OK, now that I've reviewed the sentences I already went over (and before I go on to the next one), I just want to comment on this paragraph I posted earlier:
All that is left in these sentences are the first three words una'a wadu tina'a. We already know that wadu means 'day', but we don't really know what tina'a means, and we've never seen una'a before in this text. There doesn't seem to be any easy solution to the question of what this means, but my best guess is something like 'then in those times'. (It's a part that's not translated in the translation of those sentences on that website).
Now I think it probably means 'then
on that day', or maybe 'then
one day'.
On to the next sentence!
Apte uma dedemana soli to ate umare wísare to apte uma aran aun soli.'We are living in the dark, so you first give your pronouncement, that we may live in the light.'
I think maybe
apte means 'we', and I already know that
uma means 'earth' and
dedemana means 'night' or 'dark' or something. I guess
soli means 'live'. Maybe
to means something like 'so (that)' and
ate means 'you'. If all that is right, I guess
umare means 'give',
aran means 'light' or 'bright' or something, and
aun maybe means 'in'(?).
OK, today (the next day after I started this post
), I found this paper, which is kinda cool:
http://papuan.linguistics.anu.edu.au/Do ... onesia.pdf. It talks about the pronominal systems in a few Indonesian languages, including Oirata(!). I think it'll be pretty useful in my study of Oirata.
It also clarifies that Oirata is spoken in only two villages, Oirata Barat and Oirata Timur ("barat" means 'west' and "timur" means 'east' in Indonesian), in southeastern Kisar (which makes sense since the speakers' ancestors probably came from East Timor).
Anyway, the paper says
apte is the 1PL inclusive pronoun in nominative case.
It lists the 2SG nominative pronoun as
aate, which I guess is the same thing as the
ate in this text. Also, it says that -
to is the "'different referent' suffix," whereas -
le is the "'same referent' suffix."
Also, it says
ina means 'give'. Can't seem to find any confirmation for any of the other words yet, though. Certainly haven't found any for
soli. Based on that paper, though, I think
umare is
uma 'earth' + -
re, a topic suffix...Hmm, but that wouldn't make any sense in this context, really. Maybe it means 'first' or something.
Oh, by the way, I found
this Fataluku-Portuguese dictionary online. It hasn't been very useful (at least, not yet). It says that
coli (which you would think was the cognate for Oirata
soli, based on that comparative paper that was the first one I posted the link to) means 'high' or 'tall' or something ("alto" in Portuguese), which doesn't fit this context at all. Oh, well. I guess I'll just live with my own guess.
EDIT: Wow, I just noticed that the last three posts I made in this thread all begin with "OK."