Phrases in many languages

Posted by Philip Newton on 14:34 7/9/01

In reply to: Can someone translate this small sentence for me? :) posted by Jacob W. on 12:08 7/3/01

Since we're on the topic of "phrases in many languages", how about the perennial favourite I love you?

I believe it's probably

• Verdurian: [se] erh lübao (object pronouns must come before the verb; normal word order is SVO otherwise)
• Cadhinor: [seo] ek luo or [seo] ek liubao (verb should come last in the sentence; nominative precedes accusative; the regular form is "liubao" but shortened forms of this verb also exist)
• Ismaîn: [se] lo ec or possibly (also) [se] lyvo ec (Ismaîn places accusative pronouns after the verb; lyvec "to love" has special short forms but may also conjugate regularly since the form "lyvo" is attested)
• Barakhinei: [sû] êk lua or êk lua [sû] (normal word order is SVO but there is a tendency to move the topic to the beginning of the sentence; pronominal objects are normally placed before a conjugated verb; I'm guessing the form of the verb by the sound changes given from Cadhinor... er, and then I found the lexicon and saw that I had guessed correctly :-)... but I had missed the fact that lhibê is irregular and 1sg is not lhiba but lua :-( )
• Kebreni: [h'em] h'ilu fal [normal] or [h'em] ih'elu fal [volitional] or maybe h'enili [benefactive to the listener] (no form of "to love" is given, nor is it derivable from Methaiun or Cadhinor through sound changes; however, "h'ilu" < "kheilu" means "to like, to be fond of" < "to desire"; the volitional emphasises that the action is intentional; the polite form is probably not appropriate between lovers; not sure whether the benefactive [towards either the speaker or the listener] would be appropriate here, but the benefactive to the listener sounds as if it might be a good way to avoid the object pronoun 'thee', since "pronouns are to be avoided in Kebreni"; basic word order is SVO)
• Methaiun: [gem] kheilu fal (guessed from Kebreni)
• Wede:i: [melen]inggeku (no word for "love" or "like" is given but "melen" is "heart"; -ing "I" + -ge "durative" + -ku "thee"; not sure whether the durative is appropriate, since *"I am loving you" is not the phrase in English)
• Proto-Eastern: [sewo] lu:bawo e:gh (word order for this and the following languages is anyone's guess, since it's not stated)
• Cuêzi: [se:o] lu:va:o e:r
• Axunashin: [siu] ruwou ej ("I desire you")
• Obenzayet: [sala] lüvala lala
• Lufasha: (something with "lü" in it, perhaps? Or with "lúbo:"?)