Make Vijay translate something!

[vijayjohn]

This thread was inspired by the 2018(-2019) Backward Translation Game.

Pick a text in some language and give me another language to translate it into. I will then elaborate the process I follow in attempting to translate it step by step. Please also make sure that I have at least a dictionary to access in the process of trying to translate the text, or else I may be completely stuck! (I may be able to help with this as well, depending on the language).

[voron]

Do you use any translation memory tools at work?

[księżycowy]

trique-san-juan-copala.gif

Trique -> Aghul.

[vijayjohn]

Do you have dictionaries for this variety of Triqui and Aghul, księżycowy?

Do you use any translation memory tools at work?

Not exactly, no, unless looking at my other colleagues' translations counts.

[księżycowy]

What fun would it be if I just gave them to you?

[vijayjohn]

It would be the fun of translating I pointed out in the first post?

But very well. I see a lot of "tucuya" in this passage. Let's see whether I can try to do a Google search of this passage. I have a feeling it's a Biblical text or something, if it's in a language as obscure as Triqui.

Or else it's in the Language Folder you shared with me...

Nope, it's not there! And I found this, which seems to have some of those words in Copala Triqui at least...

[księżycowy]

Fine, I'll be nice.

Translate it into Archi, since I can't find an Aghul dictionary online.

[Linguaphile]

Do you have dictionaries for this variety of Triqui and Aghul, księżycowy?

Well I'm not księżycowy and I don't have a Triqui-Aghul dictionary, but here are a couple of dictionaries for this variety of Triqui (Copala):
Triqui - English - Spanish dictionary
Triqui to Spanish dictionary
The second one is more extensive, but is Trique-Spanish only (no English). The first link, for example, is missing one of the first words you'd need, which is odd, because it's a very basic one. (The second link has it.) That makes me not too optimistic about that first link. But both dictionaries are the correct variety.
(edit: so is the dictionary you posted above while I was writing this. It's good too.)

(But... aren't you going to need not just an Aghul dictionary, but Aghul grammar for this as well? )
In any case, I have neither.

I have a feeling it's a Biblical text or something, if it's in a language as obscure as Triqui.

Awww, come on, Mexico even has textbooks in indigenous languages. There is poetry in Triqui, too. Księżycowy's passage is not from the Bible. (It's not from those textbook or poetry links, either, I'm just saying... there are definitely other texts besides the Bible in Triqui.) I found Księżycowy's text, by the way, but I'm not going to tell you where. There's no translation but it does tell you what kind of text it is and generally what it's about, so I'm not going to post a spoiler.

[vijayjohn]

Thanks, Linguaphile! Meanwhile, I found the original text! So it's not from the Bible; it's a Triqui story about a rabbit and a lion. I guess tucuya means 'rabbit' and chuvaa means 'lion' (surely, it's either that or the other way around).

So 'o means 'a'...or so I guess in this context. I wonder whether Archi and/or Aghul has indefinite articles as well. Apparently, Archi doesn't, so I guess Aghul doesn't, either? They're both Lezgic.

Translate it into Archi, since I can't find an Aghul dictionary online.

There's Glosbe, but it only has a few words. I also found this through Wikipedia, and I found the word for 'hare' towards the beginning of the second list (by the speaker from Tpig)! Maybe I'll find some more useful stuff later.

Can you find one for Archi? I found this through Wikipedia as well for Archi (not a dictionary, though). I'll see what else I can find, too.

But... aren't you going to need not just an Aghul dictionary, but Aghul grammar for this as well?

Yeah, but I already have one for Aghul and one for Archi. They're in Russian, though.

[księżycowy]

They have a dictionary too: http://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/archi-dictionary/

[vijayjohn]

So they do! Thanks!

I see that güii means 'day'. How do you say 'one day' in Archi?

