laroon
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Post by laroon on Feb 12, 2012 18:36:12 GMT -5
Right. It shouldn't be D'ni. I think you just disproved your argument.. And it's possible that the translation is a generalization to make it make sense in English. That's a common concept of course. If you did it word for word in English, wouldn't a lot of people just go "uhh why does it sound like random words?" Because if you transliterate a lot of languages (asian languages are really weird when transliterated. You ever look at Chinese sayings?) to English, the meaning looks very obscure. I think it's reasonable to assume he was paraphrasing a lot. Besides he's a composer, not a linguist. Even with the argument of him having a hobby in language making, he sure hasn't proven it in his near abandonment of this language while he works as a game title composer. While I understand that his day job is probably more important to his personal interest of - you know, finances, he hasn't exactly given the language much thought in physical form. So we should really pull a few ideas from this limited resource, and then just move on. We need the basics at least. We can go crazy on something like "breeding ground for lost souls" after we have a few other things down, like numbers, pronouns, and useful verbs.
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Post by dlordoftime on Feb 12, 2012 18:48:22 GMT -5
No, what I am saying is that it was created with the intent of being a D'ni dialect, and so its form was similar to D'ni, but then it was decided that it should not be D'ni, but something else. Oh, and Jack worked with Rawa because of his idea.
Ok, to look at your point of 'Wouldn't it just sound like random words?', let us consider a German sentence. Ich habe Musik gehört. Literally translated, this is 'I have music listened to'. Of course, the translation is 'I have listened to music.' Therefore, why should the same not apply to Narayani? And an argument similar to yours would also attack your own suggestion, since yours sounds like a bunch of dis-connected ideas, not a sentence.
EDIT: Since we are never going to agree unless some other people come along and give their own opinions, we should develop both ideas as far as we can. Else we are just going to argue until the cows come home.
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laroon
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Post by laroon on Feb 12, 2012 19:09:30 GMT -5
Oh well if you wanted grammar included, then by all means I will do that J'Nanin, comensanin, expidan revilani erte yan. J'Nanin, where the journey to learn the Art begins. This sight, beginning, (is a) journey (which) reveals (the) art world. Naray alani; Narayan my home. Home beloved. Beloved is used as an adjective. he's looking to his home and say "oh my beloved Naray." Naray latiste t'dee; Narayan who's lattice tree is life. Home lattice to you gives life. Now describing it, he says "The lattice of home gives you life." Nosis amani azhwa na. I think of you with joy. Everyone joy thinks of. Everyone thinks of (it with) joy. Famani Sa; Keep my family safe; Family secure. Family is the direct object, again, verb to the end. "Secure my family" or "Make my family safe". Havana devota. Shelter the ones I love. Loved ones shelter. Same thing here. "Shelter the ones I love." J'Nanin, apic'Nanin, revilani ero yamani yan J'Nanin, use what you have seen to unlock all that my Ages have to offer. This sight, use of sight, reveal clearly age-people's worlds. J'Nanin is a grey area. I'm pretty sure it stems from D'ni. In any case, I'm going to keep "Nanin" as having to do with seeing. J is just like Zh, as you said, which can come from my word of "Zhwe" (this). This sight. Apic, I think we both agreed, was "use". Just reinstating "Use the sight". Then revealing all the worlds of the age-people. Everyone is a yamani. This is different from my Doyamani. Two things to note- 1. Yamani means "age person". We're all age people. 2. Doyamani is just "other world person". So to a narayani, everyone that is NOT from Narayan is a doyamani. This is a matter of perspective. Ami malisa pariel; I will avenge your peril; I avenge peril. You initially said that "ami" is "your", which would make this "your I-avenge peril" according to you and the translation. That doesn't seem right. Malisa could be "avenge" which I kind of like. But then it's a matter of going further and saying "is this future tense?". It's almost a matter of immediate future, I'd say. I'll talk more about tenses later, but I think "I avenge" and "I will avenge you soon" are going to be the same in this language. Kind of a certainty thing. Where present tense means "it will happen cuz it's happening right now" versus "it will happen in the future (maybe) because you can't predict the future. So it's kind of up in the air. Japanese does that with its future tense, and it's kinda interesting. Memondama ami soule! Remember my heart! Remember my heart/soul. Again, I don't see how "ami" ever could mean 'your'. Perhaps Ami, when before a noun, is "my" and when before a verb, "I". Nilashahn! Malisa ma Narayan! Annihilation! I will avenge my Narayan! Annihilation. I avenge to house myself. Pretty self explanatory. J'Nanin, locusani, degraca soule de yamani... J'Nanin, breeding ground for lost souls... This sight, new place in which one is moved temporarily, disgraced souls of age-people. Clearly J'Nanin is the place in which Myst III takes place, so it's setting it up for that. Locusani is like new camp ground. An outpost if you will. Just a new place to live, not usually for long, because you don't care for the place. I guess if you home were being tented for termites, you'd move to a hotel and you could say "I'm in a locusani."
