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Zeke Kornberg Okay. The sentence is: ixeddamen ay nga i peràu g° masêr. (I hope this will work. I'm relying on a word-for-word translation of this into English...)
Zeke Kornberg I think the little circle after the g means that the consonant is labialized. If that matters.
Maleen Schlüter I have no idea about your sentence at the moment but well done for mine! Just for the record :ina libbi means 'in the heart(or middle) of' but it doesn't really change the sense. And huhari actually means 'trap' which the king's scribe chose to translate by kilubi 'cage'.
Arief Wibowo In this agenda, it says: "16-18: Video Conference with MOLACNATS and the NATs Movements in Venzuela, Peràu, Colombia and Paraguay" (http://j.mp/1d8zRWg)
But I have never heard of any country called Peràu.. But all of the countries listed are south american... Perhaps the language too?
But I have never heard of any country called Peràu.. But all of the countries listed are south american... Perhaps the language too?
Christian James Meredith Sounds like a typo of Peru there Arief Wibowo, so I'm not sure how helpful it'll be 
Maleen Schlüter Berber! http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Party_(Algeria)
So ixeddamen is workers. Right?
So ixeddamen is workers. Right?
Arief Wibowo If the language is indeed Kablye (the specific language that's used to translate that Algerian Worker's Party), then "i" → for/to
Workers [ay] [nga] for/to [peràu] [g°] [masêr]
Workers [ay] [nga] for/to [peràu] [g°] [masêr]
Arief Wibowo If the g° is what's written as ɣ in Berber languages, it means "in"
Workers [ay] [nga] for/to [peràu] in [masêr]
Workers [ay] [nga] for/to [peràu] in [masêr]
Arief Wibowo I quite enjoy the "Ewe Head" story in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabyle_language#Sample_text
Zeke Kornberg Not bad so far. Ixeddamen doesn't exactly mean workers in this sentence, but it's pretty close. I'm not sure if it's because of context or a dialect difference. Perau is not a typo, and the language is not Kabyle, but it is related. Everything else is correct. And that Ewe head story is great :).
Arief Wibowo In that area, the only thing I know that sounds like masêr is Miṣr (مصر) meaning Egypt... Could it be that simple?
Arief Wibowo If it's really that simple, then peràu should be pharaoh
which means the last part is "[...] for/to pharaoh(s) in Egypt"
which means the last part is "[...] for/to pharaoh(s) in Egypt"
Christian James Meredith *even. That wasn't even autocorrect, that was me just putting in any /i:/-voiced-pre-alveolar-fricative-/@C/ word in
Arief Wibowo Btw, you mentioned earlier that ixeddamen is close to workers... Could it be servants/slaves?
Arief Wibowo Ay turns out a lot in online Berber news that I can find, it must have been a common word
Arief Wibowo ay is translated as que in Spanish
http://amawal.wikidot.com/ay-amqim
Servants that/what/which [nga] for/to Pharaoh in Egypt
http://amawal.wikidot.com/ay-amqim
Servants that/what/which [nga] for/to Pharaoh in Egypt
Arief Wibowo Other possibilities for nga:
live (for ..)
stay (for ..)
kill (for ..)
sacrifices (for ..)
are (for ..)
look out (to ..)
look up (to ..)
live (for ..)
stay (for ..)
kill (for ..)
sacrifices (for ..)
are (for ..)
look out (to ..)
look up (to ..)
Zev Brȹk I think I'm out, I was just doing some pleasure reading and I came across this exact sentence with translation!
Arief Wibowo Alfia Wallace, welcome to the game, because our players spans from west to east, we don't have any schedule 
Alfia Wallace So someone just throws out a phrase or somesuch and people respond when and if they happen to catch the thread?
Arief Wibowo We have addicted players (an example: me 
), and the person who throws the phrase is the winner of the previous round.
Here is the microsite I made for the game: http://sprogspelet.arwi.im/
), and the person who throws the phrase is the winner of the previous round.Here is the microsite I made for the game: http://sprogspelet.arwi.im/
Arief Wibowo Btw, Alfia Wallace, the sentence to dechiper for this round is "ixeddamen ay nga i peràu g° masêr"
Translation so far is "Servants that/what/which [nga] for/to Pharaoh in Egypt"
Translation so far is "Servants that/what/which [nga] for/to Pharaoh in Egypt"
Alfia Wallace And we have no idea what the language is? Do we get hints. It looks like people are leaning to some Semitic/Afro-Asiatic language with the g-Maser (k-Misr) for 'to Egypt'..