Apparently, 'day' is ихъ [iq]. I found the IPA transcription by looking up 'day' in English in that link księżycowy just posted, then I had to figure out how it was spelled in Cyrillic using the Wikipedia article on Archi to find the same entry by looking up the word in Cyrillic. Do stories in Archi ever begin this way, i.e. with 'one day'? I doubt it, given that the story about the bear in the other link doesn't begin with any such thing at all. So I guess I'll ignore the first two words of the Triqui text...

The next word is nari', meaning 'to find, meet, conceive, get pregnant'. I'm guessing probably it means 'meet' here. 'To meet' in Archi is apparently гьара́к хос [haˈrak χos] (I had to look this up the same way as I looked up 'day' and expect to have to follow the same procedure with all other words). But it seems that in this case, the verb would be simply хо, namely the fourth-gender (see p. 40-41 of this) perfective singular form of the verb хос. The word after that in Triqui is uún, apparently meaning 'again' or 'also'. Then chuvaa man tucuya I guess means 'lion and rabbit'?...Well, something like that. The lion met the rabbit.

'Lion' in Archi is apparently гъа́лбацI [ˈʁalbat͡s'], but in this case...since the lion is apparently the subject, the form would be ergative, right? No, wait, it would be dative in this case; that's how it is with [χos]. Hmm, is that the same as the locative form?? No, no, the dative form is гъа́лбацIлис [ˈʁalbat͡s'lis]; I can see from the Wikipedia article that it's the ergative form plus [ s ]. And the verb surely should be гьара́к хо (or at least that should be the equivalent to 'met' here). 'Hare' is ойо́мчи [oˈjomt͡ʃi]; that's apparently the closest I can get to 'rabbit' in this language. I also just learned about some of the differences between rabbits and hares. I wonder why they don't seem to have a word for 'rabbit'. I guess I'll just have to go with 'hare'. So: Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к хо. That should be the right word order, right? Yep, seems to go with the closest example for the verb.

The next word is ne meaning 'and'; I'll probably ignore that.

Oh, but in Archi, based on the bear story, I guess I should probably add ебдили [ebdili]. So Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к хо ебдили.

Hmm, but the lion is probably in 3SG, like the bear in the Archi story, plus I probably need to add the evidential or whatever that is in the first sentence in that story, so then: Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к бохо́ли е́бдили [ˈʁalbat͡s'lis oˈjomt͡ʃi haˈrak boˈχoli ˈebdili]. I also just realized it's е́бдили, not *ебдили.

Qui- in the next word quita'aa is apparently a completive(?) aspect marker in Copala Triqui, so what's ta'aa? Apparently 'take' or 'catch'. Then xo' yaj man tucuya...so the rabbit took something? Xo' apparently is a third person pronoun for animals. Yaj apparently means 'at that moment'. Oh, and man is an object marker of some sort, so she caught the rabbit! Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к бохо́ли е́бдили ойо́мчи...how do you say 'caught'?

The dictionary is failing me now when I look it up in English. Let me try Russian instead...oh, Wiktionary also points out that 'catch' here means 'capture'! Do they have 'capture'? No. In Russian, it's лови́ть. What is that in Archi? Oh, they don't say! I did a Google search for ловить арчиский, and Google correctly found my typo; it should've been ловить арчинский. That doesn't seem to be helping yet; neither is looking up 'to take' or 'to hunt'.

I found хранить, бросить, прийти, and отпускать, all thanks to the Archi grammar I have access to, but none of those is the right verb. Aha! Схватить is what I want (or close enough). And I found it in the dictionary! Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к бохо́ли е́бдили ойо́мчи хат да́бхдили [ˈʁalbat͡s'lis oˈjomt͡ʃi haˈrak boˈχoli ˈebdili oˈjomt͡ʃi χat ˈdabχdili].

Then 'nij...or rather 'nij tu'va I guess is the same as the 'nij tuva' in the dictionary? She carried it (him? Her? The hare) in her mouth.

Yoicks, maybe I should stop there for now.