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Post by dlordoftime on Feb 12, 2012 19:37:16 GMT -5
Ok, so I shall also do a brakedown of my translation
Tomahna, Edanna, Amateria, Voltaic, Narayan, List of Ages J'nanin, comensanin, expidan revilani erte yan. J'nanin, brought from previous line. Comensanin could be beginning or you begin. It depends on what you like. I opted for you begin because it fits my idea of personal pronoun suffixes. Expidan is journey, from expidani. Revilani is to reveal. Erte yan is a generic phrase for the Art.
Naray alani, Naray is Saavedro's Narayan. Alani is from alan, meaning home. The suffix indicates that alan is possessing or possessed. Obviously Saavedro doing the possessing. Hence my. Naray latiste t'dee, Naray again. Latiste is the plural of lattice tree. t'dee is a contraction of te dee, meaning are life. Nosis amani azhwa na. Nosis, from nosi, meaning to think of. Amani is accusative you. Azhwa na is with joy. Famani sa; Famani is like alani; it is possessed by Saavedro. Sa is from si. Havana devota! Havana is from havani, to shelter. Devota is from devoti, to love.
Tomahna, Edanna, Amateria, Voltaic, Narayan, J'nanin, apic'nanin, revilani ero yamani yan. Apica is use, nanin is like comensanin, could be sight or you see. the what would be implied. Ero, all, yamani, to offer, yan, Age. No i is needed, since it refers to J'nanin.
Ami malisa pariel; Ami is your, refering to pariel. No i needed, since it has a pronoun. Malisa is I will or I must avenge. Word order can be moved to this since it is a poem. Memondama mi soul! Here, since ami makes the translation fail, I have used mi instead. Call it cheating if you will, but one could hear either in the song. Memondama from memondami. Soul is what I hear, meaning heart or soul. Mi is used instead of ma because the heart/soul belongs to Saavedro.
Tomahna! Edanna! Amateria! Narayan!
Releeshahn! Nilashan! Nilashan is like expidan. Malisa ma Narayan! Malisa again. Ma is my; ma instead of mi because Saavedro does not own Narayan. Perhaps a term of endearment? Narayan instead of Naray because Saavedro believes that the entire Age is dying, that is, every tree.
Tomahna, Edanna, Amateria, Voltaic, Narayan, J'nanin, locusani, degrasa soule de yamani. Degrasa soule is disgraced souls. Soule is the plural of soul. De is for. Goes with degrasa soule. Locusani is possessed here, indicated by de. Place for disgraced souls. Yamani again seeming to mean to offer. It may have a second meaning, or it may mean something similar to offer. I don't know.