Zev Brȹk Well, here are my two hints: 1. It's not Kabyle (at least by ISO's definition). 2. [nga] does not, as you may be thinking, contain a velar nasal. Perhaps it will help to write it as "n-ga".
Arief Wibowo Alfia Wallace, I guessed Kablye, but Zeke The Question-Giver said it isn't (and now confirmed by Zev)
But I guessed some words out of Kablye page in Wikipedia, so they are related...
But I guessed some words out of Kablye page in Wikipedia, so they are related...
Arief Wibowo This "nga" word is rather elusive, I tried several dictionaries of various Berber languages and yet I can't find it... I can find it in the news though :/
Billy James Brightraven Ok, in some Berber languages n stands for 'of' ... So maybe "of ga"?
Servants which are of ga to the Pharaoh of Egypt. Maybe something akin to a dativus possessivus is going on here?
Servants which are of ga to the Pharaoh of Egypt. Maybe something akin to a dativus possessivus is going on here?
Alfia Wallace Since it was suggested that n-ka might be a better transliteration, maybe n is like 'inna' = 'that' and -ka is a 2nd person singular masculine possessive suffix. Also, 'ay' can mean 'any' in Arabic at least, (as in 'ay shay' - anything). And perhaps the 'i' in 'i perau' is a vocative particle like 'ya' in Arabic.
Alfia Wallace So here's my shot.
ixeddamen ay nga i peràu g° masêr
"None of slaves are yours, o pharaoh of Egypt."
ixeddamen ay nga i peràu g° masêr
"None of slaves are yours, o pharaoh of Egypt."
Alfia Wallace Ack - Zev, have any of the attempts been confirmed as correct? Do we at least know that maser is Egypt?
Zeke Kornberg Arief almost had it before. You just have to know that "n-ga" includes the pronoun in the verb with it. and it isn't "they".
Arief Wibowo Servants we belong to Pharaoh in Egypt?
(can be rephrased into: we are servants that belong to Pharaoh in Egypt)
(can be rephrased into: we are servants that belong to Pharaoh in Egypt)
Zev Brȹk Yeah, it's really nara skjuter ingen hare at the moment. Think logically and you might just come out with it.
Zev Brȹk Victory for Alfia!!! (unless you cheated ;)) You can get a new text ready for us to try to translate, but I think Zeke should be given the right to veto my decision here and snatch your laurels away, because admittedly the grammar does not quite match the translation I have.
Alfia Wallace Hey, I'm a total nube so whatevz. I certainly didn't cheat - I still don't know the language!
Arief Wibowo No worries, Alfia Wallace, you are the de facto winner (because Zev has cheated 
) unless Zeke says otherwise
Now it's your round, your turn to give us a sentence in any non-English language for us to dechiper
) unless Zeke says otherwise Now it's your round, your turn to give us a sentence in any non-English language for us to dechiper
Alfia Wallace Well, so as not to be presumptuous I'll wait for another confirmation, but in the meantime, don't mind if I do sniff around for some arcane gem to dangle before you all .. heh heh heh... These have to be attested forms in natural languages, yes? Do I have to use IPA or what?
Arief Wibowo Alfia Wallace, there is no canonical rule about it, but usually we would write it's official Latin transcription and/or IPA, optionally with it's original script.
Arief Wibowo There is also no canonical rule about naturalness of the language, but the only time there was a fictional language round (by me), it was Stargate's Ancient language, which is very very similar to Latin
Alfia Wallace So the goal is just to translate the passage, not to identify the language, yes? And the passage should be a relatively short sentence, yes?
Arief Wibowo In fact, we had various stuffs: poem, idiom, ancient inscriptions, spoken sentence... But yeah, relatively short
Arief Wibowo This is the round where we had fun with billingual spoken sentence http://on.fb.me/14c09Uf
Christian James Meredith Basic game flow is:
1. Phrase in another language is suggested. Language name is generally given, but some of us don't because we presume that it'll be too easy then (eg for French or Germanic phrases, sometimes the name is enough to know immediately the solution!)
