Thursday, May 13, 2010

Ohazishi ath vensháo

It's very late. I am very tired. This is not enough to keep me from posting here, is it?

There was a much earlier entry about greetings, but it failed to have some common expressions like "Good morning" and "Good night". I am ready to tackle those now. Here's one:

Ohazishi ath vensháo ("Keep yourself safe tonight") -- This is a departure version of "Good night". It's just what they'd say. It might even be what you'd say to someone going to bed, but I will have to think on that more when I am more awake.

I am going to bed now. Ca mer noa.
Ohazishi ath vensháo

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Hrmph

In the previous entry, I'd translated the first 28 lines of McGuffey's First Reader. I had started working on more, but nothing is ready to post yet. Instead, I will address a problem in what I've already done.

13.Fwipi sul ya tase ya valtem adadi.
This is supposed to mean:
The man can see the boy run.

Adadi would be a adjective out of the verb, "adad". I was thinking at the time that it would be something like a present participle in English and that ya valtem adadi would mean "the running boy" which would seem close enough. It's not right though. It doesn't mean that he's running now, but that he's a boy who runs a lot, runs habitually, or likes running, something like that.

Let's have another go at it...
Fwipi sul ya tase ya valtem kwe ki adad lia.
potential-nonpast-3rd-sing-(perceive) see the man the boy (acc) that(relative clause opener) nonpast-3rd-sing run (relative clause closer).
The man can see the boy that runs/is running.

I think that's close enough.

In a later edit:
On the other hand, I could just let "adadi" mean what I intended in translation *and* also have those other meanings as well. Now that I am giving it a second thought, I think I'll just leave it as is.

(So now you get to see some of my process in action. Things change, change back, and then change again all the time.)

Monday, April 19, 2010

McGuffey's First Reader Translation

Gary Shannon recently posted that he was going to translate McGuffey's First Reader as a method of language construction. I decided to apply Teliya Nevashi to the same text.

I haven't checked these over, but here we go:

1. Ca sul levtem. (The boy and girl in the illustration looked like they were probably in that 5-12 year old range.)
2. Ca sul levtam.
3. Ca sul levtem wa levtam.
4. Fwici sul ya levte ya levtam.
5. Fwaca sul ya levtam wa ya levtem.
6. Fwaca sul ya levtam.

7. Sulishi ya tasem!
8. Sulishi ya valtem wa ya tasem. (The boy in the illustration looked like a teen to me.)
9. Pi def ya tase cakom.
10. Pi def ya valte cakom, pi seya?
11. Fwiki adad ya valte.
12. Fwiki adad ya tase, ki?
13. Fwipi sul ya tase ya valtem adadi.

14. Pa def cakom.
15. Pa def voyabenam.
16. Sulishi voyabenam laz!
17. Fwici sul voyabena, ci seya?
18. Fwaca sul voyabenam laz.
19. Pi def ya voyabena cakom, pi seya?
20. Pi def voyabena laz cakom. (Alternately, Pi def laz voyabena cakom. OR Pi def ya voyabena laz cakom.)
21. Pi def levta voyabenam wa cakom.

22. Fwiki lon ya levte, ki?
23. Fwiki lon wa adad ya levte.
24. Fwiki lon ya levte lonosham ulai.
25. Fwiki lon ya tase lonosham ulai, ki seya?
26. Fwipi sul ya tase ya levtem loni.
27. Fwipi weyat ya tase ya ulam, pi?
28. Fwipi weyat ya levte ya ulam.

That was fun. I might do more in a few more days. Or months. You know how it goes around here.

And a special request translation: Mi gan sanzomo laz go ambo-ambo. My canoe is very large.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Clarification on Questions

This morning I woke up thinking about how a "why" question fits into the forms I posted yesterday, and then I realized that it might not be clear how a "how" question works. To be clear, the topic is in the nominative, followed by the question part.
Here's the sample I put in the grammar document:
Dha fiosa, ve ano weros? (That house, 2nd-singular-past build how?; "How did you build that house?")

"Why" questions would be similar. I don't have an example off the top of my head, but you might even go as far as "About the civil war, you-wrote why?" ("Why did you write about the civil war?") -- this includes a topic phrase.


