| Language | Megdevi |
|---|
| Language Subtitle | Silesh |
|---|
| Year | 2002 |
|---|
| Translator | David J. Peterson |
|---|
| Introduction | Megdevi is a language I created to actually be spoken between my girlfriend and I. When I came to the realization that she wasn't going to learn it, I expanded it on my own. It's something of a mix between Arabic and Esperanto, seeing as it works with triconsonantal roots, but is shamelessly regular. This was my first attempt at language creation, and thus, the idea of naturalness hadn't yet entered my skull. All the words are roughly written in SAMPA. /a/ should be regarded as schwa-like, affricates as a single phoneme, /&/ a low, front, unrounded vowel, and /L/ as a regular [l] (I'm writing it as a capital in order to distinguish it from capital "i", [I], which is a high, front, unrounded lax vowel). |
|---|
| Verse 1 | pat Zi neTIN ?AsImuT matsaLu ?AnUL DidZejsat-a-m&kIL&Z ?AsAmUpuT. |
|---|
| Verse 2 | pat ZULo darazu Doj, meSInIm LEnt Sin?Ar ?AneTINuT navaku hoj, pat gULo hoj gA ?EtseDavalu. |
|---|
| Verse 3 | pat Doj hojIm taLaju, "j&! noj CaJafa!" pat wi Doj Zi C&JIf&Z xadULLaku, pat Zi ksefIL zagZULLagzu. |
|---|
| Verse 4 | pat za4a4u Doj, "j&! noj paf noj midEnIm tSapawa pat kirEdIm, LI-doj ?ApepItuT lEnt Zi fezIz&Z matsalA, pat gULo, noj paf noj mAkodZ&ZIm bavalA, s&mEx noj karajiso gejn Zi sejL Zojzejs ?AbedZIsuT." |
|---|
| Verse 5 | pat ?eLIf rakaru rIks jisejTat LI-Zi midEn, LI-metsIL ?AmevIz&ZuT tSIpIwu. |
|---|
| Verse 6 | pat za4a4u ?eLIf, "j&sUT: ?AnUL pisEq, pat ?AnUL DidZejsat paf Doj ?AsImuT matsaLi, pat TImIm trASIkIgi hoj. pat nAjk wi Doj, sIm, LI-dojIm hoj Dazago, nana?isA dijx. |
|---|
| Verse 7 | j&! ?oj rakaka-saSaza DojijIm DidZejsatIm, rIks vasaTA dijx Doj hojIm. |
|---|
| Verse 8 | spAjs bAjs gA ?eLIf DojIm trAkaraju gejn Zi Zojzejs ?AsImuT, pat Doj Zi midEn ?AtSipejwatuT trALaksatu. |
|---|
| Verse 9 | spAjs doj manaNisu "bAbEL", tSu gA ?eLIf saSazu Zi sejL Zojzejs ?ADidZejsatuT, pat tSu bAjs gA ?eLIf DojIm trAkaraju gejn Zi Zojzejs ?AsImuT. |
|---|
| Interlinear Translation 1 | And the land the whole of was one language-and-words a small number of. |
|---|
| Translation 2 | And at the time wested they, a plain in Shin'ar the land of found they and at that time they there began to live. |
|---|
| Translation 3 | And they to themselves said, "Onward! Let us make bricks!" And in regards to them the bricks became rocks, and the clay became mortar. |
|---|
| Translation 4 | And said they, "Onward! Let's for ourselves a city build and a tower, which it the head of in the clouds will be, and at that time, we for ourselves famous reputations will have, lest we should be scattered throughout the whole Earth the face of." |
|---|
| Translation 5 | And the tricky one down-ed so that seeing of-the city, which human the children of had built. |
|---|
| Translation 6 | And said the tricky one, "Behold: one nation, and one language for them the whole of there is, and this thing have begun they. And now with respect to them, all, which it they should plan, will be denied not. |
|---|
| Translation 7 | Come! Let me descend-and-confuse their language, so that will understand not they themselves. |
|---|
| Translation 8 | Therefore from there the tricky one them scattered throughout the Earth the whole of, and they the city the building of stopped. |
|---|
| Translation 9 | And so it was named "Babel", because there the tricky one confused the whole Earth the language of, and because from there the tricky one them scattered throughout the Earth the whole of. |
|---|
| English Paraphrase 1 | And the whole world was one language and a small number of words. |
|---|
| Paraphrase 2 | And when they traveled west, they found a plain in the land of Shin'ar, and they took up residence there. |
|---|
| Paraphrase 3 | And they said to one another, "Hey! Let us make and fire bricks!" And to them the bricks were stones, and the clay was mortar. |
|---|
| Paraphrase 4 | And they said, "Come! Let's build ourselves a city with a tower, whose head will be in the sky, and then we'll make a name for ourselves, lest we should be scattered across the face of the Earth." |
|---|
| Paraphrase 5 | And God descended to see the city the children of humans had built. |
|---|
| Paraphrase 6 | And God said, "Behold: One nation and one language for all of them, and this they have begun. And now nothing they plan will be denied them. |
|---|
| Paraphrase 7 | Come! Let me descend and confuse their language, so that they won't understand each other. |
|---|
| Paraphrase 8 | And so, from there God scattered them all over the Earth, and they stopped building the city. |
|---|
| Paraphrase 9 | And so it was named "Babel", because there God confused the language of the whole Earth, and because from there he scattered them across the face of the Earth. |
|---|
| Notes 1 | The circumfix /?A- -uT/ makes the construct case, which is equivalent to the genitive, but rather than saying "the x of y", you say "y the x of". |
|---|
| Notes 2 | The accusative suffix is /-Im/. There is no prescribed word order at all. Also, the spelling "Shin'ar" gives one no idea how on Earth it's supposed to be pronounced, or what the apostrophe means. I've inserted a glottal stop for it, though it might've been meant to indicate a pharyngeal fricative/approximant, or even palatalization. |
|---|
| Notes 3 | The /-ULL/ infix is an inchoative infix. It approximates the phrase "The bricks were stones to them". |
|---|
| Notes 4 | /LI-/ indicates the object of a verbal noun, or begins a complimentary phrase. |
|---|
| Notes 5 | There are two words for "God" in Megdevi (I assume that's what the inexplicable YHWH is supposed to mean): one has a glottal stop, and the other a voiceless glottal fricative. The version here means "the elf", or "the tricky one", and the other means "the happy one". Depending on what God's doing, either word could be used. Here he's making mischief, so /?eLIf/ is employed. |
|---|
| Notes 6 | /hoj/ is used to replace third person pronouns when they're used more than once in the same sentence to refer to the same entity. |
|---|
| Notes 7 | /Doj hojIm/ is just an expression that indicates the distributive. |
|---|
| Submitted By | David J. Peterson |
|---|
| Date Submitted | Thursday, March 21, 2002 |
|---|
| Updated By | David J. Peterson |
|---|
| Date Edited | Thursday, January 01, 2004 |
|---|
| Description Of Update | Final update. |
|---|
| Date To Headline | Thursday, January 01, 2004 |
|---|
