Round 166 | Språkspelet

Round
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Andy Ayres Ok, staying in Asia, but going further south, here are two questions (or technically, three) in the Nancowry language of the Nicobar islands.

A: Mâh ka met hēang shuâ meṅ .Òng?
B: Ane topa halau meṅ ten chī? Hē chūa?

There are dictionaries out there :). Edited slightly as I forgot a diacritic on Òng.

Arief Wibowo Just few kms away from Indonesia!

I found that met is "thou not"
chūa means "I" (but with ü instead of ū, so perhaps it's wrong)
From: http://j.mp/1bUvSeX

Fahd Mir Jan Yes, Arief, your 'met' is correct. "you-not"
chua is not "I".

Andy Ayres Such linguistic diversity in that area :D. One of the ways to translate met is indeed "thou not," though the order of thou and not may change depending on the rest of the sentence. Chūa in this context doesn't mean I though ;).

Arief Wibowo topa is "beverage"

On a side note, I discovered that they duplicate nouns to make plural... Like Indonesian

Andy Ayres That's right, topa is beverage

Arief Wibowo Random guess for B: What beverage/drink do you want? "He chua"*?

*) I'd assume this is Nicobarese Coca-Cola or something

Andy Ayres Unfortunately not, but I love the idea of a Nicobarese Coca-Cola

Marco Airaghi lol??

Sarah Karoline Vincensiu Although the round is over, perhaps these could be helpful for next time!

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/raverty/ [I found this on a university website, so I presume it's a good one]
http://www.qamosona.com/j/ [I don't know the site, but it has a link to a variety of Pashto dictionaries. I think most are files to download]

Andy Congratulations on winning this round!!!

Andy Ayres Thanks, Sarah :)!

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter will keep that in mind if we come across Pashto again

But now we need some Nancowry resources :p

Sarah Karoline I shall see what I can find...:) It will take me about 40 minutes as I have to go out for a while.

Sarah Karoline You can buy one from Amazon, and I've just found one at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. You can download it here: http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/record/2000069475004?subject-id=%7E1000000092909&subject=%7ECytology&content-language=mis

Andy Ayres What a great resource. This language is well worth looking into for those who, like me, spend too much time reading grammars of little spoken tongues; the Nicobarese chain of languages has long been one of my favourites.. It has some beautifully inventive compound words, for instance.

Sarah Karoline I noticed this dictionary also has a grammar at the start of it - very useful! I have a fascination for the little spoken languages too .

Raphaël O'Bhair Hello everybody! I'm reading a couple of grammars og this fascinating language!!!!!!

Andy Ayres Glad you're finding it equally fascinating, Raffaele! I'm currently composing a pronunciation guide, to facilitate you all to use both the dictionary-grammars (they use different orthographies.)

Raphaël O'Bhair Many thanks Andy! Yes, I am very interested in Himalayan language (are trying to learn writing/reading a little of Dzongkha) and thanks to the Himalayan Linguistics dept. at the Univeraity of Leiden I cam onto Lepcha!

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter ma-ka = later on
heang = one
shua = time/ return
men = play

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Raffaele, oh we thought that u were referring to the Nancowry round that is running atm lol.
haha yeah Lepcha was an interesting round indeed.

Raphaël O'Bhair Ooops! Sorry!

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Hahaha no problem. Don't be sorry... we are just playing language games here anyway, and you are welcome to join! Especially if you got knowledge in Nancowry

@ Other Sprogspelers, where the hell are you people??
Don't hide

It's only me & Sarah here!! We are in the dark, light some candle for us!

Fahd Mir Jan Vincensiu, heang is one, shua is time, as you wrote. men is not play. It has a different meaning.

Andy Ayres Here's something that can help you with the differing orthographies in each dictionary - an IPA guide to both that I just made, with some notes on differences between each:

https://db.tt/ZorTjfYt

And a rough transciption:
/kʰa mɛt hɛːaŋ ʃwaː mɛ̃
anɛ tʰopa halau mɛ̃ tʰɛn tʃiː hɛ: tʃuːa/

* a = ä~ʌ
edit - adding aspiration

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter sorry was distracted, now back to sprogspelet
halau = buy
ten = towards
chi = who
he =
chua = I/me

so this far we have got:

A: Mâh ka met hēang shuâ meṅ .Òng?
B: Ane topa halau meṅ ten chī? Hē chūa?

A: Mah ka (you not) (one) (time) men. Ong?
B: Ane (beverage) (buy) men (towards) (who)? He (I)?

Andy Ayres Hey there, Vincensiu! Halau is buy; chua isn't I or me; chi is who/m; ten can mean towards literally, but means something else in this sentence (or would be translated differently, at least). Just a note, .Òng is not the start of a new sentence, but the final word of sentence A. It can also be written as Òng, and only appears in the contextually correct form in one of the dictionaries. The IPA guide may result to be helpful

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Hmmm... it's nearly bedtime for me...
Christian Arief maybe both of you can conduct some extensive research later on. Sarah did find some useful dictionary that also includes Nancowry grammar. The link is somehwere above.
Дайте It should be the 21st by now in your time zone, and I guess you are free now, aren't u?

