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14. Gnomopano (Lili)
Text
Flulusha, mabalknein zhendlush, makliknen yanot lugnelush.⁷ Mayaleita sheelaneita goknoonlosht;⁸ yaaminal faltash. Me gnolzhezha gozhoondlusht, kniid goloominglush. Kupek shiilusha; fasi, magnanjagno piteik faltusht: “Tsoy, Yimalitupo, mayaaminolo yashi yalos. Gindiyem macizhezhi shoolusht, knood knootlata. Pleid, fuustek maziitisintitandayectat ciinikniitlata.”
Backtranslation
They write, the wood burns, the fire pleases me.¹ You have watched them sleep before;²³ I speak with a friend. Six of them have burned before, then they have remained. They want to sleep; therefore, the translator says this: “General,⁴ you are my good friend, Jimalitupi.⁵ A quarter of the day passed, then we met. Ever since, I’ve been hoping that, tomorrow, we will meet in the white valley.”⁶
¹ These three clauses were marked with a durative aspect, which I had roughly translated as “verb for a while,” but I thought that was too clunky a translation, and I left it out because in English the sense of duration is still conveyed without it.
² I have mainly left out translations of p’ɰé (then), because it is just used to make a coherent narrative since Kevin’s language is a primarily oral language.
³ Before is my best effort at translating the experiential aspect—the event has been completed, and it doesn’t apply to the present.
⁴ Military general.
⁵ I’ve combined Ji Ma Li Tu Pi into one name, since my language isn’t generally monosyllabic, like Kevin’s.
⁶ For breaking up sentences, since Kevin’s language doesn’t have punctuation, I mainly went by how he divided te text up into chunks, so I made each chunk was a sentence.
⁷ To convey the durative aspect, I’ve used the verb endings for the lexical aspect of activity.
⁸ I’ve used a combination of the past tense, perfective aspect, and accomplishment lexical aspect to convey Kevin’s experiential aspect.
Grammar
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