronts it; here however that clashes with a rule which states that in an equational sentence (i.e. a null-copula sentence), a definite or prepositional predicate must precede an indefinite noun: the subject takes accusative marking but remains where it would otherwise be in the sentence. The preference for placing definite nouns before indefinite nouns is common, although not compulsory, elsewhere. Yarudda is also vaguely interesting: as mentioned before apocope forms are usually found after lam and these have no suffixes; however, verbs of this kind - with an identical second and third consonant - have imperfective stems ending in a geminate, and according to the morphophonemics of Classical Arabic a word cannot end with a consonant cluster or a geminate. Most speakers treat these verbs as if their apocope form is identical to their subjunctive form, which has a vocalic suffix in -a; some (although this is rarer) produce apocope forms with stem reshuffling: these look like yardud.

فرجعت إلى رحلي فركبت وسرت وأنا ذاهبة العقل
fa-rajaʿtu ʾilā riḥl-ī fa-rakibtu wa-sirtu wa-ʾanā ḏahibatu l-ʿaqli
fa=rajaʿ-tu ʾilā riḥl=ī fa=rakib-tu wa=sār-tu wa=ʾanā ā_i/ḏhb-at-u l-ʿaql-i
then=return.PERF-1sg to saddle=1sg then-mount.PERF-1sg and=set_off.PERF-1sg and=1sg part/go-FEM-NOM.CONST DEF-mind-DEF.GEN
And I returned to my saddle, mounted, and carried on, going out of my mind

A few other adjectives of the pattern fāʿil have appeared in this text, but this is the first that it's difficult to translate without resorting to a participle. Fāʿil is the usual form of the active participle of the underived verb, here ḏahaba, 'to go'. Participles are a common source of deverbal nominal coinages and in this sense often have broken plurals distinct from the suffix plurals of the participle in its more verbal function. In this latter function they usually have a 'consequent state' meaning. For verbs of motion, they are usually continuous - perhaps because verbs of motion are construed as possessing an inchoative meaning, like inchoative~stative verbs and many durative verbs (see as well sirtu here which means 'set off' but elsewhere means 'travelling') - but for verbs construed as 'lexically perfective' they are exclusively resultative: kātib for example means 'having written', and rākib as 'having mounted'.

وفي كل ذلك لا يخبرني صواحباتي أنهن سمعن شيئًا
wa-fī kulli ḏālika lā yuxbiru-nī ṣawāḥibāt-ī ʾanna-hunna samiʿna šayʾan
wa=fī kull-i ḏalika lā yu-xbir-u=nī ṣawāḥib-āt=ī ʾanna=hunna samiʿ-na šayʾ-an
and=in all-GEN.CONST that NEG 3sg.MASC-tell-IMP=1sg friend.PL-PL.FEM=1sg that=3pl.FEM hear.PERF-3pl.FEM thing-ACC.INDEF
My friends not telling me in all that time that they had heard anything

Slightly awkward phrasing in the English because participle phrases of this sort are not as flexible as Arabic circumstantial clauses with wa- which can subordinate essentially any sentence.

فلما كانت الليلة القابلة نزلنا وأخذ الحي مضاجعهم ونامت كل عين
fa-lammā kānat il-laylatu l-qābilatu, nazalnā wa-ʾaxaḏa l-ḥayyu maḍājiʿa-hum wa-nāmat kullu ʿaynin
fa=lammā kān-at l-laylat-u l-qābil-at-u, nazal-nā wa=ʾaxaḏ-a l-ḥayy-u maḍājiʿ-a=hum wa=nām-at kull-u ʿayn-in
then=when be.PERF-3sg.FEM DEF-night-NOM.DEF DEF-next-FEM-NOM.DEF, descend.PERF-1pl and=take.PERF-3sg.MASC DEF-tribe-NOM.DEF couch.PL-ACC.CONST=3PL.MASC and=sleep.PERF-3sg.FEM every-NOM.CONST eye-GEN.INDEF
Then the next night, we dismounted, the tribe took to their beds and everyone fell asleep.

Not much of interest here except some idiomatic phrasings; note that in Arabic it's 'when the next night was' not 'when it was the next night', i.e. the night is the subject. There's a nice epenthetic vowel here on il-laylatu; the choice of /i/ is dictated by the vowel of the preceding syllable (a > i, u/i > a).

وإذا الهاتف يهتف بي ويقول: يا بثينة
wa-ʾiḏā l-hātifu yahtifu b-ī wa-yaqūlu: yā Buṯaynata!
wa=ʾiḏā l-hātif-u ya-htif-u bi=ī wa=ya-qūl-u: yā Buṯaynat-a!
and=lo DEF-voice-NOM.DEF 3sg.MASC-call.IMP-IMP to=1sg and=3sg.MASC-say.IMP-IMP: O Buṯayna-ACC
And suddenly (I heard) the voice calling me and saying, O Buṯayna!

أقبلي إلي أنبئك عما تريدين. فأقبلت نحو الصوت
ʾaqbilī ʾilay-ya ʾunbiʾ-ki ʿammā turīdīna. Fa-ʾaqbaltu naḥwa ṣ-ṣawti
ʾaqbil-ī ʾilā=ya ʾu-nbiʾ-ø=ki ʿan-mā tu-rīd-īna. Fa=ʾaqbal-tu naḥw-a l-ṣawt-i
approach.IMP-2sg.FEM.IMPER to=1sg 1sg-tell-APO=2sg.FEM about-what 2sg-want.IMP-2sg.FEM. Then=approach.PERF-1sg towards-ACC.CONST DEF-voice-GEN.DEF
Come towards me and I will tell you what you want to know. And I went towards the voice

This has an interesting construction where the imperative is followed by the apocope form. The apocope (or jussive as it is sometimes termed) usually only occurs with a small set of conditional particles and the negative past lam. Here - where it occurs after the imperative - it's construed as 'do this [and] this will occur'.

فإذا شيخ كأنه من رجال الحي, فسألته عن اسمه وبيته
fa-ʾiḏā šayxun kaʾanna-hu min rijāli l-ḥayyi, fa-saʾaltu-hu ʿan ismi-hi wa-bayti-hi
fa-ʾiḏā šayx-un kaʾanna=hu min rijāl-i l-ḥayy-i, fa=saʾal-tu=hu ʿan sm-i=hu wa=bayt-i=hu
then=lo old_man-NOM.INDEF as_if=3sg.MASC of man.PL-GEN.CONST DEF-tribe-GEN.DEF, then=ask.PERF-1sg=3sg.MASC about name-GEN.CONST=3sg.MASC and=house-GEN.CONST=3sg.MASC
and there was an old man (dressed) like one of the men of the tribe. I asked him about his name and his house

فقال: دعي هذا وخذي فيما هو أهم عليك
fa-qāla: daʿī hāḏā wa-xuḏī fīmā huwa ʾahammu ʿalay-ki
fa=qāl-a: daʿ-ī hāḏā wa=xuḏ-ī fī-mā huwa ʾa_a__/hāmm-u ʿalā=ki
then=say.PERF-3sg.MASC: put-2sg.FEM.IMPER this.MASC and=take-2sg.FEM.IMPER in-REL 3sg.MASC SUPER/important-NOM.INDEF on-2sg.FEM
And he said: put this aside, and take up what is most important to you.

فقلت له: وإن هذا لمما يهمني. قال: اقنعي بما قلت لك
qultu la-hu: wa-ʾinna hāḏā la-mimmā yahummu-nī. Qāla: iqnaʿī bi-mā qultu la-ki
qāl-tu la=hu: wa=ʾinna hāḏā la=mimmā ya-humm-u=nī. Qāl-a: qnaʿ-ī bi=mā qāl-tu la=ki
say.PERF-1sg to=3sg.MASC: and=indeed this.MASC PRED=something_that 3sg.MASC-important.IMP-IMPER=1sg.MASC. say.PERF-3sg.MASC: be_satisfied.IMP-2sg.FEM.IMPER with=what say.PERF-1sg to=2sg.FEM
I said to him: this is of importance to me. He said: be satisfied with what I have told you.

Again we have ʾinna... la-, although this time the ʾinna is, as previously, more emphatic than topical. Mimmā is strictly speaking min 'of' plus mā, an indefinite relative pronoun, and could be analysed as 'among those things which'.

قلت له: أنت المنشد الأبيات؟ قال نعم, قلت: فما خبر جميل؟
qultu la-hu: ʾanta l-munšidu l-ʾabyāta? Qāla: naʿam, qultu: fa-mā xabaru Jamīlin?
qāl-tu la=hu: ʾanta l-mu-nšid-u l-ʾabyāt-a? Qāl-a: naʿam, qāl-tu: fa=mā xabar-u Jamīl-in?
say.PERF-1sg to=3sg.MASC: 2sg.MASC DEF-ACT.PART-recite.ACT-NOM.DEF DEF-stanzas-ACC.DEF? say.PERF-3sg.MASC yes, say.PERF-1sg: then=what news-NOM.CONST Jamīl-GEN.INDEF?
I said to him: are you the one who sang the verses? He said: yes. I said: So what news of Jamīl?

I didn't gloss munšid as a participle before, but it's worth bearing in mind that it's a participle, and particularly here - where it has an accusative complement rather than a genitive one - it might be more sensible to interpret it as a participle rather than an agentive noun (not that the two are really distinct in Arabic). In any case this is readable both as 'the reciter of the verses' and 'the one who has recited the verses'.