Addendum from the Comments:
Thomas said...
I notice that in your other questions, the topic stands alone at the beginning of the sentence; what about wording it as "the civil war, you wrote about [it] why" (rather than "about the civil war, you wrote why")? Just a thought.

March 15, 2010 1:52 PM


Mee-ah said...
I think that's what I originally had in mind. I ended up writing my clarification between errands today, and I may have failed at clarifying.

Either would probably be allowed, grammatically, but your example is less awkward. Thanks. :)

March 15, 2010 2:55 PM

Sunday, March 14, 2010

You've Got Questions? We've Got Grammar!

Yes/No question tagging had been addressed previously in the grammar, but now it is possible to ask other kinds of questions too!

Questions in Teliya Nevashi are formed by mentioning the subject or topic first, followed by the verb and usually ending in one of the 7 interrogative words. Those words are jenos ("who"), eyos ("what"), kios ("why"), alos ("where"), lumos ("when"), weros ("how") and gedos ("which (one)").

For instance:
Ya kawunar, mi dev alos? (The bathroom, 3rd_person-s is-located where?; "Where is the bathroom?")
Amá dez, mi an gedos? (Mother your, 3rd-singular is which one?; "Which one is your mother?)
Dha Sheshet, mi an jenos? (That young-woman, 3rd-sing is who?; "Who is that girl?")

Kawunar is generally the bathroom in someone's home, since it is the "bathing room". A public bathroom would be iane'ar, the "water room", or thusar, the "urination room".

I've labeled thusar as vulgar in the vocabulary document, but I don't think it is strongly vulgar. It's just not as euphemistic as iane'ar. Do the Nevashi have those kinds of taboos about bodily functions? I am not sure yet.

I noticed something about the name of the world, Ianea, recently. It is called "Ya Ianen", "The Waters" by the Nevashi who live there, and I had thought that "Ianea" was the same thing, but I think it actually means something closer to "Flow" or "Flowing".

Monday, March 8, 2010

Small Advancements, Big Plans

Nevashi gained a number of words for body parts and clothing tonight. Those are the small advancements.

The Big Plans? I plan on starting to keep a diary in the language to help advance it further. I hope that actually using it will result in a lot more advancement. I may start posting entries here in Nevashi, when I feel a little more comfortable using it.

I also plan on fleshing out the conculture a little more, paying particular attention to the differences between the cultures of Nevashi speakers on the island of Nevash and on the mainland, and also between Ianea Nevashi and Earth Nevashi. (I might like to start by coming up with some story to explain how some Nevashi people ended up on Earth, since Ianea is their home world.)

I am also trying to start a little collaborative conlang project at http://conlangery.freeforums.org/ http://colla.conlang.org. (It has moved!)

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Third Annual State of the Language Address

It's that time of the year again, when I take a look what happened in the development of Teliya Nevashi over the last 12 months (+/-) and set a course for the coming year.

The development of the language has continued to be slow, in fits and starts, but there are now over 300 words in the vocabulary file. There have been quite a few developments in colloquial/idiomatic usage over the year. It has been used in status messages on Facebook and for about half of my cards for the Conlang Card Exchange. (The other half were ea-luna cards.)

Onward to the future!

There are three things I hope to accomplish with this language this year:

1. I'd like to write some lessons. I've had a couple of people ask, for one thing, and it might be a good thing for developing the language.

2. I'd like to do more translations and writing, for the sake of developing the vocabulary and grammar, as well as getting more practice using it myself.

3. I'd like to revise and expand the grammar.

I am cautiously hopeful about my chances of accomplishing substantive progress this year.

Regarding my other conlangs, I'd like to finish the vocabulary file for ea-luna and try to recreate as many of the lost compound words as possible. If I get around to it, I'd like to try to describe the grammar, or at least collect enough model sentences together in one place that someone else could, if they felt some strange, burning need that the antibiotics didn't fix.

I would also like to start another language using the ideas that have been coalescing in my head for the last 6 months or so. This would be a collaborative project, in theory.

And, lastly, regarding other conlangs that are not mine, I plan on spending the next few months really learning to use Esperanto, and then going to the Landa Kongreso, which will be in Washington, DC-- conveniently close! I just think it would be a fun life experience.