Verse 3
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.†They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Soreral kajalo atiečagai: Točemkuda, rigidžolo dželamžasa en ralo tetea jakamžasatu, kaja. Rigidžon idžian-am en kakarun maltan-am dželaeča.
Analysis
Second section
Talajyn: Točemkuda, rigidžolo dželamžasa en ralo tetea jakamžasatu, kaja.
Gloss: come, bricks make and them thoroughly bake, this
English: “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.â€
This section is pretty similar to the English, except that I gave the verbs “make” and “bake” different endings. The verb “make” has just an honorific future ending; taken together with the imperative “Come”, it gives the sense of a very polite command, perhaps to a superior or in distinguished company: “Come, we will make bricks”. The “we” is understood by context.
The second verb, “bake”, has the honorific future ending plus a hortative ending. The phrase “ralo jakamžasatu”, “them bake[future][horative]” is more of a request than a command: “Let’s bake them!” So taking the two phrases and slightly different endings in mind, we have something connoting a translation more like “Come, we will make bricks, and let’s bake them thoroughly!”
There are a lot of different ways I could have phrased this, like using the hortative on both or no verbs, or not using an imperative at all, but I took some artistic license and like the connotative result! =)
You may be wondering what the “this” on the end is for. It’s one way of quoting someone in Talajyn, and signals the end of the quote. Think of it this way: “Here’s what they said: Blah blah blah <--this." The word doesn't take any case endings; it's just a plain "kaja"/"this", the proximal demonstrative pronoun.
Now, word-for-word:
toč-emkuda
toča is “to come”, “emkuda” (replacing the ending vowel of the verb) is the honorific imperative ending
rigidžo-lo
brick(s)-[accusative]
džela-mžasa
make/build-[honorific future]
en ra-lo
and [3rd-person singular pronoun]-[accusative]
tete-a
“teteu” means thoroughly; you change the last vowel to match the modified verb; in this case, “jaka” (bake)
jaka-mžasa-tu
bake-[honorific future]-hortative
I’ll do the last sentence next time. Questions? Comments? Please to share below.
Related posts:
- Talajyn: Tower of Babel, verse 3, section 1
- Talajyn: Tower of Babel, verse 2
- Talajyn: Tower of Babel verse 1