قال: نعم فارقته وقد قضى نحبه وصار إلى حفرته رحمة الله عليه
qāla: naʿam fāraqtu-hu wa-qad qaḍā naḥba-hu wa-ṣāra ʾilā ḥufrati-hi raḥmatu llāhi ʿalay-hi
qāl-a: naʿam fāraq-tu=hu wa=qad qaḍā-a naḥb-a=hu wa=ṣār-a ʾilā ḥufrat-i=hu raḥmat-u llāḥ-i ʿalay-hu
say.PERF-3sg.MASC: yes leave.PERF-1sg=3sg.MASC and=PERF fulfil.PERF-3sg.MASC vow-ACC.CONST=3sg.MASC and=become.PERF-3sg.MASC to hole-GEN.CONST=3sg.MASC mercy-NOM.CONST God-GEN.DEF on=3sg.MASC
He said: I left him having fulfilled his vow and gone to his grave, God have mercy on him.

Another circumstantial clause which is a bit awkward to translate without a workaround because the subject is different from the one that the English sort of garden-paths you into. ṣāra is usually translated as 'become', but like other verbs of becoming in Arabic, it conveys many different changes of state which are not covered by 'become' in English.

فصرخت صرخة آذنت منها الحي وسقطت لوجهي فأغمي علي
fa-ṣaraxtu ṣarxatan ʾāḏantu min-hā l-ḥayya, wa-saqaṭtu li-wajh-ī fa-ʾuġmiya ʿalay-ya
fa=ṣarax-tu ṣarxat-an ʾāḏan-tu min=hā l-ḥayy-a, wa=saqaṭ-tu li=wajh=ī fa=u_i-ʾaġmā-a ʿalay=ya
then=cry.PERF-1sg.PERF cry-ACC.INDEF reach_the_ear_of.PERF-1sg.PERF from=3sg.FEM DEF-tribe-ACC.DEF, and=fall.PERF-PERF.1sg to=face-1sg then=PASS/make_lose_consciousness.PERF-3sg.MASC.PERF on=1sg
And I gave out a great cry which the tribe (surely) heard, and I fell on my face and lost consciousness

The ṣaraxtu ṣarxatan is an example of a structure which is quite common in Arabic: the use of a verb which takes accusative marking and acts as a second object (or a first object to intransitive verbs). By far the most common of these structures is the so-called cognate accusative, where the verbal noun of the verb is used, but this is not necessarily the case: here we have instead of the verbal noun of ṣaraxa its instance noun instead - that is, 'a cry' (ṣarxah) rather than 'crying' (which would be ṣurāx). Occasionally a different verbal noun is used which then adds extra information as to the nature of the action (e.g. wa-taxaṭṭā s-siyāja waṯban, 'and hop across the fence', where waṯb 'leap' is a secondary object to taxaṭṭā, 'step'). The cognate accusative occasionally appears with an unmodified verbal noun - this is usually for poetic effect in modern Arabic, where the unmodified version of the structure has apparently lost any additional meaning (although perhaps it is a weak intensifier?) - but more usually it is combined with an adjective (to elegantly provide adverbial functions) or a relative clause, as here. The Arabic literally says something like 'then I shrieked a shriek by which I reached the ears of the tribe'.

Also demonstrated here is an idiomatic passive - ʾuġmiya ʿalay-ya. The Arabic true passive is formed by ablaut, here u_i. Like English, Arabic permits the passivisation of verbs which take a prepositional complement, like ʾaġmā ʿalā; the verb is found invariably in the masculine singular third person and the promoted patient remains as the complement of the preposition.

[hwhatting]

You have transcription, glosses, and translation right-to-left, too. On purpose?

[Ser]

You have transcription, glosses, and translation right-to-left, too. On purpose?

What? Nothing is right-to-left in the entire post.

[Salmoneus]

How sure are you that the chain-of-transmission thing is due to the influence of hadith, and not just primitive? (by which I mean from the beginning, not intending to imply a lack of sophistication).

I ask because the same sort of thing was very common in European storytelling until quite recently. To take one example, the Canterbury Tales are all prefaced by an explanation of how Chaucer came to be on this (fictional) pilgrammage and then who told him which story - many of the characters then in turn explain how they were told the story (even if it's just 'I heard this tale from a merchant once' or the like). When the novel arose, it typically maskeraded as a story being told by the characters themselves, often with the source stated in the title itself (the full title of 'Moll Flanders', for instance, explains that it is "written from her own memorandums", while Fielding's 'The Female Husband' explains in its title that the words have been "taken from her own mouth since her confinement").

This is most noticeable in SF. Up until the 20th century, it really troubled writers how they could be telling this story since there was no reliable chain-of-transmission from fairyland to their publisher - so invariably their stories explained how either they or someone else had had a dream, or had had a vision, or had been walking in the woods one day and found themselves somewhere strange, and so on. Apparently it wasn't until Morris that anyone actually bit the bullet and wrote a fantasy story in an independent world that didn't allow for any real-world witnesses to tell their tale to the author.


Anyway, tangent.

[Yng]

How sure are you that the chain-of-transmission thing is due to the influence of hadith, and not just primitive? (by which I mean from the beginning, not intending to imply a lack of sophistication).

Yeah, I'm personally skeptical of the claim that it's specifically a ḥadīṯ thing as opposed to a pre-Islamic narrative technique - but that's what I've had asserted to me by people who at least notionally know what they're talking about. It's possible I guess that their format (i.e. including character descriptions, which are important for analysing a ḥadīṯ's accuracy, at least) might have been influenced by ḥadīṯ convention, even if the phenomenon itself wasn't.

[hwhatting]

You have transcription, glosses, and translation right-to-left, too. On purpose?

What? Nothing is right-to-left in the entire post.

Not even the Arabic?
Maybe it's because I've been working with Arabic texts a bit in the last weeks, so my computers settings may be off now. In the first post, I see the first paragraph as normal left-to-right, everything that follows, whether Arabic or transcription / translation, is right-to-left.
When I copy the post into a word document, things appear as they ought to, so just ignore me.

[Astraios]

First, I'm going to apologize in advance for this being only very (relatively) short, and very (very) badly explained. So ask if something's not clear.

So I learnt something interesting and fun about Biblical Hebrew, which is its TAM system. I took a bit out of the book Judges to show it.

:ויהי אחרי מות יהושע וישאלו בני ישראל ביהוה לאמר מי יעלה-לנו אל-הכנעני בתחלה להלחם בו
wayhī 'aḥărē mōṯ yəhōšuaˁ wayyiš'ălū bənē yiśrā'ēl bayhwā lēmōr mī yaˁălɛ-llānū 'ɛl-hakkənaˁănī battəḥillā ləhillāḥɛm bō
wa=y-ə_ī/hyy 'aḥar-ē mōṯ yəhōšuaˁ wa=y-ə_ā/š'l-ū bēn-ē yiśrā'ēl b=yəhwāh l=ē_ō/'mr mī y-ə_ɛ/ˁly=l-nū 'ɛl=han-kənaˁănī b=an-təḥillā l=hin_ā_ɛ/lḥm b-ō
NAR=INC.3S.M-SBJ/be after-PL.CNS death.CNS Joshua NAR=INC.3S.M-INC/ask-3P.M son-PL.CNS Israel in=God to=INF/say who.FOC INC.3S.M-INC/rise=DAT-1P to=DEF-Canaanite in=DEF-start to=INF/fight in-3S.M
It was after Joshua's death that the children of Israel asked God: "Who will rise first for us against the Canaanites to fight them?"

The interesting thing demonstrated here is that BH distinguishes between 'narrative' and 'dialogue' (alternatively 'non-eventive' and 'eventive', or 'background' and 'foreground') modes as well as the typical Semitic 'complete' and 'incomplete' (or 'perfect' and 'imperfect') forms of the verb. The narrative form is the more morphologically marked of the two, being usually but not always signalled by the presence of the particle wa=, historically 'and'.

The narrative complete and incomplete forms with the particle wa= are distinguished by aspect (wəqātal being perfective and wayyiqtōl imperfective), while the narrative forms without wa= are distinguished by tense (qātal being past perfect and yiqtōl conditional), along with the dialogue forms (qātal being present perfect and yiqtōl present/future).

The first verb, wayhī 'it was' is the narrative incomplete form of the verb hāyā 'be'. It can be used, as here, as a focus-marker. A narrative verb form can't be preceded by a focussed phrase, and the most important way to focus a phrase in BH is indeed to front it before the verb. So here wayhī is added before the phrase "after Joshua's death" to form a sort of cleft structure, 'It was () that...'. An interesting sidenote about the form wayhī is that, without the narrative particle wa=, it becomes yəhī, which is the subjunctive 'may X be', the only subjunctive form in the entire language. It's used in the formula '"Let there be light" and there was light', which in BH is yəhī 'ōr wayhī 'ōr, which nicely shows both the subjunctive and the narrative.

The second verb, wayyiš'ălū 'they asked' is also the narrative incomplete form of šā'al 'ask'. The function of this narrative form is more typical; it describes the narrative situation which happens in the background around the sides of the dialogue.

The form lēmōr 'to say' introduces quotes, and then we see the incomplete dialogue form of the verb yaˁălɛ 'rises/will rise'. This form is used to bring the verb to the foreground, and tell the audience that it doesn't continue the story; rather, it is quoted speech. This form is also the only form whose dependent phrases can precede it when focussed, as is the case with the question word mī 'who', which must of course always be focussed.