Arief Wibowo Welcome to the game, Raffaele Vairo! Indeed, following the pace of our game is a bit difficult

--
Vincensiu Dionisiu, "I" is "chüa", while the last word is chūa (different diacritic)

--
Yesterday I couldn't decipher this, but now I see that meṅ = thou

And thus:
A: Mâh ka met hēang shuâ meṅ .Òng?
B: Ane topa halau meṅ ten chī? Hē chūa?

A: Mah ka (you not) (one) (time) you. Ong?
B: Ane (beverage) (buy) you (towards) (who)? He (I)?
--
Is "Òng" by any chance a (common) name in Andaman-Nicobar?

Arief Wibowo The dictionary that Sarah Karoline found can be found at http://j.mp/1eukoDr

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter random guess:
A: You never drink once, do you?
B: where did you buy the beverage? from there?

Fahd Mir Jan That's not correct.

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter does ka mean fish?

Matteo any ideas?

Fahd Mir Jan No.

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter ka has got various meanings,
it can be later on, indeed, fish & sacrifice.

Ane = he/she/it?

Mah = possibly??

Ong = past/previous?

*****Vincensiu Dionisiu sending SOS signal to
Arief Wibowo Christian James Meredith Sarah Karoline Maria Weidner*****

Arief Wibowo Roger SOS, forward to Dago Lesmes, Matteo Cheri, Mikkel Ramzuiv Pittmann Wilson, Kevin Long

I will continue reading those thick books we found starting tomorrow...
Too bad it's not OCR'd, we can't search...... But I guess it adds to the fun in stjälcuri

Fahd Mir Jan Vincensiu, none of them are correct.
For Ane, think about how asian languages sometimes refer to 'he/she/it' as one word that can be translated to English.

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Maybe we should summon our professors as well:
***mayday mayday, Victor Wåhlstrand Skärström Billy James Brightraven***

I guess everyone is busy doing Christmas shopping

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Yeah Fahd, that's what I meant.
Like the word "Dia" in Indonesian, which is 3S non gender-locked

Dago Lesmes Suagua I am baaaaack! Now on holiday, so I can actually take part again :D. It's actually Nicobarese?

Matteo Cheri Vincensiu I have absolutely no ideas.

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Yup it is Central Nicobarese, to be precise: Nancowry.
We got some dictionary/ resources somewhere up there...
My brain is saturated.

Massin Rifian Ithri is this dansk sprog victor ?

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter So this far:
A: Mah ka (you not) (one) (time) (you). Ong?
B: (he) (beverage) (buy) (you) (towards) (who)? He (I)?

Matteo Cheri Vincensiu I'd say 难cowry, because that's freacking 难！（difficult）

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Ithri, Hello there

Yeah I think the "sprog" was taken from Danish

Matteo It is indeed freaking DIFFICULT, and we don't have many support here sadly...

Seems like it's only me & Arief who's running around, while Sarah is missing somewhere

Andy Ayres You're getting closer. As I said earlier, Ong is not a separate sentence; here, the full stop is introducing a common noun.

Vincensiu: your sentence B is forming well, but try thinking about how the components you've got could be translated in a more naturalistic way in English, and you'll be getting there :).

If some folk haven't yet, try looking at both dictionaries, and at the guide I put up about both main orthographies

Matteo Cheri could be that Ong means you? (please Viet help us)

Marco Airaghi ong in viet s you

Andy Ayres No, meṅ has been successfully decoded as you

Andy Ayres The correct translation of .òng/Òng is in one dictionary, but not in the other - very curious given how regionally prominent that word is!

Matteo Cheri Andy well, at least I've tried

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Matteo are you good in looking for resources. I have googled Nancowry dictionary, phrasebook, etc
but no result ;(

Matteo Cheri Vincensiu, tip 1: search in more than one language
maybe we can find something...

Matteo Cheri Vincensiu try this http://books.google.it/books/about/A_dictionary_of_the_Nancowry_dialect_of.html?id=J5ACAAAAQAAJ&redir_esc=y

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter I already have that one, which is what I am currently using. Sarah gave me the link from other website

http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/600085747.pdf

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter A: Mah ka (you not) (one) (time) you. Ong?
B: From whom did he buy the beverage for you?

Andy Ayres You're getting tantalisingly close to sentence B. From whom, buy, the past tense and beverage are right. He, for you and the "the" in front of the beverage aren't

Sarah Karoline Sorry Vincensiu

I've been working non-stop :(, but I've looked at the text and the live game a few times. I haven't got as far as you though :(. The words which I have found are as follows:

ka - indeed
ong - a while ago/firewood.
ten - at

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Hi Sarah, that's alright. I know some people have a life (unlike me :p)
Sorry if my tagging interrupted your work.

