Conlangers

aye

• (n.) bee

Hetu ei i aye oku.
“I don’t fear bees.”

Notes: This happens to be true. I know quite a few folks who will run the other way if they hear a bee. I’ve never understood it myself. Perhaps this is because I’ve never been stung by a bee.

By the same token, though, I could never imagine being stung by a bee. I mean, an honest to goodness bee stinging me?! It sounds about as awful as getting into a car accident! I mean, sure, it may happen, but one should probably try one’s best to avoid it if one can—for the entirety of one’s life.

But, yeah, I’ve got nothing against bees. I don’t like their honey, and they don’t like to sting me. We have a fine understanding.

illaniþ

Sentence #6:

te janaren ja temle ien illaniþ tema ien ñi sāen marō tō te jāo ewaþ tema jawōla to jaþīña illaniþ tema ien ñi sāen marō il tema jekīþa ien ē rēha la jalōna wījte jē nā rū xō rā annāmmi hi ñamma jatōna japōññe;
All he said to me: when first he perceived he was lost, because that it was even though he doubted his path, when first he perceived he was lost, he was certain that there were only three days from there to fresh water, if he found the road.

illaniþ is another clause-level modifier, and an il-word, meaning it has something to do with sequential time. In this case, the -aniþ part is related to the stem -ān- “one”. illaniþ refers to the first time, the beginning, the start.

iwe

• (v.) to be full
• (adj.) full
• (n.) fullness

Iwe iko pai, io keyo iko pai…
“This bowl is full, but this bowl is empty…”

Notes: It’s not Caturday, but I really feel like I must share this:

Those are Keli’s two food bowls. The one on the left is her dry food bowl; the one on the right her wet food bowl. Both bowls had been filled up when I went to sleep. Notice any difference?

I’d like to say that it’s a constant battle between Keli and us to get her to eat her wet food, but that’s kind of like saying there’s a constant battle between humans and time: Sure, we “fight” aging with wrinkle creams (or so commercials have led me to believe), but, I mean, come on; we know our place.

Yes, despite the fact that her wet food is much more expensive and, quite frankly, sounds more appetizing, she just will not eat it. We get her a particular high-protein dry food, and so we thought, “Hey! Why not get her wet food made by the same company? It’s five times as expensive as the other wet food, but maybe she’ll take to it the way she does her dry food!”

No dice.

In fact, when we serve it to her, she walks up to it, sniffs it, turns and gives us a look, and walks away. If she could talk, I imagine she’d accompany that look with, “Seriously?”

Anyway, I just don’t know what to do. We can’t give up, certainly, but if she doesn’t eat it… Bleh. Crazy cat. We get you a feast, and this is how you repay us?! You’re just lucky you’re so darned cute…

anrō

Fifth sentence:

wā temle jatatēn ien ē jaliþa ñi sāen rū xō rā jatōna nō rā jasāma aþ ñi māniþa marō rū jatōna rā jasāma jaλāon mē;
He did not tell me the reason that he went one day from there along the road to the desert and became lost and alone from the road into the wide desert.

anrō means “lost” as in not knowing the location. māniþa marō is “lost, solitary person”

uila

• (adj.) all of, every, whole, every bit of
• (det.) all

Uku uila poe fule ti ia i eli.
“All you need is love.”

Notes: Here’s a good shot of a surprise decoration at the wedding I mentioned yesterday:

The wedding was held on a dock behind a set of historic cottages (half of which was, I believe, a beachside inn), and as the unused half was open, there was a faux wall put up (the white wall in the photo). It would’ve been rather bare, though, so it was, I think, the groom’s sister that came up with this to drape over it, which I thought was a really nice touch (the two are Beatles’ fans [as are all of us (or as we all should be)]).

A couple notes on translation. First, I used the singular “you” there because…well, I needed to decide on one. The nice thing about having a lexeme (in this case, a pronoun) that doesn’t distinguish number is that it doesn’t matter if it’s singular or plural. I’m sure that as far as number and the second person pronoun in English goes, the only thing that ever gets discussed is the drawbacks; rarely do we discuss the advantages. Here I think it works out better in English.

As it is in the original, it’s unclear whether John Lennon is singing to one person, a group of people (e.g. the world), or using the generic (i.e. not “all you need is love” but “all one needs is love”). Leaving that unstated works better than stating it specifically—and this ambiguity is impossible in a language like Kamakawi, with number specified on second person pronouns.

The translation is more verbose than English (rather unusual for Kamakawi), mainly due to the nature of uila, which isn’t generally used as a noun. As such, it needs to modify something—a dummy noun—which in this case turns out to be uku.

One odd quirk of Kamakawi grammar that actually simplifies the translation slightly is the alignment of fule, which is a bit different from ordinary transitive verbs. With fule, the wanter or needer is the object (expressed by ti), and the wanted or needed entity is the subject. Since Kamakawi can only relativize on subjects, the verb in the embedded clause can be rendered ordinarily, rather than in the passive.

Regarding the iku, it’s a combination of ui (which I see I haven’t done yet. Oops!) and la. Guess I’d better do ui soon…

Oh, as an aside, “All You Need Is Love” is the song that Erin and I walked out to right after we were pronounced husband and wife.

jasōþa

Fourth sentence:

wā temle ien ew ñamma jamāra tō honahan ew ñamma sū jasōþa;
He did not say to me how he made a dwelling, nor where.

jasōþa means “place: or “location”. sÅ« jasōþa is “at/on a place”.