Valdyan (again)

Irina Rempt

Rachla moy arnei halsean halesit
Rozein rachlei jat foyin morhiyis sali
sudine dir arnei shonean shonynesyit
Halla jat havein laziena numena laynesit
Valan alea halsean jat chynesit.

The large bird shall sing a song of itself
This bird of the river's feathers shall dance,
between the clouds of some ground, a dance of themselves
This song-bird shall speak of the night's awesome stars
Every king shall hear this song.

rachla     moy         arnei      halsean    halesit
bird-nom-s large-nom-s self-gen-s song-acc-s sing-INC-FUT-3s

rozein      rachlei    jat  foyin
river-gen-s bird-gen-s this feather-nom-c

   morhiyis     sali sudine      dir
   ground-gen-s some cloud-loc-c among

   arneni     shonean shonynesyit
   self-gen-p dance   dance-INC-FUT-3p

halla     jat  havein      laziena
song.bird this night-gen-s star-acc-c

   numena        laynesit
   awesome-acc-p speak-INC-FUT-3s

valan         alea  halsean    jat  chynesit.
monarch-nom-s every song-acc-s this hear-INC-FUT-3s

Fabian told me that his text was in the prophetic tense, so I put mine into the inceptive future, used for prophecies and expectations (which may be very trivial, like "It's going to rain" or very high-flown, like "This book shall not be found again until the end of time").

"Of itself", "of themselves" can mean, like in English, either "uniquely its own" or "about itself, having to do with itself". According to Fabian, what he glossed as "self's" means no more than "its, his", but it seemed appropriate.

Halla means "thrush" or "blackbird", but the literal meaning is "songbird". It's also, incidentally, one of the most common women's names in Valdyas.

I could have used dorachla (with the augmentative prefix) for rachla moy, but that implies that something is intrinsically, not incidentally, large: if Sesame Street were in Valdyan, Big Bird would be called Dorachla.

Grammatical terms

nom - nominative
acc - accusative
gen - genitive
loc - locative
s - singular
p - plural
c - collective plural
3 - third person
INC - inceptive aspect
FUT - future tense

New words

New words for this translation: rozen "river", foyin "feathers", sudi "clouds, cloudy sky", dir "among", shon "dance", num "awesome", chyna "to hear" and, from an existing root, morhiyas "ground" ("earth-place").

If you recognize the root /num/ "awe" as the same that's in "numinous" you're right; I noticed when I came up with the word and didn't make an effort to change it. It means strictly the breathless wide-eyed kind of awe when faced with gods or similar powers - "Terribilis est locus iste" - not simple human reverence.

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