Fahd mentioned earlier that ka =/= indeed.

A: you are not thirsty once a while ago? (You haven't been thirsty for a while?)
B: From whom did you buy this beverage? Shops?

Sarah Karoline Oh no, it didn't interrupt me at all :):):):):):) Nema problema! Tagging is fine for all sprogspelares!

Working 24/7 is no life, playing sprogspelare is part of life!

I'm impressed you're getting so many words with that one, small dictionary

I thought I had read that "ka" didn't mean "indeed", or perhaps I'm confusing myself. Probably...!

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Don't you have holidays? Especially at around this time?
Work called me and said they don't want me anymore until mid Jan. So Im kinda bored at home. Pokemon & Sprogspelet are my only friends

Arief Wibowo Andy Ayres, at first I thought you made a typo, but I guess it's worth asking:
Why does the fullstop appear after space in sentence A?

A: Mâh ka met hēang shuâ meṅ .Òng?

And you said "The correct translation of .òng/Òng[...]"

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Nasalisation purposes. Read the guide for transliteration.

Andy Ayres Ka and .òng mean something else to what you've found, Sarah. Ka has a great many uses. Arief: you can find the word written as Òng, .òng (where majuscule letters with accents were not available) and in some orthographies, .Òng and even Ong. It's a proper noun.

Again, I must hint that one dictionary is going to be more useful than the other in filling in the gaps, here ;).

Arief Wibowo I see, I somehow missed the hint you gave that ".Òng is not the start of a new sentence, but the final word of sentence A."

--
Vincensiu Dionisiu, the nasalization one is the dot above "n", right?

--
Seems like this round has quite a bit of misunderstandings

Arief Wibowo Pokémon: Gotta Catch 'Em All
Språkémon: Gotta Translate 'Em All

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Arief, they called me and asked me to go to work today. So I can't contribute much today especially because I'm going to have a bad day (After the rhythm conversion etc, plus last minute call is a sign of nightmare). BTW could you try finding me the infamous Michigan dictionary coz I tried the whole day but failed. Seems like Google book has it but I couldn't access it.

Arief Wibowo Michigan -- roger that

Christian James Meredith Is this an evolution in the Språkspelet name we're seeing here?

Christian James Meredith Coz I like it. Lots.

Arief Wibowo Unfortunately I failed to discover any reference to Michigan Nancowry dictionary's existence

Arief Wibowo Christian James Meredith, Språkémon is (maybe) the official mascot (probably a Pokémon? Or Digimon?) of Språkspelet

Sarah Karoline Stjälimon: to steal a sprogspelet mascot

(Were conlanging only so easy...!)
Stjälställ: A stolen item
---
I'm looking for this elusive dictionary

Sarah Karoline A glossary -> http://sealang.net/monkhmer/database/retrieve.pl?ref=Man1889&language=Nancowry&dialect=&sort=gloss&format=html
---
I can't find the Michigan dictionary. A library in Denmark has it. Perhaps Victor and Billy could pop over the Sound....

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Andy Ayres & Fahd Mir Jan, this is Christmas. Be nice to us, giveus some hints

Christian could u pls chck inbox

Andy Ayres Arief's dictionary is the Michigan one. So called because it was copied from a u of m library (like the other was taken from the bodleian). Every word you need for the translation.can be found in that dictionary, then it's just a matter of rationalising the words into an english translation.

Andy Ayres Happy searching: https://archive.org/details/adictionarycent00mangoog

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Are you sure that Mah-ka doesn't mean later on??

Andy Ayres mâh ka is two separate words and means nothing like later on! Ka is a very versatile word. The grammar of both books explains some of its uses.

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter Ong can be either Little Nicobar or before. so

A: Have you never been to Little Nicobar once?
B: From whom did you bought beverage ? when?

Andy Ayres?

Andy Ayres That's close enough for me! Well done, Vincensiu! You've won the round :). I'll post the word for word and my.direct translation for those curious in a minute.

Andy Ayres Ever what you-not one time you Little-Nicobar? That beverage buy you from whom? Time-what? "Have you never been to Little Nicobar? From whom did you buy that beverage? When [did you buy it]?

Marius Vincenzii Dennischter WHOA!!! REALLY???
WE DID IT!! WE DID IT!! WE DID IT!! LO HICIMOS!! WE DID IT WE DID IT HURRAH!!!!! (Screaming & Singing Dora's theme song)

BTW:

Joyeux Noel everyone!!!

Andy Ayres Nadolig llawen!

Sarah Karoline Vincensiu You've done it single-handedly! Are you still singing?!

Sarah Karoline Buon Natale~Felix Dies Nativitatis~God Jul~Gleðileg Jól a tutti

Arief Wibowo Awesome, Vincensiu Dionisiu!!!

Also not less awesome is Sarah Karoline's new fireworks card

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