Monday 31 May 2010

An example sentence

I just wrote a sentence which made me feel satisfied for its grammatical and poetical brilliance, if I say so myself:

Uπтα ἁтн εнтрα εн тεκтει тecειοц εнειнει ἱcтε ἱтι, βαᴧтрοц Ἁcмοц αφαнтιοц cιнιтιει мαнει мυцιнтιc cтι.

It is quite hard to translate it, as its word order is impossible in English. If you'd translate it word by word, you would get this:

On which.acc through in roof.dat temple.gen hole.dat light.nom shine.3sg, statue.gen Hasmo.gen cloaked.gen left.dat hand.dat sparrow.dim.nom sit.3sg.

But in normal English, in the most common word order, it would be:

On the left hand of the statue, on which light shines through the hole in the temple's roof, of the cloaked Hasmo sits a little sparrow.

Furthermore, the first half of the sentence shows alliteration almost mirrorshaped. The first letters from the words ἁтн to ἱтι are: H-EE-TT-E-HH. Another peculiarity is the fact that the H is a semi-vowel, the E is a vowel and the T is a consonant.
On top of that, the sentence is like a wrap, consisting of 3 different layers:
A-B-C-B-A, where A is the main sentence (υπтα ἁтн ἱcтε ἱтε), B is adverbial to ἱтε (εнтрα εнειнει) and C says something about εнειнει (εн тεκтει тecειοц).

Moving on, we see 3 genitives. Βαᴧтрοц is the antecedent of ἁтн, and says something about which мαнει. Ἁcмοц says in its turn something about whose Βαᴧтрοц, and αφαнтιοц either about Ἁcмοц or βαᴧтрοц.
The sparrow sits on the left hand, because the right hand is generally the stronger, and therefore left symbolises youth.

All in all, I'm quite fond of this sentence. It took me some minutes to formulate, but it is mostly (brilliantly) arbitrary.

2 comments:

  1. Kudos! For your phrase. It is actually pretty hard to work a phrase in this way, to be able to make it work while having a scheme in your mind of where should the positionals or verbs should come.

    Good work!

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  2. Glad you're liking it. I guess my lang is pretty free when it comes to word order, so it was quite easy to just change it to perfection.

    On top of that, it is ofcourse one of human's best abilities to see patterns (when there are none).

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