The Text Chari e bandas ka im seru, waye olih yal im bayal, da ngor ri da yalad wai da ayas, rim, bang tora, ri da tai ka da ayas ngo im bayal. Noyesu waim odang im odang ngo gat tora wasdes oros Tora, wasdes chaderogat im kita ka gat tora, wasdes linyu te gat tora wasdes oros Tora. Derojes im kita ka gat tora ri le da kita, linyu te gat tora wasdes oros Il. Odang JC wai im kita ka im ayas, “Dero te yi bang tora.” Da ayas ka bang tora da chari ka e bandas. Jolada im ayas wai da kita ka le gat tora. Odang le e tora i da kita waim dero tem yi e tora waye kah e maye nachi wai e tora waye oros Yi Da Odang. Riyan e tora waye oros Tora im ayas. Pertu im kita chari e tora waye oros Tora da ambet ilin waiye, ri pertu im kita jorogeye layi da geya wai im ayas, ri pertu le im kita im tai waye chari te yi e bandas. Riyan im ayas ka e tora im kita ka im ayas yi im ayas ka e bandas. Odang e tora waye oros Tora wai gat tora mai ri pertu da. English The god of the wind, living under the ground, gives arms and legs to a heart, thus, a person, and a vision of a heart in the ground’s hair. Believe that the words speak of people called People, who were made to build people’s hair, led by people called People. They build people’s hair using not-hair, led by people called You. JC says to the heart’s hair, “Built by a person,” A person’s heart is God’s gift. The heart is closing to hair of not-people. The person without hair did not say that it was built by the person who has the same mother as the person called “From Speech.” The person called Person took the heart. The hair sees the person called Person give him a sharp stick, and the hair sees him secretly searching for a path to the heart, and the hair does not see the vision given by God. He used the stick to open the path that was followed by the person’s hair, the man, and the woman. The person’s heart takes the heart’s hair from God’s heart. The person called Person speaks to two people and sees one. Note: The 3rd person singular pronouns aren’t gendered, I just pick he or she arbitrarily when I translate them, since ‘they’ is ambiguous. ________________ Grammar This text makes no sense. I apologize, it was like that when I received it. I’ve done my best to make all the sentences grammatical, but as for the meaning, well, I wish you luck. Jayodang is an isolating language, with basically no inflection! The basic word order is VSO, but it can shift to SVO to place focus on the subject or for certain grammatical constructions. It is generally head-initial, so there are prepositions and adjectives follow nouns. Every noun must take an article, which must agree with the noun in class: human, animate, or inanimate. The article also marks definiteness, and in human and animate nouns, number. The article precedes the noun, and they are also used as pronouns, found in the table below. Names do not take articles. Definite Indefinite Singular Plural Singular Plural 1st ma lok 2nd il rau 3rd human e jes bang gat 3rd animate po as ngal ki 3rd inanimate im da There are a few particles that follow verbs, notably, the passive particle te and the negative particle le. The passive particle shows up pretty often, since there are some rules about what can serve as a subject that you won’t need for this translation, but you can find them in the full grammar if you’re curious. The negative particle can occasionally occur with a noun or preposition to negate that. Pronouns can become enclitics and attach to verbs, verbal particles, or prepositions. The subject of a verb can always attach, but the object can only attach if the subject pronoun is already attached. There’s a few phonotactic constraints that can come into play here, the relevant ones are listed below. * If e comes after a vowel, it becomes ye. * If a pronoun of the form VC comes after a vowel, the second vowel is dropped. There is no overt copula, simply placing two nouns (with articles) next to each other is interpreted as a copular construction. A relative clause begins with a distal demonstrative. Word order can change in these clauses, with the verb always coming immediately after the subject. The demonstratives change form depending on the class and number of the head noun, and three are used in this text. * waye - human singular * wasdes - human plural * waim - inanimate Jayodang has a lot of compounds and derivational morphology. Most derived forms are just includes in the dictionary, but there are a few more regular derivations that are used in the text. * Causative prefix: cha- * Reflexive suffix: -(a)da Word List ambet - (n.i) stick ayas - (n.i) heart bandas - (n.h) god, deity bayal - (n.i) earth, ground chari - (vt) to give; (n.i) gift chas - (n.h) woman da - (adj) one dero - (vt) to make, to build, to create geya - (n.i) path i - (prep) without, lacking ilin - (adj) sharp jola - (vt) to close joroge - (vt) to look for, to search for ka - (prep) of, belonging to; genitive kah - (vt) to have kita - (n.i) hair layi - (adj) secret linyu - (vt) to lead mai - (adj) two maye - (n.i) mother, mom nachi - (adj) same natowai - (vt) to follow ngo - (prep) at; locative ngor - (n.i) hand, arm noyesu - (vi) to believe odang - (n.iii) word; (vi) to speak olih - (n.i) life; (vi) to live oros - (vt) to be called, to be named ri - (p) and; (prep) with, using; instrumental/comitative rim - (p) thus, so, therefore riyan - (vt) to take pertu - (vt) to see, to look at seru - (n.i) air, sky, wind sum - (n.h) man tai - (n.i) sight, vision tohak - (vt) to open tora - (n.h) person wai - (prep) to, towards; allative/dative yal - (prep) below, under, beneath yalad - (n.i) leg, foot yi - (prep) from, ablative