~~~
Anyway, I believe that our two ideas have strengths and weaknesses, and we would be better off building both ideas and perhaps merging them to play off each of their strengths,
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laroon
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Post by laroon on Feb 12, 2012 19:57:41 GMT -5
I don't think, with all the suffixes in half of your words for possession and conjugation that it'd make sense to have "ami malisa pariel" with the possessive article so far away from the noun it modifies, where the other ones have them so close together that it's one word. And as for changing the lyrics, that's kind of tacky, since these were the words written by Jack Wall and all that jazz. I don't think he made a typo there. As far as "You see" and "you begin", who is this "You?" Is it the powers that be talking to Saveedro? I doubt they're talking to the Stranger, cuz Saveedro's the one that's suppose to avenge, or so I'd think. I always thought of the main chorus of voices as just a chorus. They're echoing thoughts, not acting as a real voice. Kind of like in theater where you have a narrator and a chorus just has extra lines to fill in the gaps. It's not a character, just side notes. The boy soprano is clearly Saveedro. (Though why is he a kid if he didn't meet Sirrus and Achenar and even Atrus till he was married with child?) Again, I think you're making it much more complicated than it has to be with all the conjugation and prefixes and suffixes. I believe root words are useful (after all, they're living on plants with significant roots hehe) and new words can be formed that way. I think it might be safe to say, at least in a poetic form, that words for "the" and "a" are easily omitted. Perhaps in daily speech too then.
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Post by dlordoftime on Feb 13, 2012 17:02:07 GMT -5
Well, as we both agree, it is poetic, so it doesn't necessarily follow the word order rules. I mean, just take a look at the occasional song. Most of the ones I know, which happen to songs of worship, violate word order for the sake of the rhyme.
Our forebears on the forum reached the same conclusion as me about 'Memondama ami soule', since it is not pronounced that way in the song, so whether it is ami or mi is largely subjective here. But, nobody can be perfect, so Jack may have 'slightly' mistranslated the lyrics.
Also the 'you' in question is who Atrus is talking to about J'nanin.
The complexity of a language has nothing to do with the complexity of its culture. Take Ancient Egyptian, for example. Just about the most complex language I have ever attempted to learn, yet their society was comprised largely of workers. A clear contrast. Also, I too believe that 'the' and 'a' are not required, like in Latin.
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laroon
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Post by laroon on Feb 13, 2012 23:29:06 GMT -5
Egypt had politics and multiculturalism and all that stuff, right? And not to mention their mind baffling ways of construction and preservation of the dead after, well, death. I don't think they were exactly the simplest of people. After all, they did have slavery. That's not something Joe the Farmer is able to administer successfully. The fact that their language uses pictographs is just another means of communication. After all, Chinese characters are just pictures.
I understand that our forebears (lovely term, btw) reached certain conclusions. However, these things were never conclusive and effectively died out. So perhaps barking up that lattice-woven tree is dangerous and non profiting. So I chose a different direction.
But yes, I agree that mistranslation is quite common. I do follow that with the original lyrics being pretty dang solid. A typo in the lyrics would probably result with a fan mishearing, rather than the person who wrote the song being careless to mistype his own lyrics for public consumption.
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Post by dlordoftime on Feb 14, 2012 22:58:23 GMT -5
Well, since both of us cannot agree on which is the better root to go down, let us cultivate both, side by side. After all, it sounds like a much better option than nit-picking each other's work.
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laroon
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Post by laroon on Feb 14, 2012 23:25:57 GMT -5
For sure. I look forward to learning yours
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Post by dlordoftime on Feb 15, 2012 14:54:34 GMT -5
Indeed.
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Post by KathTheDragon on Mar 9, 2013 16:01:18 GMT -5
This is getting more and more like a blog covering my attempts to decipher this language. No help, no colleagues... Just me.
But loneliness aside, I am finding useful information. For example, I have uncovered a reasonably simple syllable structure to the language, which is directly attested by both songs. It is as follows: (C(A))V(F), where C is any consonant, A (for approximant) is r or w, V is any vowel, and F (for final) is one of n, x, r, s, l, m. However, the data would suggest that the A element is mutually exclusive with the F element; each syllable can only have three elements. Naturally, if C is r or w, the A element will not be r or w respectively. However, it is unknown which consonants may not take an A. Presently, it can be assumed that only plosives may have an r, and only j has taken a w. Also, word finals will be syllable finals, but likely excluding x, which is probably only present if the cluster ks is followed by another consonant. This is only attested in expidani and related words.