Finally, the form 'ɛl-hakkənaˁănī 'against the Canaanites' is interesting because it's grammatically and morphologically singular; it refers to the entire Canaanite people as a single entity, while literally meaning "against the Canaanite", and this usage is quite common in BH.

The following verse is opened with another narrative verb form, so it's safe to assume that the question asked in the non-narrative form has stopped by this point and we're talking again about the state of the story, not about the characters' immediate words. It also gives an answer to the question asked above, demonstrating how a focussed phrase (here 'yəhūḏā') precedes its verb; it again demonstrates how the incomplete narrative form has an aspectual meaning while the incomplete dialogue forms are temporal; and again shows a singular noun referring to a group of people (Judah):

:ויאמר יהוה יהודה יעלה הנה נתתי את-הארץ בידו
wayyōmɛr yəhwā yəhūḏā yaˁălɛ hinnē nāṯattī 'ɛṯ-hā'ārɛṣ bəyāḏō
wa=y-ō_ɛ/'mr yəhwā yəhūḏā y-ă_ɛ/ˁly hinnē ā_a/ntn-tī 'ɛṯ=han-'ɛrɛṣ b=yāḏ-ō
NAR=INC.3S.M-INC/say God Judah.FOC INC.3S.M-INC/rise.DIS see.here CMP/give-CMP.1CS DO=DEF-land in=hand-3S.M
God said: "Judah will rise; here, I have given the land in their hands."


Another interesting thing, from a cultural point of view as well as linguistic, is the word YHWH, the Tetragrammaton, or the Most Holy Name of God. It's never written fully vocalized, since pronouncing it is profaning and blaspheming and such (I never quite understood what the actual consequences would be of pronouncing it - total annihilation, presumably). When reading from the Torah, it's replaced with the word 'ăḏōnāy lord-PL.1CS "my lord", with the pluralis majestatis (seen also in the word 'ɛ̆lōhīm 'God', plural of 'ɛlōah 'deity'), and written in English as 'the LORD'. The word Jehovah comes from a combination of the consonants of the Tetragrammaton and the vowels of its replacement, so yəhōwāh, and may or may not be anywhere near the actual historical pronunciation. I had something else to mention about it too, but it's escaped me. Oh well.

[Ser]

What do "INC, CNS, FOC" stand for?

[Astraios]

Incomplete, construct state, and focus. It's not a very good gloss really; it tries to show too much. Oh well.

[Herr Dunkel]

Shouldn't it be "yăhōwāh" since the replacement also begins with "ă"?

[Astraios]

ă is what ə becomes when it's by a post-uvular.

[Whimemsz]

This is a good idea.

I will take this opportunity to link to a very similar analysis I did last year for an Ojibwe story.


(Also, hello)

[Yng]

Now I'll do an extract from a modern Persian story. This is Mâhi-e Siâh-e Kuculu, 'the Little Black Fish', a famous childrens' story written by Samad Behrangi, a teacher and social critic. The story follows a fish who, not content to stay in the same part of the stream (which his fellow fish insist is all there is), sets off to find the sea, overcoming various obstacles and ultimately sacrificing himself for his friends. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's usually seen as allegorical and was banned in Iran by the Pahlavi regime. Like most modern Persian and Arabic texts, its structure is much more Europeanesque - the presence of European-style punctuation and formatting, etc - but it still has a number of interesting features, and also conveniently displays some fun features of colloquial Persian. As far as the transliteration goes, rather than using a straightforward transliteration of the written Persian, I'm going to transcribe the recording I have of my teacher reading it, which avoids problems like whether to do one-to-one grapheme-grapheme correspondences (because of Arabic borrowings and sound change Persian orthography is far less transparent than Arabic), which variant vocalisation to use, whether to use contractions and so on by copying how a native speaker reads it.

بعدالظهر به جایی رسید که دره پهن می‌شد و آب از وسط بیشه‌ای می‌گذشت
ba'dazzohr be jâ-yi resid ke dare pahn mišod-o âb az vasat-e biše-i migozašt
ba'dazzohr be jâ=yi res-id-ø ke dare pahn mi-šu-d=o âb az vasat=e biše=i mi-gozašt-ø
afternoon to place=REL arrive-PAST-3sg that valley wide IMP-become-PAST-3sg=and water from middle=HEAD meadow=INDEF IMP-pass.PAST-3sg
In the afternoon, he arrived in a place where the valley became wide and the water passed through a meadow

Vaguely of interest is double relative marking and the hanging relative clause: the -yi clitic on jâ and later the ke, which would normally be cliticised to the noun but instead, because the noun phrase is the last element before the main verb, is split from its head noun. This is very common in spoken Persian; in literary Persian adjectives can also sometimes be split from their head noun by a verb in this position. Note also the -e clitic (mostly unmarked in the written form) glossed =HEAD: this clitic is used to annex adjectives and possessors to noun phrases and has a very broad semantic range.

آب آنقدر زیاد شده بود که ماهی سیاه, راستی راستی, کیف می‌کرد
âb ânqadr ziyâd šode bud ke mâhi-e siâh, râsti râsti, keyf mikard
âb ân-qadr ziyâd šu-d-e bud-ø ke mâhi=e siâh, râsti REDUP, keyf mi-kard-ø
water that-amount plentiful become-PAST-PART be.PAST-3sg that fish=HEAD black, truthful ADV, enjoyment IMP-do.PAST-3sg
There was so much water that the black fish was really enjoying himself

Literally 'the water had become so plentiful that'. Mi- is an interesting prefix; in Classical Persian it was used for continuous action, but in modern literary Persian it has entirely displaced the present form without mi- (which now exists solely in the subjunctive with some verbs) and has become compulsory in the past for both habitual and continuous action. A further development has taken place in colloquial Persian, where a new continuous construction has been innovated. Note as well a characteristic feature of Persian, compound verbs - whilst Persian, contrary to what many short summaries will claim, does have a very broad range of fully conjugated verbs and can productively derive new ones, a very common way of deriving new verbs is to attach an unmarked nominal element. These are, in appearance, identical to verbs with a generic object, and their syntactic behaviour is similar; however, compound verbs can attach an object clitic to their nominal element, whilst verbs with generic objects can't.

Also interesting here is reduplication to form adverbs, which happens a lot in this story and in Persian generally.

بعد‌هم به ماهی‌های زیادی برخورد
ba'd-ham be mâhihâ-ye ziyâdi barxord
ba'd=ham be mâhi-hâ=ye ziyâd-i barxor-d-ø
after=too to fish-PL=HEAD plentiful-ADJ come_across-PAST-3sg
Then he came across many fish

از وقتی‌که از مادرش جدا شده بود, ماهی ندیده بود
az vaqt-i-ke az mâdar-eš jodâ šode bud, mâhi nadide bud
az vaqt=i=ke az mâdar=eš jodâ šu-d-e bud, mâhi na-did-e bud
from time=REL=REL from mother=3sg separate become-PAST-PART be.PAST-3sg, fish=INDEF NEG-see.PAST-PART be.PAST-3sg
From the time that he had left his mother, he hadn't seen (another) fish

«چند تا ماهی ریزه دورش‌را گرفتند: «مثل اینکه غریبه‌ای, ها؟
cand tâ mâhi-e rize dowr-eš-râ gereftand: mesl-e inke qaribe-i, hâ?
cand tâ mâhi=e rize dowr=eš=râ gereft-and: mes=e in-ke qaribe=i, hâ?
few CLASS fish=HEAD tiny round=3sg=ACC.DEF take.PAST-3pl: like=HEAD this-that stranger=be.2sg, eh?
A number of tiny fish gathered around him: You look like a stranger, hmm?

tâ is a classifier. These are practically obligatory in colloquial Persian but more optional in literary Persian, which has a number of available classifiers as opposed to the colloquial which generally only has one or two, tâ being generally acceptable for most things.

«.ماهی سیاه گفت: «آره, غریبه‌ام, از راه دوری می‌آیم
mâhi-e siâh goft: âre qaribe-am, az râh-e dur-i miâyam.
mâhi=e siâh goft-ø: âre qaribe=am, az râh=e dur=i mi-â-yam
fish=HEAD black say.PAST-3sg: yes stranger=be.1sg, from way=HEAD long=INDEF IMP-come-1sg
The black fish said: yes, I'm a stranger, and I've come a long way.

Note that in Persian affirmatives are usually expressed both with a 'yes'-word and an echo of at least part of the verb.

«ماهی ریزه‌ها گفتند: «کجا می‌خواهی بروی؟
mâhi rize-hâ goftand: kojâ mixâhi beri?
mâhi rize=hâ goft-and: kojâ mi-xâh-i be-r-i?
fish tiny=PL say.PAST-3pl: where IMP-want-2sg SUBJ-go-2sg?
The tiny fish said: where do you want to go?

Note that here the plural marker is a clitic attached to the whole noun phrase, including the adjective.

«ماهی سیاه گفت: «می‌روم آخر جویباررا پیدا کنم
mâhi-e siâh goft: miram âxar-e juibâr-râ paydâ konam
mâhi=e siâh goft-ø: mi-r-am âxar=e juibâr=râ paydâ ø-kon-am
fish=HEAD black say.PAST-3sg: IMP-go-1sg end-HEAD stream=DEF.ACC finding SUBJ-do-1sg
The black fish said: I'm going to find the end of the stream.