EDIT: Or not. I guess 'she carried it in her mouth' or whatever would be ссебе́ босо́ли [sːeˈbe boˈsoli]?

EDIT2: Oops, I mean he caught the rabbit and carried the rabbit in his mouth! Then I looked up cha, rá, and a: He ate the rabbit, and the rabbit was inside?! Dang, that was fast!

EDIT3: Ссебе́ босо́ли буку́ннили ойо́мчи [sːeˈbe boˈsoli buˈkunnili oˈjomt͡ʃi]...how do I say something like 'was inside him'?

EDIT4: Ссебе́ босо́ли буку́ннили ойо́мчи то́ммит би́ммебххули [sseˈbe boˈsoli buˈkunnili oˈjomt͡ʃi ˈtommit ˈbimmebχχuli].

[vijayjohn]

I also looked up xná'anj and found ca'mii in this paper to figure out that the next sentence means 'And the rabbit said, and he asked the lion'. I doubt that's how they'd say it in Archi, though!

I guess they'd probably just say something like 'the rabbit said to the lion'...or rather 'the hare said to the lion': Ойо́мчили гъа́лбацIлис бор... [oˈjomt͡ʃili ˈʁalbat͡s'lis bor].

In the next sentence in Triqui, I already saw that yaj means 'at that moment', and qui- again can be a completive aspect marker like before, but it can also be a potential aspect marker. Ri' can mean 'to get', 'to break down', 'to meet', 'to learn', 'to encounter', and maybe even 'to come to'. So' means 'you'. Manj means 'the day before yesterday'. Tinuj means 'my brother!'. So what's 'my brother' in Archi? I guess the equivalent in Archi would be лее [leː]. Back to Triqui: taj, as I thought, means something like 'said'. Me rej means 'where?'. Ca'anj means 'four' or 'fourth'. Then the next new word is rihaan. It can mean 'face', 'to', 'in front of', 'on', 'on top of', 'for', 'in', 'than', or 'forward'. Tacóó chruun means 'tree stump', so I guess tacóó 'o chruun means something like 'the stump of a tree'? Na' is a particle at the end of yes/no questions. So what does all that mean put together? The rabbit asked the lion..."where, brother, did you get the trunk of a tree to eat the day before yesterday?"

I'll try translating/deciphering a bit more to see whether that helps. Ase means 'hopefully' or 'like'. Not sure what exactly cavii means; is it some kind of complementizer? Raa 'o yuvej apparently means 'on a boulder'. Xa' I guess means 'really'?

This doesn't make any sense to me, so I googled "rabbit lion Triqui" and found this version with a translation into Spanish. Finally, thank God! This makes so much more sense.

So I can still stick with Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к бохо́ли е́бдили ойо́мчи хат да́бхдили. Ссебе́ босо́ли...but then I was wrong about the eating part. I want to say something like 'in order to eat him'. How do I say that in Archi? Буку́ммус [buˈkummus]?

Yeah, I guess I'll go with that since the Archi grammar I have doesn't seem to have any examples of 'in order to'. So Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к бохо́ли е́бдили ойо́мчи хат да́бхдили. Ссебе́ босо́ли буку́ммус. Ойо́мчили гъа́лбацIлис бор [ˈʁalbat͡s'lis oˈjomt͡ʃi haˈrak boˈχoli ˈebdili oˈjomt͡ʃi χat ˈdabχdili]. [sseˈbe boˈsoli buˈkummus]. [oˈjomt͡ʃili ˈʁalbat͡s'lis bor]...

'Now' (ahora in the Spanish translation) is йа́сса [ˈjassa]. How do I say something like 'you have indeed caught me' (sí me agarraste)?