End log (I've been watching too much Star Trek. Heck, who's even going to read this but me?)
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Post by KathTheDragon on Mar 11, 2013 16:56:25 GMT -5
I have been doing some work on verbs and nouns recently, and have come up with a most beautiful theory regarding them. As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of verbs, which I shall call types I, II, and III for simplicity. Type I verbs end in -ani in the infinitive. These are verbs like revilani. Next are type II verbs, which end in a -Ci syllable, where C is any consonant. These are verbs like apici. Finally are type III verbs, which end in -CAi syllables, where C is any consonant, and A is r or w (subject to change as my syllable theory changes. Basically, this is the CAV syllable). My only example is ajwi, which is tentatively a verb. A note: these classifications liable to change as new information comes in regarding the words. At the moment, my theory of verb-to-noun derivation is as follows: type I verbs lose their -i. Type II verbs lose their -i and gain -an. Type III verbs lose their -i and gain -a. I believe I have also uncovered a verb form: specifically, either a 2nd person singular active, or a 3rd person singular passive. However, both my examples are type I verbs, nani and comensani, which lose their -i and gain -in (it is useful to think of inflections in terms of the stem, which appears to be found be losing the -i of the infinitive). The imperative does seem to be generated be losing -i and gaining -a.
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Post by KathTheDragon on Mar 12, 2013 17:08:09 GMT -5
Next is a simple theory of type I nouns: those in -a. There are two cases for all nouns: simple, and genitive (compare English nouns). There are two numbers, singular and plural. The simple singular ends in -a. The simple plural ends in -e. The genitive forms are similar, but feature an additional -i. Thus, we have this table: Type I | Singular | Plural | Simple | -a | -e | Genitive | -ai | -ei |
Thus, for ajwa, joy, we would have the following: Type I | Singular | Plural | Simple | ajwa | ajwe | Genitive | ajwai | ajwei |
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laroon
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Keeping the Weave in motion.
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Post by laroon on Mar 18, 2013 10:28:55 GMT -5
It's nice to see someone else on these forums. I check them regularly enough and I must admit I was surprised to see some new activity.
I am of the mind that though this language can be nice and complex, it is not useful in the long run to make it so. After all, it looks like in the past year, only 3 people have shown much interest in this language. If you make it complex, people will try it for a bit, then give up and find something more mainstream.
However, if it's simple (I mean, quite simplistic like Esperanto), then it'll be easier for people to learn who are looking for a nice friendly language to learn.
Let's be honest - D'Ni language is far more interesting for the community than Narayan. But with Narayan, we can make a simpler one to draw interest from others.
As for making it match with Jack Wall's song and lyrics, I have two points for this - First, it can just be a loose translation with the English to make it flow better across the translation gap. Second, it seems like if he wanted to do more with this language, he would have done something with it by now. I feel we should cut our losses and progress on our own with this.
Thoughts?
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Post by KathTheDragon on Apr 26, 2013 17:47:10 GMT -5
Nice to see someone else here too!
All languages are actually equally complex. Speaking as a creator of many languages, I will tell you that no matter what you do, complexity will arise as the language evolves. Therefore, it is a fallacy to try and make a nice simple language. What this means is that if the grammar is simple, the syntax is a nightmare. However, if the syntax is very lax, you'll have a boatload of inflection.
And don't start on Esperanto! That was a very bad attempt to create an aux-lang. It's derivation system was so irregular, it is painful, and it was horribly Euro-centric.
As for D'ni... There is so little left to translate. What we don't yet know has had us stumped for years. It probably won't change unless we get loads more linguists from the community.
Yes, I never intended to follow the translation word-for-word. It never works like that. An example from a lang I'm working on: To call someone insane is to tell them to eat their horse. *Shrugs* And I only went to Jack for the lyrics, not the translation. I just cannot hear what they sing right at the end.
However, I have enlisted some people from a far-away forum to pit their wits against Narayani. They areall far more experienced than me, and should be able to make significant head-way. All they'll have are the two songs, and the translation of the Myst III song.
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