«ماهی ریزه‌ها گفتند: «کدام جویبار؟
mâhi rize-hâ goftand: kodâm juibâr?
mâhi rize=hâ goft-and: kodâm juibâr?
fish tiny=PL say.PAST-3spl: what stream?
The tiny fish said: what stream?

«.ماهی سیاه گفت: «همین جویبار که توی آن شنا می‌کنیم
mâhi-e siâh goft: hamin juibâr-ke tu-ye ân šenâ mikonim
mâhi=e siâh goft-ø: hamin juibâr=ke tu=ye ân šenâ mi-kon-im
fish=HEAD black say.PAST-3sg: this_very stream=REL in=HEAD that swimming IMP-do-1pl
The black fish said: this very stream in which we are swimming.

Either because of confusion with it or because they share the same etymology, the relative clitic -i does not appear on nouns which cannot carry the indefiniteness clitic; as a result the relative clause only has one marker here, -ke. Note the resumptive pronoun, which must appear when the extracted noun is the object of a preposition and also sometimes appears when it is not.

«.ماهی ریزه‌ها گفتند: «ما به این می‌گوییم رودخانه
mâhi rize-hâ goftand: mâ be in migim rudxâne
mâhi rize=hâ goft-and: mâ be in mi-g-im rudxâne
fish tiny=PL say.PAST-3pl: 1pl to this IMP-say-1pl river
The tiny fish said: we call this a river.

ماهی سیاه چیزی نگفت. یکی از ماهی‌ها ریزه گفت:
mâhi-e siâh ciz-i nagoft. Yek-i az mâhihâ-ye rize goft:
mâhi=e siâh ciz=i na-goft-ø. Yek=i az mâhi-hâ=ye rize goft-ø
fish=HEAD black thing=INDEF NEG-say.PAST-3sg. one=INDEF of fish-PL=HEAD tiny say.PAST-3sg:
The black fish didn't say anything. One of the tiny fish said:

Note that here, plural marking appears in affix form, which is more normative for writing. Interestingly the written Persian has no -ye =head marking after mâhihâ in spite of the presence of the adjective; I can only assume this is a printing error since the reader pronounces a definite ezâfe here.

«هیچ می‌دانی مرغ سقا نشسته سر راه؟
hic miduni morq-e saqqâ nešaste sar-e râh?
hic mi-dun-i morq=e saqqâ nešas-t-e=e sar=e râh?
nothing IMP-know-2sg chicken=HEAD fisherman sit-PAST-PART=be.3sg on=HEAD way?
Don't you know that the pelican lives on the way?

This sentence is difficult to parse, but I've taken nešaste as representing an underlying nešaste-e 'has sat, is sat' using the present perfect. Note that whilst literary Persian is fairly strictly verb-final, colloquial Persian both a) likes to move elements around and b) prefers to place adverbials, particularly prepositional phrases, after the verb. Notice also that colloquial Persian can use anticipatory pronouns for nominal clauses. A declarative equivalent is man dar fekr-e in-am ke... 1sg in thought=HEAD this=be.1sg that 'I'm thinking about...' where in 'this' fills the slot which the nominal clause would were it a more normal noun phrase.

«.ماهی سیاه گفت: «آره می دانم
mâhi-e siâh goft: âre midunam.
mâhi=e siâh goft-ø: âre mi-dun-am
fish=HEAD black say.PAST-3sg: yes IMP-know-1sg
The black fish said: yes, I know.

«یکی دیگر کفت: «این‌را هم می‌دانی که مرغ سقا چه کیسه‌ی گل و گشادی دارد؟
yek-i dige goft: in-râ ham miduni ke morq-e saqqâ ce kise-ye gal-o gošâd-i dâre?
yek=i dige goft-ø: in=râ=ham mi-dun-i ke morq=e saqqâ ce kise=ye gal=o gošâd=i ø-dâr-e
one=IND other say.PAST-3sg: this=DEF.ACC=too IMP-know-2sg that chicken=HEAD fisherman what pouch=HEAD great=and broad=INDEF IMP-have-3sg
Another one said: do you also know what a great, wide pouch the pelican has?

This sentence has a few interesting things in it. The noun phrase ce kise-ye gal-o gošâd-i shows the exclamatory ce... i 'what a!' construction, along with cliticised -o. Persian really loves its clitics, and in this case has an IE-derived native clitic -o and a more formal va borrowed from Arabic (in some positions, such as after a pause, va is required). The whole nominal clause is interesting because unlike English, Persian doesn't extract the interrogative pronoun in these sorts of sentences - the entire sentence is straightforwardly subordinated with ke. Whilst it may seem that Persian is wh-fronting from certain examples, generally its behaviour is wh-in-situ and this subordination behaviour bears this out. We also see here a parallel structure to the previous hic... ke, where the anticipatory pronoun in occupies the space of the object of miduni; its presence also allows the attachment of =ham, which can either be interpreted as 'also' or as emphatic.

«.ماهی سیاه گفت: «این‌را هم می‌دانم
mâhi-e siâh goft: in-râ ham midunam.
mâhi=e siâh goft-ø: in=râ=ham mi-dun-am
fish=HEAD black say.PAST-3sg: this=ACC.DEF=too IMP-know-1sg
The black fish said: this, too, I know.

«ماهی ریزه گفت: «با این همه, باز می‌خواهی بروی؟
mâhi rize goft: bâ in hame bâz mixâhi beri?
mâhi rize goft: bâ in hame bâz mi-xâh-i be-r-i?
fish tiny say.PAST-3sg: with this all still IMP-want-2sg SUBJ-go-2sg?
The tiny fish said: and with all this you still want to go?

«ماهی سیاه گفت: «آره هر طوری شده باید بروم
mâhi-e siâh goft: âre har towr-i šode bâyad beram.
mâhi=e siâh goft-ø: âre har towr=i šu-d-e bâyad be-r-am
fish=HEAD black say.PAST-3sg: yes each way=INDEF become-PAST-PART must SUBJ-go-1sg
The black fish said: yes, whatever happens I must go.

[hwhatting]

So it looks like Persian has dependent clause constructions after "want", when the subject of "want" and the subject of the intended action are identical, like Arabic or the Balkan languages? I.e., "you want to go" is "you want that you go"?
I did some cursory Old and Middle Persian (Pahlevi) at university, and our lecturer used to give us some information on how things developed further in Modern (written) Persian. Persian is one of my favourite examples for the chain shift "progressive -> simple present tense", "present tense -> subjunctive".

[Yng]

So it looks like Persian has dependent clause constructions after "want", when the subject of "want" and the subject of the intended action are identical, like Arabic or the Balkan languages? I.e., "you want to go" is "you want that you go"?

Yep. There are a lot of structures which, if they're not directly calqued from Arabic, show areal influence - head marking of possessives and so on is one obvious one, but this is another. There are other things too, like how both Persian and Arabic construe 'sit' and 'wear', for example, as perfective and use a construction with a resultative participle to mean 'sitting' and 'wearing'.

I did some cursory Old and Middle Persian (Pahlevi) at university, and our lecturer used to give us some information on how things developed further in Modern (written) Persian. Persian is one of my favourite examples for the chain shift "progressive -> simple present tense", "present tense -> subjunctive".

Yeah - although weirder is the subjunctive prefix be-, which comes from the perfective prefix in Classical Persian (I'm not sure what this did on present tense verbs, but it produced one-time-only preterites in the past).

[Yng]

This text is from the book Un Nos Ola Leuad (One Moonlit Night) by Caradog Prichard, one of my favourite books in any language. The writing is mostly in very dialectal Welsh with many characteristically northwestern features, and is generally very conversational in style: it's intended to read, I think, like somebody relating their life story spontaneously. It has a lot of interesting linguistic features, some of which are not shared by more normal literary styles.

Am y munud cynta, ddaru neb hitio neb, dim ond y ddau'n gneud rhyw giamocs o flaena'i gilydd,
am y munud cynt-a, ddaru neb hiti-o neb, dim ond y dd/dau yn gneud rhyw giamocs o f/blaen-a ei gilydd
for DEF minute first-SUP, PAST nobody hit-VERBNOUN nobody, not but DEF DEF/two ASP do.VERBNOUN some gimmicks from PREP/front-PL 3sg.MASC.POSS RECIP
For the first minute, nobody hit anyone else, and the two were just dancing around in front of one another,

gneud rhyw giamocs is literally 'make some gimmicks' - the implication is that they're testing one another out. Rhyw should cause mutation of giamocs to *iamocs, but English loans beginning with /g/ are very rarely mutated (unlike other English loans which are usually mutated as normal). Ddaru is a very northwestern dialect feature, an invariable past auxiliary that comes from (mi) ddarfu 'it happened' < darfod 'happen'. Normally a negative verb will carry negative marking in the form of initial mutation and the presence of ddim, originally meaning 'nothing', but ddaru is permanently mutated and the presence of negative pronouns (neb) means ddim doesn't need to appear. The second half of the sentence is a circumstantial clause, literally something like '(there's) only the two making gimmicks in front of one another'. I've glossed the very common particle yn here as ASP, for aspectual - etymologically it is identical to the preposition yn 'in', but its syntax is different, as is its morphological behaviour. It indicates imperfective action, i.e. habitual or continuous.

a'u breichia chwith nhw'n saethu allan fel tasan nhw'n treio cosi trwyna'i gilydd.
a eu braich-ia chwith nhw yn saeth-u allan fel t/bas-an nhw yn trei-o cos-i trwyn-a ei gilydd
and 3pl.POSS arm-PL left 3pl ASP shoot-VN out like if/be.COND-3pl 3pl ASP try-VN scratch-VN nose-PL 3sg.MASC.POSS each_other
with their left arms shooting out like they were trying to scratch one another's noses.