I looked up действительно, one of Wiktionary's suggestions for 'indeed' in Russian, and found my answer: гьа́къши. So now I look up the pronoun for 'you' in the dictionary (ergative case), the absolutive case form for 'me' in here (p. 51) since the dictionary doesn't have it, look up the word we used for 'to catch' again, we have: Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к бохо́ли е́бдили ойо́мчи хат да́бхдили. Ссебе́ босо́ли буку́ммус. Ойо́мчили гъа́лбацIлис бор лее йа́сса гьа́къши ун зон хат да́хди. [ˈʁalbat͡s'lis oˈjomt͡ʃi haˈrak boˈχoli ˈebdili oˈjomt͡ʃi χat ˈdabχdili]. [sseˈbe boˈsoli buˈkummus]. [oˈjomt͡ʃili ˈʁalbat͡s'lis bor leː ˈjassa ˈhaq'ʃi un zon χat ˈdaχdi].

Then 'you will eat me' I guess would be ун зон кунне́хъи [un zon kunˈneqi]. For 'where will you eat me?' I guess ун да́нна [ˈdanna] зон кунне́хъи? Then we have 'will you go to the foot of a tree to eat me, or will you go on top of a stone/boulder to eat me?'

Or rather 'will you go to a tree trunk...?' 'To a tree trunk' is apparently ххара́лик [χːaˈralik]. 'Will you go' I guess is ве́рхъIухъири [ˈwerqˤuqiri]. 'Will you go to a tree trunk to eat me' I figure would be зон вуку́ммус ххара́лик ве́рхъIухъири [zon wuˈkummus χːaˈralik ˈwerqˤuqiri].

'On top of a very large stone'...хонх is apparently 'very large stone'...and I guess 'on top of a very large stone' is хо́нхлит [ˈχonχlit].

'Then'...хи́тта [ˈχitta] 'the lion laughed' гъа́лбацI бахьIра́хьIу [ˈʁalbat͡s' baˈχraχu]...'and the hare escaped from the lion's mouth and ran away'. Ойо́мчили гъа́лбацIлин...'out of the mouth'...so I guess that would be ссебш? 'Fled' would be ллъунне́ли...and 'escaped' would apparently be хуста́е́бттили.

So I think now I have my translation!

Гъа́лбацIлис ойо́мчи гьара́к бохо́ли е́бдили ойо́мчи хат да́бхдили. Ссебе́ босо́ли буку́ммус. Ойо́мчили гъа́лбацIлис бор лее йа́сса гьа́къши ун зон хат да́хди. Ун да́нна зон кунне́хъи? Зон вуку́ммус ххара́лик ве́рхъIухъири хо́нхлит ве́рхъIухъири? Хи́тта гъа́лбацI бахьIра́хьIули ойо́мчили ссебш хуста́е́бттили ллъунне́ли.
[ˈʁalbat͡s'lis oˈjomt͡ʃi haˈrak boˈχoli ˈebdili oˈjomt͡ʃi χat ˈdabχdili]. [sseˈbe boˈsoli buˈkummus]. [oˈjomt͡ʃili ˈʁalbat͡s'lis bor leː ˈjassa ˈhaq'ʃi un zon χat ˈdaχdi]. [un ˈdanna zon kunˈneqi]? [zon wuˈkummus χːaˈralik ˈwerqˤuqiri ˈχonχlit ˈwerqˤuqiri]? [ˈχitta ˈʁalbat͡s' baˈχˤraχˤuli oˈjomt͡ʃili ssebʃ χusˈtaˈebttili ʟ̝̊ʟ̝̊unˈneli].

[księżycowy]

First, I'm amused that this is a story about a rabbit and lion; the site I pulled it off of claimed it was the Our Father, if I remember correctly.

Second, I honestly fail to see how this is any different from how my or dEhiN go about translating things.

[vijayjohn]

Second, I honestly fail to see how this is any different from how my or dEhiN go about translating things.

I've come to realize it's not that different. It's just that I don't write out the entire English translation all in one piece before starting on the translation into the target language, but rather translate it piece by piece into the target language (via English and, in this case, occasionally Russian) as I go.