2. People work to figure it out
3. Hints are occasionally given to speed things up and keep the game moving, most importantly to keep interest (it could take hours or days to figure out for all we care )
4. After feeling sure about the translation, sometimes we try and figure out the figurative sense or context too. Or that is revealed. Think of that as a bonus round.
1. Phrase in another language is suggested. Language name is generally given, but some of us don't because we presume that it'll be too easy then (eg for French or Germanic phrases, sometimes the name is enough to know immediately the solution!)
2. People work to figure it out
3. Hints are occasionally given to speed things up and keep the game moving, most importantly to keep interest (it could take hours or days to figure out for all we care
)4. After feeling sure about the translation, sometimes we try and figure out the figurative sense or context too. Or that is revealed. Think of that as a bonus round.
Alfia Wallace Ok, I am working on finding something good. Can you wait a day or so? Also, when do we find out the language of the last one? Or did I miss it somewhere?
Christian James Meredith I guess when Zeke comes back? I haven't been on here much recently so I wouldn't know! Maybe Zev can refresh our minds!
And sure, I guess! Although we haven't really had a conscious day wait before, so now the precedent's been set, I'm not sure how things go
And sure, I guess! Although we haven't really had a conscious day wait before, so now the precedent's been set, I'm not sure how things go
Arief Wibowo (thanks, Christian James Meredith, I am copying your "basic game flow" verbatim to our Help page http://sprogspelet.arwi.im/help/ )
)Arief Wibowo It's called Twenty Thirteen, default theme for WordPress 3.6 which just came out about 3 days after I made the site, and it's BeautifuL indeed
Christian James Meredith Is this the Wordpress blog site, or the Wordpress website construction kit thing (provided I'm thinking of things correctly)? I might have to make myself a Wordpress site with that theme, looks good! Normally I use Google sites!
Christian James Meredith BTW, in the meantime while Alfia Wallace is retrieving her phrase, perhaps we should discuss things to put on the site you've made? Maybe a "hall of fame" for phrases that have already been done and caused a nice stir?
Arief Wibowo I used the WordPress application that we can download from http://wordpress.org/ and install to our domain...
Yeap, I am (slowly) writing an application to retrieve all of our posts, and tag them. Later on there will be a page containing all historical data, like number of rounds we had, who won the most rounds, and who won most rounds of a language
Yeap, I am (slowly) writing an application to retrieve all of our posts, and tag them. Later on there will be a page containing all historical data, like number of rounds we had, who won the most rounds, and who won most rounds of a language
Alfia Wallace Ok, I was vacillating between doing something craaaaaazay hard and something reasonable and I should probably do something reasonable. The twist is that it's a riddle. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out, and it is lovely. And you won't find it by googling it. You ready?
It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out, and it is lovely. And you won't find it by googling it. You ready?Alfia Wallace Ok, it's 11:05 pm here in California and I have work tomorrow so I probably won't get to it until tomorrow afternoon, say about 15 or 16 hours from now. But I do have something pretty easy and sweet. À demain!
Malin Elisabeth Nilsson Hallå! I just came back from my summer vacation and I am so suprised this game is still played! Im glad you all like it so mutch! And I absolutly love the website Arief Wibowo! Its looks amazing!
Im glad you all like it so mutch! And I absolutly love the website Arief Wibowo! Its looks amazing!Arief Wibowo Welcome back, Malin Elisabeth Nilsson, the progenitor of Språkspelet (or Sprogspelet) clan!!!!
Zeke Kornberg Not bad, guys. Alfia Wallace, go ahead and take your turn. btw, the sentence was in Judeo-Berber and I took it from here. http://www.mondeberbere.com/juifs/haggadah.htm
Arief Wibowo I wonder though, it seems that everyone around Egypt is calling Egypt with something that sounds like "m-s-r" (Arabic, Hebrew, this Judeo-Berber language), while they call themselves "k-m"
Billy James Brightraven Whoa, I missed Stargate's Alteran? I watched that show far too many times not to learn all silly phrases they had xD
Bagdat Yesbossinov Ancient name is Kemet, it refers to black soil rich in humus along the Nile river banks, fertile floodplane etc...
Alfia Wallace Ok, I am going to post this before going in to work so you maniacs don't have to wait too long. Again, I know much of it will be easy, but I don't want people to think I'm a jerk first time playing. Here goes:
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