It's not entirely clear to me why the reinforcing pronoun nhw is needed after the possessive construction here - normally these reinforcing pronouns appear when the referents are relatively new information in the discourse, which I suppose they are here. Braich, as we can see, has a kind of umlaut - a lot of plurals in Welsh involve vowel changes within the noun. Fel tasan is interesting for a range of reasons: basan comes historically from bu-as-ent, the early modern Welsh subjunctive pluperfect, whose -as- infix survives (albeit meaninglessly) into a number of conditional forms; it also shows the dialectal shift of many final-syllable /e/ to /a/ and the assimilation of /nt/ to the /n/ of the following pronoun. More interesting is the slightly mysterious replacement of /b/ with /t/ - this is a dialectal feature and historically occurs following the 'hypothetical if' pe. This dialect no longer has pe; hypothetical if-clauses are formed either with tas- forms in their own or with the non-hypothetical if os plus tas- forms. Fel tasan is, I guess, a calque on 'as if they were'.

Ond oedd Joni Sowth yn dawnsio o gwmpas Now a Now'n gwatsiad o fel cath yn gwatsiad llgodan.
ond oedd Joni Sowth yn dawnsi-o o g/cwmpas Now a Now yn gwatsi-ad o fel cath yn gwatsi-ad llgod-an
but be.PAST.CONT.3sg Joni Sowth ASP dance-VN of PREP/compass Now and Now ASP watch-VN 3sg.MASC like cat ASP watch-VN mouse-SING
But Joni South was dancing around Now, and Now was watching him like a cat watching a mouse.

Llgodan is the singulative of llgod, 'mice'. Gwatsiad is an English loanword, albeit one fully adapted to Welsh phonology and morphology: -ad is a verbnoun ending - the verbnoun stands in for English gerunds and infinitives, and is also used in periphrastic constructions, as here; the acquisition initial /g/ is very common on loans beginning with /w/ which are reanalysed as being mutated forms of a word beginning with /g/ (cf gwal 'wall' and the native gwyneb for historic/standard wyneb 'face'). Oedd is one of the numerous - often suppletive - forms of bod 'to be' used in periphrastic constructions, this one used for continuous action.

Ac yn sydyn fel melltan, dyma fraich dde Now'n swingio allan run fath â cryman yn torri drain,
ac yn sydyn fel mellt-an, dyma f/braich dd/de Now yn swingi-o allan run f/math â cryman yn torr-i ai/draen
and ADV sudden like lightning-SING, here_is DEM/arm FEM/left Now ASP swing-VN out the_same FEM/kind as sickle ASP cut-VN PL/thorn
And suddenly like a lightning-bolt, here's Now's left arm swinging out the same as a sickle cutting thorns

Another use of yn is to form adverbs from adjectives - there are very few true adverbs in Welsh. Dyma is used a lot in this piece as a framing device - 'here's me', 'here's Now's arm', 'here's Joni Sowth', inevitably followed by an yn clause - note that it causes mutation. Braich is feminine and as a result the adjective after it is mutated; mutation is the main mechanism of agreement in modern Welsh, although a few adjectives have ablauted/suffixed feminine or plural forms. Run fath is a reanalysis of yr un fath, lit. 'the one thing'; un causes mutation to feminine nouns but not masculine ones (presumably a holdover from a time when feminine and masculine forms of un had different endings). We've seen quite a few borrowed English words taking the verbnoun suffix -io; this is the most productive VN suffix in modern Welsh, and is very often used for ad hoc borrowings as well as more incorporated ones.

a'i ddwrn o'n dal Joni Sowth ar ochor ei glust, nes aeth hwnnw i lawr ar ei ben ôl a'i goesa yn yr awyr ar ganol y ring.
a ei dd/dwrn o yn dal Joni Sowth ar ochor ei g/clust, nes aeth hwnnw i l/llawr ar ei b/pen ôl a ei g/coes-a yn yr awyr ar g/canol y ring
and 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/fist 3sg.MASC ASP catch Joni Sowth on side 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/ear, then go.PAST.3sg that.MASC to floor on 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/head back and 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/leg-PL in DEF air on PREP/middle DEF ring
and his fist catching Joni South on the ear, then he went down on his arse with his legs in the air in the middle of the ring.

Aeth is a very irregular form of one of the small set of very irregular verbs Welsh possesses, and is more standard than the other option ddaru fo fynd. Nes is 'next, closer' in standard language. Hwnnw 'that one' and hwn 'this one' are commonly used as pronouns referring to humans, and it's common in Welsh English to say 'this one' and 'that one' referring to humans, too. As you might have noticed, a lot of prepositions cause mutation and many Welsh prepositions are compounds of a preposition and a noun in a possessive construction with a following noun (Welsh possession is appositional): ar ochor, ar ganol, o gwmpas, i lawr etc.

Un, dau, medda Ffranc Bee Hive wrth ei ben o.
Un, dau, medda Ffranc Bee Hive wrth ei b/pen o
one, two, said Ffranc Bee Hive by 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/head 3sg.MASC
One, two, said Ffranc Bee Hive above him.

Medda is a generic quotative particle, although historically it is verbal and it has some restricted optional personal marking. I would say medde, and treat it as invariable, but in this text it varies between (for example) medde fi and meddwn i with conchord.

Ond cyn iddo fo ddeud pedwar oedd Joni Sowth wedi neidio ar ei draed ac yn dawnsio o gwmpas Now fel o'r blaen.
ond cyn idd-o fo dd/deud pedwar oedd Joni Sowth wedi neidi-o ar ei d/ae/troed ac yn dawnsi-o o g/cwmpas Now fel o'r_blaen
but before to-3sg.MASC 3sg.MASC SUB/say.VN four be.PAST.CONT.3sg Joni Sowth PERF leap-VN on 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/PL/foot and ASP dance-VN from PREP/compass Now like before
But before he could say four, Joni South had leapt to his feet and was dancing around Now like before.

There're a few interesting things here. Iddo fo < i 'to, for', and shows the fusion of pronominal forms with prepositions (historically PREP + pronoun > fused form, and then I think analogy restored the pronouns, so that whatever the historic form of i fo was > iddo, and then it became iddo fo). This prepositional phrase can be interpreted as annexing a subject to an otherwise non-finite construction cyn deud 'before saying', and its historically non-canonical position breaking up a prepositional phrase explains, diachronically, the mutation on the following word ddeud (this is referred to as the sangiad mutation and pops up in a few different places). Almost all subordinating conjunctions in Welsh are actually prepositions and require this sort of structure. Also interesting is wedi, another aspectual particle - like yn, it is etymologically a preposition ('after'), and expresses anteriority. Here it acts as a kind of pluperfect. Note that in Welsh, the sentence reads very literally as 'Joni Sowth was after leaping onto his feet and in dancing around Now' - the two structures are equivalent but have different aspectual particles, which means that only one main verb oedd is needed. Note that troed has an internal plural.

Iesu, dyna iti feltan dda, medda Huw, yn codi ar ei draed ac eistadd bob yn ail, fel peth o'i go.
Iesu, dyna i-ti f/beltan dd/da, medda Huw, yn cod-i ar ei d/ae/troed ac eistadd b/pob yn ail, fel peth o ei g/co
Jesus, that_is for-2sg DEM/blow FEM/good, said Huw, ASP rise-VN on 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/PL/foot and sit.VN ADV/all in second, like thing from 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/mind
Jesus, what a hit, said Huw, rising to his feet and sitting down alternately like he was out of his mind.

Dyna iti is literally 'there's a... for you' and can sometimes be translated this way in English, but has a much more broad application connected to its use as a general exclamatory particle dyna neis! 'how nice!'. There's another sangiad mutation on feltan, which itself triggers feminine mutation in the following adjective. Note that bob yn ail is mutated because it is an adverbial (another way of forming adverbs in Welsh is by initial mutation: bob wythnos 'every week', ddoe 'yesterday'). Cof in standard Welsh is 'memory' but is used in this dialect to mean 'mind'; the phrase o'i go is a common one in this book, and people 'going out of their minds' is a major theme. Beltan is presumably from English 'belt', and shows - as do many English loans - addition of a singulative/diminutive suffix.

Ac erbyn hyn oedd pawb yn gweiddi nerth eu penna, yn enwedig rheiny yn y drws a'r ffenast.
ac erbyn hyn oedd pawb yn gweidd-i nerth eu pen-a, yn enwedig rheiny yn y drws a yr ffenast
and by this.ABS be.PAST.CONT.3sg everyone ASP shout-VN force 3pl.POSS head-PL, ADV particular that.PL in DEF door and DEF window
And by now everyone was shouting at the top of their voices, especially the ones in the door and the window.

