| Site | Kelenala  |
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| Language | Kelenala |
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| Year | 2003 |
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| Translator | David J. Peterson |
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| Introduction | Kelenala is what I call an instant creole. Whereas most creoles are usually born of two languages, I took about 500 basic words (based on the list of words I used for the class that created Wasabi) and made up phonological forms for them. From there, I made a creole, using only those words, and combining them in ways to coin new substantives and grammatical terms. The Romanization is pretty standard. |
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| Verse 1 | Heye, te y'upale ki yu saya a yu nala ele wa ye yu ina. |
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| Verse 2 | Sine yeni ki si yu ala yu Keteme, i yeni ki yu hele si pe si upale yu Sinala, i yeni ki yu ponuma si heye. |
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| Verse 3 | I a yu teka ki yu ina si sali yu eni, "Heye! Yama elu lo nima i lasa'ni si asi, u?" I he nima tene ki yu nima wa yeni, i he upale alu ki yu sula ku wa yeni. |
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| Verse 4 | I yeni ki yu ina, "Hele! Yama wa lo palewole wa pale kamasi, wa topo yu eni ki wa yasa s'imeya, i yama wa lusa ana wa yama wanu, osu yama elu osulasula si wakawi y'upale." |
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| Verse 5 | I teka s'imeya ki yu hele ulu su eni u ki yu ay he palewole wa he pale kamisi, kisu kesi yu sate ki yu lo yeni. |
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| Verse 6 | I teka s'imeya ki yu ina, "Ay! A y'upale, i a yu nala wa te yu yeni, i yeni ki yu naya kiya. I osa oki wa numa pele'ni, kisu yeni ki elu nayma lo'ni. |
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| Verse 7 | Hele! Ima wa hele ulu i w'ewiyu nala yu yeni heye, su yeni oki wa masa pele nala yu anute. |
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| Verse 8 | I teka s'imeya ki yu osulasula'ni yu heye si wakawi y'upale te, i yeni ki yu numa lo palewole. |
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| Verse 9 | Wasu, yeni ki yu ana wa Papele, su heye, teka s'imeya ki yu ewiyu nala y'upale te, i yu heye, teka s'imeya ki yu osulasula'ni si wakawi y'upale te. |
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| Interlinear Translation 1 | (Once upon a time), (all) (QUANT.-land) (PRED.) (PAST) (have) (one) (QUANT.-language) (only) (with) (few) (QUANT.) (word). |
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| Translation 2 | (at+minute=when/while) (3pl.) (PRED.) (PAST) (go) (from) (Qedem), (RESUMP.) (3pl.) (PRED.) (PAST) (come) (to) (plain) (LOC.) (land) (GEN.) (Shinar), (and then) (3pl.) (PRED.) (PAST) (sit down+stop=settled) (LOC.) (there). |
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| Translation 3 | (and then) (one) (QUANT.) (man) (PRED.) (PAST) (say) (to) (friend) (GEN.) (3sg.), "(there)! (1pl.inc.) (COND.) (make) (stone/brick) (and then) (drop-3pl.) (LOC.) (fire), (maybe)?" (and) (that) (stone+square=brick [as opposed to stone]) (PRED.) (PAST) (stone) (BEN.) (3pl.), (and) (that) (dirt+wet=clay) (PRED.) (PAST) (tie together+stuff=glue/mortar) (BEN.) (3pl.). |
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| Translation 4 | (and then) (3pl.) (PRED.) (PAST) (say), "(come)! (1pl.inc.) (FUT.) (build) (house+many+place=city) (with) (house+tall=tower) (and with) (head) (GEN.) (3sg.) (PRED.) (FUT.) (stand) (LOC.+sky), (and then) (1pl.inc.) (FUT.) (obtain) (name) (1pl.inc.) (same), (lest) (1pl.inc.) (COND.) (no+tie together=break apart; reduplication=more dramatic action) (LOC.) (skin) (GEN.-earth)." |
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| Translation 5 | (and then) (man+LOC.+sky=YHWH) (PRED.) (PAST) (come+down=descend) (PURP.) (3sg.) (IRR.) (PRED.) (PAST) (see) (that) (city) (with) (that) (tower), (REL.) (child) (GEN.) (human+all=humanity) (PRED.) (GEN.) (build) (3pl.). |
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| Translation 6 | (and then) (YHWH) (PRED.) (PAST) (say), "(look)! (one) (QUANT.-nation), (and) (one) (QUANT.) (language) (BEN.) (all) (QUANT.) (3pl.), (and now) (3pl.) (PRED.) (PAST) (begin) (this+one=this [pron.]). (and now) (NEG.+human=no one) (NEG.PRED.) (FUT.) (stop) (can-3sg.), (REL.) (3pl.) (PRED.) (COND.) (start+think=plot) (make-3sg.). |
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| Translation 7 | (come)! (1pl.exc.) (FUT.) (descend) (and then) (FUT.-confuse) (language) (GEN.) (3pl.) (there), (PURP.) (3pl.) (NEG.PRED.) (FUT.) (eye=understand) (can) (language) (GEN.) (other+all=each other). |
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| Translation 8 | (and then) (YHWH) (PRED.) (PAST) (scatter-3pl.) (from) (that place) (LOC.) (skin) (GEN.-earth) (all), (and then) (3pl.) (PRED.) (PAST) (stop) (build) (city). |
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| Translation 9 | (therefore), (3pl.) (PRED.) (PAST) (name) (as) (Babel), (PURP.) (there), (YHWH) (PRED.) (PAST) (confuse) (language) (GEN.-earth) (all), (and) (from) (there), (YHWH) (PRED.) (PAST) (scatter-3pl.) (LOC.) (skin) (GEN.-earth) (all). |
