Re: [lojban] Re: Beginning of Esther

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.hn.org>]

On Monday 26 September 2005 08:55, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
> >1:1. ni'oni'o la bi'u .axacuiroc. nolraitru la xingug. bi'i la .itiopias.
> > vu'o no'u lo pareze jecpau
>
> Are you getting your name transliterations from the Hebrew, or some
> other source?  It seems the Hebrew, since you have sounds that got lost
> in English translations, in which case there's the minor question of
> ".axacuiroc." when the Hebrew is ".axacueiroc."  Could be a typo, or it
> could be that your source uses a little more knowledge of Persian
> phonology and knows something I don't know.

{uei} is two syllables, unless you follow xorxes' morphology. I'd say 
{axacueroc} rather than {axacueiroc}. IIRR there are two versions of the 
name, "xcaiauiroc" and "xcaiarcan", where the second element has cognates in 
Latin "vir" (man) and Greek "arsen" (male), respectively. "aiaui" looks 
definitely outlandish in Lojban.

I don't know where the stress fell in ancient Persian, so I left it off. It 
was a close relative of Vedic Sanskrit, which had accent marks; by the time 
of Classical Sanskrit, the accents had disappeared.

> As to the names in general, this is a more Hebrew-specific point, but if
> you want to preserve the stress-patterns of the Hebrew there are going
> to be a lot of capital letters.  Stress normally falls in
> Hebrew--actually I can't say that anymore, since I now know that it's
> different in Samaritan Hebrew; let's say stress in *Masoretic*
> Hebrew--on the final syllable, and on the penultimate a little less
> often (and never earlier, though the definition of "syllable" may not
> conform to what you would intuitively think).  And so it's
> ".axacueiROC.", ".uacTIN.", "cuCAN.", ".esTER", "xaMAN.", "mordoXAIS." etc.

I did in other parts of the Bible. What is the stress in Samaritan?

> And while we're with names, does it make sense to stick with "xodun."
> and "kuc." for the place-names?  The translations as India and Ethiopia
> are pretty well established though, actually.  (yes, "xodun."; there the
> stress is on the penult)
>
> Me, I'd never be able to resist mirroring the "it came to pass..."
> style, with something like "fasnu ca tu'a la .axacueiroc. noi
> nolraitru..."  I kinda like the sound of that.
>
> >1:2. .iseca'obo le nolraitru cu zutse le trustizu bene'i la cucan. poi
> > badzda
> >
> >1:3. .i ca le cimoi be le .abu nuntru be'o nanca cu gasnu le nu ro le ra
> > turni .e le ra selfu cu pixsla ga'a le perso ja natmrmedi jatna .e le
> > partamu .e le turni be le jecpau
>
> What's {ga'a} doing here?  I'm not following its purpose.  I take "the
> army/court of Persia and Medea..." as being in apposition to "his
> officers and servants"; I'd have expected a {no'u} construction.  I
> suppose the fu'ivla "partemu" is okay; it stands out in the Hebrew too,
> but it might be tough to figure out at first.

I read the sentence as "In the third year of his reign, he made a banquet for 
all his princes and servants; the Persian and Median captains, the partamim, 
and the princes of the provinces were in front of him." and somehow got the 
idea that the princes and servants were participating while the rest were 
just before him.

phma