Un arall felna i'r Hwntw, Now, medda rhywun. Ond dyna'r unig feltan fedrodd Now roid iddo fo.
un arall felna i y Hwntw, Now, medda rhywun. Ond dyna y unig f/beltan f/medr-odd Now r/rho-id i-ddo fo
one other like_that to DEF Hwntw, Now, said someone. But that_is DEF only ADJ/hit REL/be_able-PAST.3sg Now OBJ/give-VN to-3sg.MASC 3sg.MASC
One more like that to the Hwntw, Now, someone said. But that was the only blow Now was able to give him.

Medrodd is a regular verb with the preterite ending -odd. Interestingly, it shows mutation for a relative clause - this is prescriptively incorrect, since this relative clause is indirect (the extracted noun is not the subject or the object of a main verb) and so would require the particle y in literary Welsh, which does not cause mutation, as opposed to the particle a which does. However in colloquial Welsh a and y are both long gone and somewhat confused, which has resulted in mutation often being generalised to all relative clauses. Note also the treatment of the verbnoun as the direct object of medrodd - it takes accusative mutation. unig means either 'only' or 'alone, lonely' depending on whether it precedes the adjective or not; all preceding adjectives cause mutation in a following noun.

Er bod ei freichia fo'n chwifio run fath â melin wynt, ac yn saethu allan yn syth weithia,
er bod ei f/braich-ia fo yn chwifi-o run f/math â melin ø/gwynt, ac yn saeth-u allan yn syth weithia
although be 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/arm-PL 3sg.MASC ASP whirl-VN the_same FEM/kind as mill FEM/wind, and ASP shoot-VN out ADV straight sometimes
Although his arms were whirling just the same as a windmill, and shooting out straight sometimes,

bod, unlike other verbs, has a weird subordination structure involving a tenseless verbnoun: er + oedd ei freichia fo > er bod ei freichia fo 'in spite of his arms being'. Although in modern spoken Welsh, under the influence of English, this construction tends to be replaced outside the present tense by straightforward verbal forms - er oedd o 'although he was' - here the tenseless construction is maintained. er i'w freichia fo chwifio would also be possible, I think, but this is a better construction. weithia is actually gweithia 'times' with an adverbial mutation.

oedd Joni Sowth yn gneud rings o'i gwmpas o, a lle bynnag oedd dwrn Now Gorlan,
oedd Joni Sowth yn gneud rings o ei g/cwmpas o, a lle bynnag oedd dwrn Now Gorlan
be.PAST.CONT.3sg Joni Sowth ASP make.VN rings of 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/compass 3sg.MASC, and where ever be.PAST.CONT.3sg fist Now Gorlan
Joni Sowth was making rings around him, and wherever Now Gorlan's fist was,

doedd pen Joni Sowth ddim yna.
d-oedd pen Joni Sowth ddim yna
NEG-be.PAST.CONT.3sg head Joni Sowth NEG there
Joni Sowth's head wasn't there.

Here we see the ddim I mentioned earlier in negative constructions. As you may have gathered by now, bod is incredibly irregular; one feature of this irregularity is the presence of the prefix d- on its past continuous and present tense forms in the negative, a remnant of the preverbal negative particle nid.

Dyma Roli Pant yn rhoid beltan i'r caead pisar wedyn i ddeud bod y rownd gynta drosodd
dyma Roli Pant yn rho-id beltan i y caead pisar wedyn i dd/deud bod y rownd g/cynt-a drosodd
here_is Roli Pant ASP give-VN hit to DEF lid pitcher then to PREP/say be.VN DEF round FEM/first-SUP over
And here's Roli Pant giving a whack to the bucket-lid then to say that the first round is over

Another dyma structure. Note that rownd is feminine (I have no idea why, but a lot of English loanwords are assigned feminine gender) and that the bod structure we mentioned earlier is here again.

a'r ddau focsiwr yn mynd yn ôl i'w corneli, a neb yn rhyw lawar gwaeth.
a y d/ddau f/bocsiwr yn mynd yn ôl i eu cornel-i, a neb yn rhyw l/llawar gwaeth
and DEF DEF/two.MASC NUM/boxer ASP go ADV back to 3pl.POSS corner-PL, and nobody PRED some ADJ/much worse
and the two boxers going back to their corners, nobody much worse off

Gwaeth is an irregular comparative. Yn pops up here again, this time as a predicative particle used with copulaic 'to be'. I interpret rhyw lawar gwaeth as 'any great amount worse', i.e. 'much worse off'.

Dyna iti be ydy seians, machan i, medda Huw ar ôl i'r ail rownd ddechra.
dyna i-ti be ydy seians, m/bachan i, medda Huw ar ôl i y ail rownd dd/dechra
there_is for-2sg what be.PRES.3sg science, POSS.1sg/boy 1sg, said Huw on back to DEF second round CONJ/start/vn
There's a real science for you, boyo, said Huw after the second round started.

Again we have dyna iti in an exclamatory sense - perhaps a better translation would be 'what a science!' Machan i is from fy machan i 'my boy', with nasal mutation following the 1sg possessive pronoun; I'm not sure nasal mutation is entirely productive in this dialect so this might be a frozen example. Again we have a clause annexed to a preposition ar ôl 'after' with i. Ydy is one of numerous 3sg present forms of the verb 'to be' which is used here instead of more typical mae because a nom/adj predicate has been fronted. In some contexts - where the predicate is definite and so cannot be preceded by predicative yn - ydy can also be used if a subject is fronted (otherwise the relative sy'n is used). Elsewhere ydy also appears in interrogatives and affirmative answers, whilst mae is the usual declarative form.

Joni Sowth oedd wedi neidio'n ôl pan aeth Now amdano fo fel dyn lladd gwair efo'i bladur.
Joni Sowth oedd wedi neidi-o yn ôl pan aeth Now am-dano fo fel dyn lladd gwair efo ei b/pladur
Joni Sowth be.PAST.CONT.3sg after leap-VN ADV back when go.PAST.3sg Now for-3sg.MASC 3sg.MASC like man kill.VN hay with 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/scythe
Joni Sowth had leapt back when Now went for him like a harvester with his scythe.

Whilst an initial reading might have 'like a man harvesting with his scythe' the absence of any yn means we have to interpret dyn lladd gwair as 'harvesting man'. Lladd is normally 'kill' but with hay it's 'harvest'. Pan is one of the few genuine subordinating conjunctions in Welsh. I assume mynd am for 'go for' is a calque on English.

A cyn i Now gael amsar i ddwad yn ôl ar wadna'i draed dyma law dde Joni Sowth yn mynd yn syth i ganol ei fol o.
a cyn i Now g/cael amsar i dd/dwad yn ôl ar ø/gwadn-a ei d/ae/troed dyma l/llaw dd/de Joni Sowth yn mynd yn syth i g/canol ei f/bol o
and before to Now CONJ/get time to PREP/come ADV back on PREP/sole-PL 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/PL/foot here_is DEM/hand FEM/left Joni Sowth ASP go ADV straight into PREP/middle 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/stomach 3sg.MASC
And before Now has time to get back on the soles of his feet, here's Joni South's left hand going straight into the middle of his belly.

Hych, medda Now a disgyn ar ei bennaglinia a'i ddwy law ar lawr run fath â tasa fo'n chwilio am rywbath.
hych, medda Now a disgyn ar ei b/pennaglin-ia a ei dd/dwy l/llaw ar l/llawr run m/fath â t/bas-a fo yn chwili-o am r/rhywbath
hych, said Now and fall.VN on 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/knee-PL and 3sg.MASC.POSS POSS/two.FEM NUM/hand on PREP/floor the_same FEM/kind as if/be.COND-3sg 3sg.MASC ASP search-VN for PREP/something
Hych, said Now, dropping to his hands and feet on the floor just as if he was looking for something.

Hych is an expression of disgust or I guess alarm - I think the best English translation might be 'eesh'. Again we have tas-, this time in 'the same kind as if he was'. Disgyn is slightly confusing because it's a verbnoun and you'd expect yn before it - this reading is the only possible one, though, I think. Note ddwy law (instead of a plural of llaw like llofia or dwylo) - specifying the dual is common with certain parts of the body.

A Ffranc Bee Hive yn dechra cyfri Un, Dau, Tri pan drawodd Roli Pant ar y caead pisar, i ddeud bod y rownd ar ben.
a Ffranc Bee Hive yn dechra cyfr-i Un, Dau, Tri pan d/traw-odd Roli Pant ar y caead pisar, i dd/deud bod y rownd ar b/pen
and Ffranc Bee Hive ASP begin.VN count-VN One, Two, Three when CONJ/strike-PAST.3sg Roli Pant on DEF lid pitcher, to PREP/say.VN be.VN DEF round on PREP/head
And Ffranc Bee Hive starting to count One, Two, Three when Roli Pant struck the bucket lid, to say that the round is over.

Pan causing mutation in a following verb here. The first half of the sentence is circumstantial and has no verb.

[Ser]

IRC user vlad/¡Papapishu! glossed a Nahuatl story weeks ago, and here it is.