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| English Paraphrase 1 | A long time ago, far, far away, the whole land, it had only one language with a few words. |
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| Paraphrase 2 | It was while they were traveling from Qedem that they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar, and they took up residence there. |
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| Paraphrase 3 | And then one of the men said to his friend, "Hey there! Why don't we make bricks and put them in the fire?" And the bricks were there stones, and the mud was there mortar. |
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| Paraphrase 4 | And then they said, "Come on! We'll build a city with a tower who's head is in the sky, and we'll get a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered across the face of the earth." |
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| Paraphrase 5 | And some man in the sky went down, for him to see the city and tower that humanity's children had built. |
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| Paraphrase 6 | And this guy said, "Would you look at that? One nation, and one language for all of them, and now they've begun this. Ain't no one gonna be able to stop it, that which they plot to do." |
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| Paraphrase 7 | Come on! We'll go on down and confuse their language there, so that they won't be able to understand each other's language. |
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| Paraphrase 8 | And so this guy scattered them from there across the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. |
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| Paraphrase 9 | And so they called it "Babel", 'cause there, the guy from above confused the language of the whole earth, and from there, this guy scattered them across the face of the whole earth. |
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| Notes 1 | "Heye" is idiomatic. It usually means "there". "Y'upale" is a contraction of "yu" and "upale". "Ki" is the word for "this", but it's used to mark the predicates of sentences with third person subjects. "Yu" is the same preposition which works both as a genitive and as a past tense marker. It also works as a quantifier for any number expression. |
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| Notes 2 | To say something like "while we were x'ing we y'd", you introduce the first phrase with "sine", and then when you're ready to get back to the normal sentence, you use "i". "Hele si" is a compound used to mean "find". |
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| Notes 3 | "Nima" is the word for both "stone" and "brick", so to specify, you can say "square stone" for "brick". It's usually not necessary; this is just one of the rare circumstances where it is. "Wa" can mean "for", "with" and "and", and can be used as the future tense marker. |
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| Notes 4 | The conditional is formed of the words for "what" and "time", "e" and "lu", respectively. Reduplication for verbs generally pluralizes the action, whether it's multiple occurrences of the verb, or a larger effect. |
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| Notes 5 | The relative particle is formed from the word for "this" and "reason", "ki" and "su" respectively. There's no movement and no deletion involved, so you get phrases like, "The man went to the store, REL. I saw him." |
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| Notes 6 | It's been recently discovered that "YHWH" is actually an acronym, which stands for "You Have Weird Hair". I hope they don't mean me; there's not much I can do about it now... The negative predicate is just what it sounds like. |
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| Notes 7 | I never know what to do with that enigmatic "we" in this verse. Is there more than one person? Is it a royal we? I'd like to change it to "I". But, what can you do? So I made it exclusive. "Anu" used to mean "other", but now only means "each other". "Te" can be added, though it doesn't change the meaning; just emphasizes the "each"-ness. |
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| Notes 8 | ~:D |
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| Notes 9 | "Wasu" is comprised of "wa" (with) and "su" (reason), to form "therefore". |
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| Submitted By | David J. Peterson |
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| Date Submitted | Saturday, June 14, 2003 |
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| Updated By | David J. Peterson |
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| Date Edited | Thursday, October 28, 2004 |
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| Description Of Update | Changed the name of the language and the link. |
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| Date To Headline | Friday, October 29, 2004 |
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