As for his glossing abbreviations, it might be worth noting NMLZR stands for "nominalizer", PTCP stands for participle, LIG stands for "ligature 'morpheme' " (material needed in the linking of certain morphemes to others), the gloss "SJV" for the word ma stands for "subjunctive". S after a pronoun's number of person (1, 2 or 3) stands for "subject", O for "object", P for "possessed", R for "reflexive".

vlad has the nasty, nasty habit of using RDP in his glosses. At least he explained two of them. After a little research (namely searching the relevant words in U of Oregon's free Nahuatl dictionary), it turns out mahui means 'to fear' and 'to be afraid', the reduplicated mahmahui means 'to be afraid', and mahmahuitia means 'to be afraid' or 'to frighten' once the causative suffix -tia is attached. Uh, so yeah, they're three verbs that seem to undergo valency changes, but all mean 'to be afraid' in the end anyway too, ok...?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Inamox ycuilohuani inyeoticteneuhque Cesario, quimopohuilia quimicuilhuia: iuhquiy inquimitalhuia.
In amox-ycuil-ohua-ni in ye o ti-c-ten-euh-que-h Cesario, qui-mo-pohu-ilia qui-m-icuil-huia: iuhqui y in qui-m-ita-lhuia.
IN book-write-TRANS-er IN already PST 1plS-3O-lip-raise-PST-PL Caesarius 3O-3sgR-count-APPL 3O-3sgR-write-APPL like ? IN 3O-3sgR-say-APPL
The author which we have already mentioned, Caesarius, recounts and writes, thus he says:

• In, which I just gloss IN for simplicity, is a general subordinator. It marks various subclauses including noun phrases, which in Nahuatl is a kind of subclause (since nouns are predicates).
• iuhqui can be broken down into iuh-qui but its use is idiomatic enough that it's best treated as monomorphemic.
• The reflexive applicatives are used to show respect for the subject.
• I don't know why there's a stray y after iuhqui.

Yniquac inquinyeiuhpehuayah, inteotlatolchicocaquiztiliani inompaytocayocan Altepepan Alua,
Yn iquac in quin ye iuh pehua-ya-h in teo-tla-t-o-l-chico-caqu-iz-ti-lia-ni in om-pa i-toca-yo-can A-l-tepe-pan Alua
IN then IN just already thus begin-IMPF-PL IN god-sth-say-TRANS-PTCP-hear-NMLZ-become-APPLIC-er IN there-wards 3sgP-name-ness-place water-ABS-mountain-in Albi
When the heretics were just getting started, over there at a place called the city of Albi,

• It's weird that the scribe wrote word-final -h on pehuayah. That's pretty rare though it occurs a handful of other times in the same manuscript.
• teotlatolchicocaquiztiliani is literally "people who incorrectly expound the word of god".
• Itocayocan is weird and idiomatic. You can get possessed locatives like n-ix-pan "before my eyes", but if itocayocan worked anything like those it'd mean "at its name", and instead it means "at a place whose name is".

cequin, iniqueynteotlatolchicocaquiztiliani inoquintlapololti inoquimiztlacahui tlacatecolotl,
cequi-n in-i-que-(h) yn teo-tla-t-o-l-chico-caqu-iz-ti-lia-ni in o qu-in-tla-pol-o-lti-∅ in o qu-im-iztlaca-hui-∅ tlaca-tecolo-tl
some-PL IN-?-AGENT-PL this god-sth-say-TRANS-PTCP-hear-NMLZR-become-APPL-er IN PST 3O-pl-sth-lose-TRANS-CAUS-PST IN PST 3O-pl-saliva-VBLZR-PST person-owl-ABS
some of these heretics, whom the devil had confused and deceived,

• Normally in does not pluralize, but it has a weird plural inique which is only used when followed by words like in "this" (which is not itself pluralized).

quichihuaya quiteititiaya tlachihualli iniuhquimatlamahuiçolli inçan atlixco nehnentinenca inamopolaquia,
qui-chihua-ya qui-te-it-itia-ya tla-chihua-l-li in iuhqui ma tla-mahu-iç-o-l-li in çan a-tl-ix-co neh-nen-ti-nen-ca-(h) in a mo polaqui-a-(h)
3O-do-IMPF 3O-ppl-see-CAUS-IMPF sth-do-PTCP-ABS IN like as_though sth-fear-NMLZR-TRANS-PTCP-ABS IN merely water-ABS-face-LOC RDP-walk-LIG-walk-DISTPST-PL IN NEG NEG sink-IMPF-PL
performed and exhibited acts as if they were miracles, where they simply walked on water without sinking,

• Atl doesn't normally have an absolutive suffix in compounds but atlixco is an exception. Atli "drink" is another one.
• A is the negative particle used in realis clauses. Ca is used in irrealis ones. Mo is a negative particle that never occurs on its own but can optionally follow the other ones.
• Nemi means "live", but its reduplicated from nehnemi means "walk". It's also used in compounds with other verbs to mean "walk Xing", in which case it's preceded by the "ligature" morpheme -ti-.

inicquineltiliaya quitlaquauhuacatlaliaya ininteotlatolchicocaquiztiliz:
in ic qui-nel-ti-lia-ya-(h) qui-tlaquahua-ca-tlal-ia-ya in i-n-teo-tla-t-o-l-chico-caqu-iz-ti-liz
IN thereby 3O-true-become-CAUS-IMPF-PL 3O-harden-AGENT-earth-VBLZR-IMPF IN 3P-plP-god-sth-say-TRANS-PTCP-hear-NMLZR-become-NMLZR
in order to prove and firmly establish their heresy.

• "Their heresy" should be inteotlatolchicocaquiztililiz.

Auh miequintin christianosme quintlapololtiaya quincahualtiaya intlaneltoquiliztli.
Auh miequ-in-tin christianos-me qu-in-tla-pol-o-ltia-ya-(h) qu-in-cahua-ltia-ya-(h) in tla-nel-toqu-iliz-tli
and many-PL-PL Christians-PL 3O-pl-sth-lose-TRANS-CAUS-IMPF-PL 3O-pl-leave-CAUS-IMPF-PL IN sth-true-follow-NMLZR-ABS
And they confused many Christians and made them abandon the faith.

• Miequin uses a plural ending that is only found on verbs and pronouns, so it often gets the plural suffix -tin added to make it match regular nouns.

Inquittaquin ceteopixqui, quitto, innelli tlamahuiçolli amohuelquimohuicaltia iniztlacatemachtilli
In qui-ttaqu in ce teo-pix-qui qui-tt-o-∅ in nel-li tla-mahu-iç-o-l-li a mo huel qui-mo-huica-ltia in iztlaca-te-mach-ti-l-li
IN 3O-see-PST IN one god-keep-AGENT 3O-say-TRANS-PST IN true-ABS sth-fear-NMLZR-TRANS-PTCP-ABS NEG NEG well 3O-3R-bring-CAUS IN saliva-ppl-know-CAUS-PTCP-ABS
One friar who saw it, said, "False teachings cannot bring true miracles."

• The author appears to using a respectful verb with "false teachings" as its subject for some reason.

niman conanato ce custodia, ynoncan hualmoyetztitihuia in cenquizcayectlaceliliztli inhuelnelli ytlaçonacayotzin tot^o Iesuchristo;
niman c-on-ana-to ce custodia, yn on-can hual-mo-yetz-ti-tihui-a in cen-quiz-ca-yec-tla-celi-liz-tli in huel nel-li y-tlaço-naca-yo-tzin to-tecui-yo Iesuchristo;
thereupon 3O-there-take-went one monstrance IN there-place here-3R-be-LIG-go-IMPF IN one-come_out-AGENT-good-sth-receive-VBLZR-ABS IN well true-ABS 3P-dear-flesh-ness-DIM 1plP-lord-ness Jesus Christ
Then he took a monstrance, which is where the perfectly good communion, the very true precious flesh of our lord Jesus Christ, would go.

• Diminutives in -tzin are also used to show respect.
• -yo forms abstract nouns, but is also used to mark inalienable possession.

ompa ya incanin iztlacatlamahuiçolli quichihuaya intlahueliloque herejes:
om-pa ya-∅ in can in iztlaca-tla-mahu-iç-o-l-li qui-chiua-ya in tlahu-el-i-lo-que-(h) herejes:
there-wards go-PST IN where IN saliva-sth-fear-NMLZR-TRANS-PTCP-ABS 3O-do-IMPF IN ochre-liver-VBLZ-PASS-AGENT-PL heretics
He went to where the wicked heretics were performing false miracles.

• The liver is used like "heart" in English. (Sometimes. Actually it's more common to use the word for "heart", but it depends on the idiom.) Ochre-liver is "fury/outrage" so tlahueliloc is "person that inspires outrage".

Atenco onmoquetzato,
a-ten-co on-mo-quetza-to,
water-lip-LOC there-3R-stand-went
He went and stood on the water's edge.


oncanteixpan quitto, ycainitocatzin, yhuan ica inihuelitzin intohueytlatocatzin Dios in nican nomac moyetztica,
on-can te-ix-pan qui-tt-o-∅ y-ca in i-toca-tzin, yhuan i-ca in i-hueli-tzin in to-huey-tla-t-o-ca-tzin Dios in nican no-ma-c mo-yetz-ti-ca
there-place ppl-face-on 3O-say-TRANS-PST 3P-INST IN 3P-name-DIM and 3PL-INST IN 3P-power-DIM IN 1plP-great-sth-say-TRANS-AGENT-DIM God IN here 1sgP-hand-LOC 3R-be-LIG-be
There in front of everyone he said, "By the name and by the power of our great ruler God, which is here in my hands,"

• yhuan is etymologically "with it" and is also used in that sense.
• ihuelitzin is related to huel, somehow.

nimitznahuatia intitlacatecolotl
ni-mitz-nahuatia in ti-tlaca-tecolo-tl
1sgS-2sgO-command IN 2sgS-person-owl-ABS
"I command you, the Devil."

• nahuatia "command" is presumably related to nahuatl "clear sound", though -tia doesn't usually work that way.

aocmoxicchihua ininmotetlapololtiliz inipanin atl inic tiquinmahmauhtia tiquintlapololtia inimacehualtzitzinhuan Dios.
a oc mo xi-c-chihua in in mo-te-tla-pol-o-lti-liz in i-pan in a-tl in ic ti-qu-in-mah-mauh-tia ti-qu-in-tla-pol-o-ltia in i-macehual-tzi-tzin-hua-n Dios
NEG still NEG 2sgS-3O-do IN this 2sgP-ppl-sth-lose-TRANS-CAUS-NMLZR IN 3P-on IN water-ABS IN thereby 2sgS-3O-PL-RDP-fear-CAUS 2sgS-3O-PL-sth-lose-TRANS-CAUS IN 3P-subject-RDP-DIM-POS-PL God
"Do not continue your confusion of people on the water, through which you frighten and confuse the subjects of God."

• xi- is used in place of the other second person subject prefixes in irrealis clauses. It can also be used on its own to indicate an imperative, as in this case.
• -tzin reduplicates to -tzitzin when plural.

auh in manel iuh oquittoy, amopolaque intlahueliloque herejes,
auh in ma nel iuh o qui-tt-o-∅ y, a mo pola-que-(h) in tlahu-el-i-lo-que-(h) herejes,
and IN SJV true thus PST 3O-say-TRANS-PST ? NEG NEG sink-PST-PL IN ochre-liver-VBLZ-PASS-AGENT-PL heretics
But although he said this, the wicked heretics didn't sink.

• Look it's another one of those mysterious y's.

çanelocnoma atlixco nehnemia.
ça nel oc noma a-tl-ix-co neh-nemi-a
merely true still still water-ABS-face-LOC RDP-walk-IMPF
They simply kept walking on the surface of the water.

[Ser]

Language: Classical Chinese, with Middle Chinese pronunciation in Baxter's ASCII-friendly transcription for Middle Chinese (as used in his reconstruction of Classical Chinese published in 1992, and in Kroll's A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese published in 2015).
Content: the first five verses of The Analects of Confucius (論語 lwin ngjoX / Lúnyǔ / Leuhn·yúh).
Translation: Edward Slingerland's (2003).

N.B.: the Middle Chinese transcription is largely self explanatory, just note that <ae> equals [æ], <X#> equals the 上 tone, <H#> equals the 去 tone. I have no idea why Baxter (and Sagart) reconstruct 道 'the Way' as "dawX" and 道 'to guide' as "dawH" (therefore having the opposite tones of Mandarin, dào and dǎo respectively).

And yes, I know this is the 1 100 000th post of the forum. This was intentional.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41893&p=1100000#p1100000

Gloss abbreviations:
AGT.REL = agent relativizer (word that marks a headless relative clause with agent semantics)
HI = the 矣 hiX particle, which marks perfective aspect or change of state
Q = question particle
TSYI = the 之 tsyi particle, which marks the relation between genitives and nouns, modifier nouns and modified nouns, and adjectival verbs / relative clauses and nouns (when the word functions as a third person pronoun, I've simply glossed it as "it")
YAE = the 也 yaeX particle, which sometimes marks a topic, sometimes semantically does something similar to clefting in English ("it is (not) that they...")
YU = the 歟 yuX particle, which is a combination of the 也 yaeX particle and the question particle 乎 hu

¹子曰：「學而時習之，不亦說乎？有朋自遠方來，不亦樂乎？人不知而不慍，不亦君子乎？」
²有子曰：「其爲人也孝弟，而好犯上者，鮮矣；不好犯上，而好作亂者，未之有也！君子務本，本立而道生；孝弟也者，其爲仁之本歟？」
³子曰：「巧言令色，鮮矣仁！」
⁴曾子曰：「吾日三省吾身：爲人謀而不忠乎？與朋友交而不信乎？傳不習乎？」
⁵子曰：「道千乘之國，敬事而信，節用而愛人，使民以時。」

1.1

子 tsiX

Master

曰 hjwot

say

：「

-

學 haewk

study

而 nyi

and

時 dzyi

period.of.time

習 zip

practise

之 tsyi

it

，

-

不 pjuw

not

亦 yek

also

說 ywet

pleasing,satisfying

乎 hu

Q

？

-

有 hjuwX

there.be,exist

朋 bong

friend

自 dzijH

be.from

遠 hjwonX

be.far

方 pjang

place

來 loj

come

，

-

不 pjuw

not

亦 yek

also

樂 lak

joy,enjoy

乎 hu

Q

？

-

人nyin

person,others

不 pjuw

not

知 trje

know

而 nyi

and

不 pjuw

not

慍 ’junH

feel.resentment

，

不 pjuw

not

亦 yek

also

君子 kjun tsiX

gentleman

乎 hu

Q

？」

-

The Master said, “To learn and then have occasion to practice what you have learned--is this not satisfying? To have friends arrive from afar--is this not a joy? To be patient even when others do not understand--is this not the mark of the gentleman?”

1.2

有 hjuwX

the.name.Hjuw,You

子 tsiX

master

曰 hjwot

say

：「

-

其 gi

3.POSS

爲 hjwe

to.act

人 nyin

person

也 yaeX

YAE

孝 xaewH

filial.piety,be.filial

弟 dejX

young.brother,be.filial

，

-

而 nyi

and

好 xawH

be.fond.of

犯 bjomX

to.defy

上 dzyangH

top,superior

者 tsyaeX

AGT.REL

，

-

鮮 sjenX

be.rare

矣 hiX

HI

；

-

不 pjuw

not

好 xawH

be.fond.of

犯 bjomX

to.defy

上 dzyangH

top,superior

，

-

而 nyi

and

好 xawH

be.fond.of

作 tsak

do

亂 lwanH

disorder,rebellion

者 tsyaeX

AGT.REL

，

-

未 mjəjH

not.yet

之 tsyi

it

有 hjuw

there.be

也 yaeX

YAE

！

-

君子 kjun tsiX

gentleman

務 mjuH

occupy.oneself.with

本 pwonX

root

，

-

本 pwonX

root

立 lip

stand

而 nyi

and

道 dawX

the.Way

生 sraeng

be.alive

；

-

孝 xaewH

filial.piety,be.filial

弟 dejX

young.brother,be.filial

也 yaeX

YAE

者 tsyaeX

AGT.REL

，

-

其 gi

his

爲 hjwe

be,serve.as

仁 nyin

kindness,be.kind

之 tsyi

TSYI

本 pwonX

root

歟 yuX

YU

？」

-

Master You said, “A young person who is filial and respectful of his elders rarely becomes the kind of person who is inclined to defy his superiors, and there has never been a case of one who is disinclined to defy his superiors stirring up rebellion. The gentleman applies himself to the roots. ‘Once the roots are firmly established, the Way will grow.’ Might we not say that filial piety and respect for elders constitute the root of Goodness?”

1.3

子 tsiX

Master

曰 hjwot

say

：「

-

巧 khaewX

slick

言 ngjon

spech

令 ljengH

fine,noble

色 srik

appearance

，

-

鮮 sjenX

be.rare

矣 hiX

HI

仁 nyin

be.kind,Kindness

！」

-

The Master said, “A clever tongue and fine appearance are rarely signs of Goodness.”

1.4

曾 tsong

the.name.Tsong,Zeng

子 tsiX

Master

曰 hjwot

say

：「

-

吾 ngu

I,me

日 nyit

day,daily

三 sam

three

省 sjengX

examine,inspect

吾 ngu

I,me,my

身 syin

body,-self

：

-

爲 hjweH

for

人 nyin

person,others

謀 mjuw

plan,advise,consult

而 nyi

and

不 pjuw

not

忠 trjuwng

dedicated,loyal

乎 hu

Q

？

-

與 yoX

with,and

朋 bong

friend

友 hjuwX

friend,ally

交 kaew

to.cross,interact

而 nyi

and

不 pjuw

not

信 sinH

be.trustworthy,to.believe

乎 hu

Q

？

-

傳 drjwen

impart,transmit

不 pjuw

not

習 zip

practise

乎 hu

Q

？」

-

Master Zeng said, “Every day I examine myself on three counts: in my dealings with others, have I in any way failed to be dutiful? In my interactions with friends and associates, have I in any way failed to be trustworthy? Finally, have I in any way failed to repeatedly put into practice what I teach?”

1.5

子 tsiX

Master

曰 hjwot

say

：「

-

道 dawH

to.guide

千 tshen

thousand

乘 zyingH

chariot

之 tsyi

TSYI

國 kwok

state,country

，

-

敬 kjaengH

be.respectful,respect

事 dzriH

service,affair

而 nyi

and

信 sinH

be.trustworthy,to.believe

，

-

節 tset

be.moderate

用

而 nyi

and

愛 ’ojH

to.cherish,esteem

人 nyin

person,others

，

-

使 sriX

depute,dispatch

民 mjin

people

以 yiX

take,use

時 dzyi

at.right.time

。」

-

The Master said, “To guide a state of one thousand chariots, be respectful in your handing of affairs and display trustworthiness; be frugal in your expenditures and cherish others; and employ the common people only at the proper times.”

[Hallow XIII]

multilevel glosses exist

apparently not

mea culpa